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Cloudflare was down, live updates: Huge chunk of internet taken down by outage

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Cloudflare is working on the issue

Cloudfare

(Image credit: Cloudfare)

According to the offical Cloudfare status page, the global cloud network is “continuing to investigate the issue.

As of November 18 at 12:03 UTC, Cloudfare states:
“Cloudflare is aware of, and investigating an issue which impacts multiple customers: Widespread 500 errors, Cloudflare Dashboard and API also failing.
We are working to understand the full impact and mitigate this problem. More updates to follow shortly.”

It appears we’ll see most websites affected during the outage, and so far, that includes X, OpenAI and more. We’ll keep you posted!


Is X still down?

Elon Musk next to the X logo for the social media network that used to be called Twitter

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

According to Downdetector (which was also experiencing its own issues thanks to Cloudflare!), websites like X are experiencing a major outage where users can’t access these sites. For X, it topped out at a whopping 9,706 reports, but this now appears to be dropping.

Although since Cloudflare is still working through the issues, we may see more problems with these sites. We’ll keep you up to date.


Seeing this while accessing X? You’re not alone

Internal server error screenshot

(Image credit: Downdetector)

Head over to X.com and you may see an “Internal server error” page pop up. This is happening to multiple people at Tom’s Guide, so if you are too, don’t fret, it’s likely happening to most people.


Is Spotify down?

Spotify app running on phone

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

Spotify is also down, as many customers have now reported that they can no longer use the app. Downdetector also shows signs that there are problems with the music platform, and it’s just another service that’s been affected by the Cloudflare outage.


Is X now making a comeback?

X.com

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

It appears more users are reporting that X is coming back online, which appears to be the case according to Downdetector. You can follow along with our X outage live blog for the latest updates, especially if the social media platform returns to experiencing its problems.

For now, for those who can, enjoy posting on X!


Big service outages spell doom for the rest

Cloudfare

(Image credit: Cloudflare)

With the AWS outage last month, and now Cloudflare seeing major sites go down, it shows just how much of the internet relies on these services. Here’s what CEO of Wire, Benjamin Schilz, had to say about the outage

“The recent Cloudflare outage, occurring only a few weeks after the last major cloud disruption, show how brittle our digital reliance has become. Big cloud outages aren’t new, similar mass-scale incidents happened in 2017 and 2021, and regional outages occur regularly, and they will certainly happen again.

“The problem is systemic: the three main hyper-scalers (AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure) provide roughly two-thirds of the underlying infrastructure the digital world runs on. Their APIs connect everything from banking systems and smart homes to e-commerce, meaning the operational error of just one instantly creates a massive “single point of failure.”

“This high-dependency, predominantly on US-based providers with virtually no real non-US alternatives offering comparable scale, forces us to fundamentally rethink dependencies and access risk within our internal tech stacks.

“The crucial lesson is that resilience, diversity, and redundancy must always be weighed against convenience when building and deploying digital services. True resilience isn’t just about preparing for redundancy; it’s about maintaining control over your own data. That means ensuring organisations can continue to operate securely and independently, without being tied to one platform, by having robust fallback and alternative solutions in place.”


Outage reports are seeing a massive drop

Downdetector Cloudflare status page

(Image credit: Downdetector)

Is this the beginning of the end of the Cloudflare outage? Seems like it, according to Downdetector. We’re now at a steep drop to just 3,669 reports, which is good considering it was at a peak of 11,183 not too long ago.

If this drop continues, it means the fix has worked and everything will come back online. We’ll keep you up to date on the latest, so stay tuned.


League of Legends, Valorant also experiencing issues

Valorant

(Image credit: Riot Games via igdb.com)

It wasn’t just social media platforms and AI that saw huge problems thanks to Cloudflare, as games such as League of Legends, Valorant and more saw a big spike in issues, with Riot Games stating they are “aware of a problem causing players to disconnect from their games and are investigating the problem.”

This appears to be getting fixed, as Downdetector shows a drop in outage reports. With Cloudflare now fixing the issue, we’ll see even more services make a return.


Cloudflare outage estimated to cost up $15 billion every hour

Orange Cloudflare logo displayed on smartphone. There is an orange cloud with black text and a larger orange cloud in the background

(Image credit: Cheng Xin / Getty Images)

When an internet infrastructure service goes down, a lot of websites suffer. And with the 19% of websites that Cloudflare powers, that causes many issues for big platforms like X, Spotify and more.

As Tom’s Guide has learned, according to website maintenance service SupportMy.website, an estimated $5 billion to $15 billion has been lost for every hour of the outage. Since the first rumblings of the downtime started at around 12 pm UTC, that means the roughly $60 billion at most has been lost.

That’s a huge chunk of change, especially for the approximately 35% of Fortune 500 companies that rely on Cloudflare services. Even if it was just a few hours, the outage has caused plenty of damage.

“From reputation to the bottom line, Cloudflare is one of those systems that businesses don’t realize they need or even use sometimes. But when it’s down, they feel it,” said Jason Long, founder of SupportMy.website.


Outage may be affecting Uber and Uber Eats

Uber Eats delivery driver wearing a branded cooler backpack

(Image credit: Karolis Kavolelis/Shutterstock)

Uber status pageWhile the outage appears to be settling down for most services we’re seeing Uber and Uber Eats huge spikes on Down Detector.

According to the site Apps Run The World Uber has used Cloudflare for its services since at least 2022.

An alleged Uber status page isn’t showing any issues right now.


Cloudflare update

Cloudflare status page 11-18-25

(Image credit: Cloudflare)

Cloudflare says the system is in recovery.

“We continue to monitor the system through recovery and we are seeing errors and latency return to normal levels. A full post-incident investigation and details about the incident will be made available asap.”


Update from Cloudflare

Cloudflare on phone

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

Cloudflare latest update says the service is fully back to normal.

“Cloudflare services are currently operating normally. We are no longer observing elevated errors or latency across the network.

Our engineering teams continue to closely monitor the platform and perform a deeper investigation into the earlier disruption, but no configuration changes are being made at this time.

At this point, it is considered safe to re-enable any Cloudflare services that were temporarily disabled during the incident. We will provide a final update once our investigation is complete.”

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