AWS outage disrupts Alexa, ChatGPT, Snapchat, and Fortnite services
What's the story
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is facing a major outage, disrupting several online services including Amazon itself. The issue has also affected popular platforms like Alexa, Snapchat, Fortnite, ChatGPT, Epic Games Store, and Epic Online Services. The AWS status checker shows multiple services are "impacted" by operational issues. The company is currently investigating the increased error rates and latencies for several AWS services in the US-EAST-1 Region.
Widespread impact
Outage affects global services and apps
The AWS outage isn't just limited to the US-EAST-1 Region, but is also affecting services in other parts of the world. Users on Reddit have reported that Alexa is down and unable to respond to queries or complete requests. The issue has also impacted platforms running on AWS's cloud network such as Perplexity, Airtable, Canva, and even the McDonald's app.
Response
Amazon investigating increased error rates and latencies
The AWS dashboard first reported issues in the US-EAST-1 Region at 3:11am ET (12:41pm IST). In an update published at 3:51am ET (1:21pm IST), Amazon said, "We are actively engaged and working to both mitigate the issue and understand root cause. We will provide an update in 45 minutes, or sooner if we have additional information to share."
Past incidents
Previous AWS outages in US-East-1 region
AWS outages in the US-East-1 region have caused major disruptions in 2023, 2021, and 2020. These previous incidents forced several websites and platforms offline for hours before normal service was restored. The current outage has also led to access issues for a number of other popular apps and websites such as Venmo, Canva, Duolingo, Goodreads among others.