Cloudflare Chaos: Major Internet Outage Hits X, ChatGPT & 100s of Other Websites

A widespread internet disruption, which crippled access to major online platforms including X (formerly Twitter), ChatGPT, and Spotify, appears to be resolving after the service provider, Cloudflare, implemented a fix.

The major content delivery network (CDN) provider confirmed earlier this November 18 that a remediation effort was underway to tackle system malfunctions that led to hundreds of websites displaying error messages and becoming inaccessible to users.

Disruption Spreads Across the Web

The problems, directly linked to Cloudflare’s malfunctioning systems, began around ET (4:30 PM IST), according to outage-tracking site Downdetector.

The initial issue surfaced with Cloudflare’s support portal provider but rapidly escalated into a multi-platform service degradation.

Cloudflare’s role in powering content delivery and security for a substantial portion of the modern internet meant the failure had a cascading effect across diverse online services.

List of Affected Services

Users attempting to access affected sites encountered difficulties such as being unable to load posts on X, use design tools like Canva, or access chatbots and online games.

Notable platforms and businesses affected by the outage included:

• X (Twitter)
• Spotify
• Canva
• Shopify
• OpenAI
• Garmin
• Claude
• Verizon
• Discord
• TMobile
• AT&T
• League of Legends

Company Confirms Resolution

In a message posted on its official status page, Cloudflare stated: “A fix has been implemented and we believe the incident is now resolved. We are continuing to monitor for errors to ensure all services are back to normal.”

Previously, users attempting to reach some websites reported being blocked by a generic message, indicating that Cloudflare’s security and challenge systems were malfunctioning.

Cloudflare, which provides DNS, CDN, and DDoS protection for thousands of businesses, had earlier acknowledged the issue, noting it was investigating a problem that resulted in “Widespread 500 errors” and failures with its own Dashboard and API.

Source: Times of India