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Cloudflare outage impacts X, ChatGPT, Spotify, and other websites

Cloudflare, an internet infrastructure platform, is experiencing an outage that appears to be impacting websites across the internet.

    by Melina Khan, USA Today
    Published 

Cloudflare, an internet infrastructure platform, is experiencing an outage that appears to be affecting websites across the internet, including the social media platform X.

The company said in a status update before 7 a.m. EST on Nov. 18 that it was aware of “an issue which potentially impacts multiple customers,” and was investigating the problem.

In a statement to USA TODAY around 8:30 a.m. EST, Cloudflare said it “saw a spike in unusual traffic” to one of its services around 6:20 a.m. EST.

“That caused some traffic passing through Cloudflare’s network to experience errors. 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. After that, we will turn our attention to investigating the cause of the unusual spike in traffic,” the statement said.

According to Downdetector, an outage-tracking website, thousands of users of several popular websites were reporting issues or outages as of 8 a.m. EST, including X, Spotify, OpenAI, League of Legends and more.

By 8:30 a.m. EST, though, Downdetector also appeared to be having connectivity issues tied to the Cloudflare outage.

Is Cloudflare down?

Cloudflare said it is experiencing issues with its global network, causing outages at many websites that rely on the platform.

Shortly after 8 a.m. EST, Cloudflare said it had identified the issue and made changes to recover its Cloudflare Access and WARP system, which both help protect companies’ traffic and devices.

“We are continuing to work towards restoring other services,” Cloudflare said.

More updates will be available on its status website.

Cloudflare is a platform which many websites use to improve their performance and functionality.

Which websites are down from Cloudflare outage?

According to Downdetector, the following websites were reporting increased outages as of 9 a.m. EST:

  1. X, formerly Twitter

  2. Spotify

  3. OpenAI

  4. League of Legends

  5. Grindr

  6. Google Store

  7. Archive of Our Own

  8. Uber

  9. Quizlet

  10. Canva

  11. Claude AI

  12. Character AI

  13. Indeed

  14. Truth Social

  15. Dayforce

  16. ChatGPT

  17. Letterboxd

  18. Square

  19. Rover

  20. Zoom

  21. Canvas

  22. Ikea

Downdetector also appeared to be impacted by the outage, as did news outlet Axios. Both websites loaded a banner that said, “Please unblock challenges.cloudflare.com to proceed.”