Forum inaccessible this afternoon

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Anyone else inconvenienced by today’s CloudFlare outage?  Went down just after 1pm, and took about 3 hours to come back.  Error page confirmed my browser and the forum’s web server both OK, “CloudFlare London” identified.  CloudFlare are a major network and security service provider.

Copy of AI Assist:

Cloudflare experienced a significant outage on November 18, 2025, affecting many high-profile websites, including X (formerly Twitter) and ChatGPT, due to a technical malfunction in its network. The company has since apologized and is working to resolve lingering issues as services gradually recover. BBC London Evening Standard
 
Overview of the Cloudflare Outage in the UK
On November 18, 2025, Cloudflare experienced a significant outage that affected numerous high-profile websites and services across the UK and beyond. This incident began around 11:30 GMT, leading to widespread disruptions.

Impacted Services
The outage impacted a variety of popular platforms, including:

Service
Status During Outage
X (formerly Twitter)
Users encountered internal server errors.
ChatGPT
Users received error messages related to Cloudflare.
Spotify
Experienced downtime and access issues.
Zoom
Users reported difficulties connecting.
Canva
Service interruptions were noted.
Letterboxd
Users faced access problems.

Cause of the Outage
Cloudflare attributed the outage to a malfunction in a configuration file that was supposed to manage threat traffic. This failure led to a crash in their software, which handles traffic for many services. The company confirmed that there was no evidence of malicious activity causing the disruption.

Recovery Efforts
Cloudflare has since stated that they are working to restore services fully. While some services have come back online, users may still experience higher-than-normal error rates as the company continues its remediation efforts. The situation highlights the reliance on major internet infrastructure providers like Cloudflare, which supports about 20% of all websites globally.
Sky The Independent

Shocked the list of important websites knocked didn’t include us!  We’re far more interesting and useful than X (formerly Twitter)!

Dave

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Yes, I let Andy know just before 12.00 that the site was down not expecting him to be able to do much as it looked like a Cloadflair issue and he emailed me back a link to Cloudflair where they were logging the status as they sorted the problem.

Even made the radio news.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

There’s a good summary on the BBC News … Contrary to some speculation, CloudFlare assures us it was a genuine technical failure, not a DDoS attack.

Shares took a hit though !

MichaelG.

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi, yes, it went off just as I clicked on something, and i thought i’d done something wrong for a moment or two, then a big banner came up on my screen, with something to do with a Cloudflare outage. I checked to see if it affected my mobile phone, but that still worked okay, although the outage didn’t last for more than a good few minutes on my laptop.

Regards Nick.

[old martParticipant @oldmart]

I have had some intermittant trouble with Cloudflare, fortunately not malicious, there are more posts on the Windows 11 forum in the internet section.

[EmgeeParticipant @emgee]

HMEM site also went down with Cloudflare server problem for a short period.

 

Emgee

[Thor 🇳🇴Participant @thor]

It wasn’t just the UK that had problems with Cloudflare, we too experienced problems for several hours and it also affected this site.

Thor

[Emgee]

On Emgee Said:

HMEM site also went down with Cloudflare server problem for a short period.

 

Emgee

How bad it was seems to be regional.  I was out for 3 hours, others for longer.  Problem centred on “London”, but I guess my part the world, darkest Zummerzet,  connects via them, as do various international services.   CloudFlare blame a configuration error that took out the performance and security services they provide, not the whole internet. Nothing else I was using was affected, only this forum.

CloudFlare’s situation report during the incident starts optimistically, with claims that services were recovering, followed shortly with a series of reports that investigations were ongoing.  Worse than they first thought.  Lucky folk seem to have been out for about 10 minutes, others for several hours.

Dave

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