Dozens of popular websites crashed on Friday, possibly leaving millions of users unable to access online services.
Issues began around 6.40am ET, affecting a range of services including Apple Pay, DoorDash, Reddit and streaming platform Hulu, according to Downdetector, which monitors online outages.
The widespread disruption was blamed on connectivity problems at Amazon Web Services (AWS), which announced that the issue had been resolved shortly after 9am ET.
The failure affected multiple AWS services in its US-West-2 region in Oregon.
AWS first acknowledged the problem at 4.40am PDT (7.40am ET), although the disruption may have begun before the company posted its warning.
The outage ultimately affected seven services, including AWS Direct Connect, Global Accelerator, Internet Connectivity, IoT Core, Amazon API Gateway, Elastic Compute Cloud and Elastic Container Service.
AWS provides the computing power and online infrastructure used by countless websites, apps and businesses, meaning a regional failure can disrupt numerous seemingly unrelated services simultaneously.
Amazon EC2 supplies the virtual servers on which websites and apps operate, while API Gateway allows different online systems to communicate with one another.
Problems affecting AWS Internet Connectivity and Direct Connect can prevent businesses and users from reaching services hosted in the affected region, even when the websites’ own systems remain operational.
Issues began around 6.40am ET, affecting a range of services including Apple Pay, DoorDash, Reddit and Hulu streaming service, according to Downdetector, which monitors online outages
The widespread disruption appeared to be linked to Amazon Web Services (AWS), which confirmed it was investigating connectivity problems affecting multiple services in its US-West-2 region in Oregon
An AWS spokesperson confirmed to the Daily Mail that the company had experienced connectivity problems affecting multiple services in its Oregon region, but said the issue was resolved shortly after 9am ET.
AWS expanded the number of affected services from five to seven during the outage, adding Global Accelerator, which directs users along the fastest available routes to websites, and Elastic Container Service, which runs applications across Amazon’s servers.
The additions suggested that the failure was affecting multiple layers of AWS’s Oregon network rather than a single product.
AWS labeled the incident ‘impacted,’ confirming that customers were experiencing problems, although there was no indication that data had been lost or that Amazon’s entire global network had failed.
Companies using AWS posted apologies on X while their websites were unavailable, with one stating: ‘There is a massive AWS outage in America which is causing interruptions.’
Users also shared their frustrations during the disruption, with one writing: ‘AWS is down and is literally breaking the internet. Please hang on.’
Another posted: ‘This is not a drill, AWS in us-west-2 is offline for everyone.’
PlayStation users were among those reporting problems, with one player claiming they had been abruptly kicked out of a game on Friday morning.
Dozens of popular websites crashed on Friday, possibly leaving millions without access
‘Anyone else’s PlayStation connection down just tried to start a stream and I can’t play the game,’ another X user shared.
According to Downdetector, 30 percent of users reported problems with AWS, citing issues involving Amazon EC2, the service that provides virtual servers for websites and applications.
Another 29 percent reported problems with AWS’s US-West-2 region in Oregon, where Amazon confirmed it was investigating connectivity failures. A further 23 percent cited issues involving US-East-1, the company’s Northern Virginia region.
