Skype says outage hitting 'small number' of users
The VoIP provider spreads the word about troubles this morning after users take to Twitter to complain about the outage.
Skype is down for the second time in a matter of a couple of weeks, the VoIP service provider confirmed on its Twitter account this morning, saying it is working to address the issue.
"A small number of you may have problems signing in to Skype," the company wrote on its Twitter page today. "We're investigating the cause, and hope to have more details to share soon."
Skype users on Twitter aren't so sure it's just a "small number" who've been affected. One user wrote that he and "all of my friends" have the problem. Another took a more sarcastic route, saying the small number was really "all of us."
Exactly how widespread the issue is right now is unknown, but as of this writing, I am one of the people who can't connect to Skype. When I log in, the service says "Connecting," but it never actually logs me into the program.
Today's troubles follow an outage that occurred in late May, when the company acknowledged that some users were unable to place calls or even sign in to the service. Skype quickly came up with a fix (deleted a "shared.xml" file) for the issue, which affected Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux users. In December, an outage took the service offline around the world. Skype blamed the problem on issues with "a large number of supernodes" that didn't allow users to place calls.
This time around, Skype is saying on its blog that the issue relates to a "configuration problem." It followed that up with an update to its blog post, saying that "the situation is improving."
Skype's outages are coming during a transitional time for the company. Last month, the software giant announced plans to acquire Skype for $8.5 billion. Once the deal closes later this year, Skype will become its own division at Microsoft under the supervision of its current CEO Tony Bates. Microsoft has said that it plans to integrate Skype into its Kinect motion-gaming peripheral, Windows Phone 7, and other platforms.
Update at 7:34 a.m. PT to include new details on Skype outage.