A significant global outage at internet infrastructure giant Cloudflare caused widespread disruption on Tuesday morning, leaving millions of users unable to access popular websites and services including ChatGPT, ClaudeAI, and X.
What Happened During the Outage?
The disruption began at 11:20 UTC on Tuesday morning, which corresponded to 6:48am ET. Cloudflare confirmed the outage, stating that its network experienced a spike in unusual traffic to one of its key services. This anomaly caused errors for a vast amount of traffic passing through Cloudflare's global network, effectively crippling any website or online platform that relies on its services.
In an official statement, the company addressed the situation, saying, 'We saw a spike in unusual traffic to one of Cloudflare's services... That caused some traffic passing through Cloudflare's network to experience errors.' They were quick to add, 'We do not yet know the cause of the spike in unusual traffic. We are all hands on deck to make sure all traffic is served without errors.'
Widespread Impact and User Frustration
The outage had an immediate ripple effect across the digital landscape. Because Cloudflare provides critical web security, speed, and routing services for millions of sites, its failure meant that many high-profile platforms could not load.
Outage tracking website Downdetector showed a sharp surge in reports for numerous major services. The list of affected platforms was extensive, including:
- X (formerly Twitter)
- Spotify
- OpenAI's ChatGPT
- Uber
- Grindr
- Discord
Frustrated users quickly flooded social media platforms that remained accessible with complaints and pleas for help. One user on X directly appealed to Cloudflare, asking, 'Could you unblock me from Discord please?' highlighting the confusion and dependency on the behind-the-scenes internet infrastructure.
Investigating the Cause and Restoring Service
As one of the backbone providers of the modern internet, any outage at Cloudflare underscores the web's fragility and interconnectedness. The company's team worked urgently to identify the root cause of the unusual traffic spike and restore full service. The incident serves as a stark reminder of how reliant the global digital economy is on a handful of critical technical providers.
