A major Amazon Web Services (AWS) outage has caused widespread internet disruptions this morning, taking down dozens of popular apps, games, and websites including Snapchat, Roblox, Fortnite, Duolingo, and Ring. Users began reporting problems at approximately 8 AM UK time (midnight PT), with the tracking website Downdetector showing massive, simultaneous spikes in outage reports for services that rely on Amazon’s cloud infrastructure.
The issue appears to stem from problems at Amazon’s massive data center facilities in North Virginia, a critical hub for the global internet.
Inside the AWS outage: How one failure rippled across the global economy
Amazon confirms “increased error rates” in North Virginia
Amazon has officially acknowledged the problem on its AWS service status page. The company confirmed it is investigating “increased error rates” and delays affecting multiple services, specifically citing Amazon DynamoDB and Amazon Elastic Computer Cloud (EC2). These core services provide the database and computing power that thousands of companies rent to run their own applications, which explains the cascading, widespread impact of the outage.
Downdetector shows scale of the outage
The scope of the disruption is extensive, as illustrated by data from Downdetector.
The site’s homepage shows a sea of red spikes for a diverse range of services, confirming the problem is not isolated to a single app.
Among the major platforms and services confirmed to be experiencing issues are:
- Social Media: Snapchat
- Gaming: Roblox, Fortnite, Epic Games Store, Clash Royale, Clash of Clans, Rocket League, Dead by Daylight, VRChat, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege, PlayStation Network
- Productivity & Education: Canva, Duolingo, Canvas by Instructure
- Amazon’s Own Services: Amazon.com, Amazon Alexa, Ring, Amazon Prime Video
- Finance & Streaming: Venmo, Robinhood, Chime, Coinbase, Crunchyroll
The simultaneous failure of these unrelated services points directly to a foundational infrastructure problem, with the AWS status page confirming it as the root cause. This is a developing story, and Amazon is currently working to resolve the issue, though a timeline for full service restoration has not yet been announced.
