The problem, which seems to be impacting other apps and websites like Snapchat, Lloyds Bank and Ring, has been acknowledged by the company.
This widespread outage appears to involve Amazon Web Services (AWS), the tech giant’s cloud computing division.
This infrastructure underpins millions of large companies’ websites and platforms, meaning many of the apps on your phone are run through AWS data centres.
In an update on its service state page, it said it could confirm “significant error rates for requests” to one of its endpoints for services in its US-EAST-1 region.
Amazon added that engineers are “immediately engaged and are actively working on both mitigating the issue, and fully understanding the root cause”.
Amazon have been approached for comment by Newsquest.
What is Downdetector?
Downdetector is an online website that allows users of popular services including X ( Twitter ), Instagram, Facebook , Virgin Media and more to report if they are having trouble with the services.
The site only reports an incident when the number of problem reports is significantly higher than the typical volume for that time of day.
Describing itself on its website, Downdetector is “where people go when services don’t work.”
The website monitors disruptions to various key services including the internet, web hosting platforms, banks, social media and more.
You can see the full methodology and learn more about how Downdetector collects status information and detects problems via its website.
In short, users can get involved by submitting any issue reports on the platform.
Problem indicators are also collected from social media and other factors on the web, Downdetector explained.
These reports are then validated and analysed in real-time.
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An incident is then detected if the number of reports is significantly higher than the typical average for that particular service.
When a user goes to investigate the issue, they can see what the most reported problems are currently and check if their areas are in one of the outage hotspots.
Do you use Downdetector? Let us know in the comments.
