Adobe restores Creative Cloud login service after day-long outage
The problem with the subscription service, which blocked updates, purchases, and in some case use of Adobe's software, is fixed, and Adobe apologizes.
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Adobe has fixed a day-long Creative Cloud login outage that kept people from using some parts of the service and in some cases their Adobe software, too.
At about 5:47 p.m. PT, Adobe tweeted that the issue was resolved and it was bringing services back online. At about 6:06 p.m., Adobe said all services were back.
"We want to apologize for this outage because we know how critical our services are to you and how disruptive it's been to those of you who felt the impact," Adobe said in a statement Thursday night. "We understand that the time it took to restore service has been frustrating, but we wanted to be as thorough as possible. We have identified the root cause of this failure and are putting standards in place to prevent this from happening again."
The outage kept some people from secondary tasks including purchasing or updating software, using the Creative Cloud website, synchronizing font files, and administering corporate accounts.
Software would continue to work as long as a customer already was logged in, but if a person needed to move from one computer to another -- one of the advantages of the Creative Cloud when it's working properly -- they could be locked out of their software. There were workarounds, but they imposed some difficulties and didn't work in all cases.
Adobe is shifting from selling perpetual licenses to its Creative Suite software such as Photoshop or After Effects to selling subscriptions to the same software through the Creative Cloud. It costs $50 (£47, AU$50) per month for a full-year commitment and grants access to Adobe's full suite of products as well as some online services. There also are cheaper subscriptions for individual programs. Despite a name that suggests cloud computing, Adobe's software is installed on your computer and runs there.
The Creative Cloud has angered customers who don't like the idea of software that stops working when they stop paying and who say the Creative Cloud significantly raises their costs. Adobe is making steady progress signing up customers for the plan, however, with 1.84 million subscribers so far and all-time high stock prices.