If you’ve got a smartphone or are accustomed to the Internet, you might have seen that issues weren’t fairly proper yesterday: a serious AWS outage worn out a whole bunch of providers that depend on its cloud computing spine, and out of the blue the digital world felt prefer it was manufactured from jello.
The impacts have been severe and world, affecting greater than 1,000 firms in accordance with Downdetector. But what have been a few of the strangest glitches and surprising penalties of the most important outage to Amazon Web Services we have seen in years?
To assist us all get some aid from the error messages and DNS nightmares, we have rounded up a few of the strangest (huge and frivolous) penalties of the most important IT meltdown since Crowdstrike crashed the world’s enterprise computer systems in 2024…
1. Slack Users Got Stuck in Endless Meetings
One of our favourite quotes from the AWS outage was from Slack. ‘Problems with conferences’that feels like an album The National Instead, he described an IT incident that affected the messaging platform’s audio function.
How he noticed it The edgeA Slack standing replace in the course of the AWS outage mentioned that “we’re at the moment investigating a problem the place some customers stay caught in a bunch after trying to depart.”
Being caught in a bunch is not usually thought-about an disagreeable expertise, however it’s kind of extra severe within the context of Slack, because it means getting caught in an audio name with a co-worker which you can’t go away.
Unfortunately, the difficulty has not but been utterly fastened, and Slack mentioned immediately that it continues to “work to wash up any teams which can be in dangerous form.” The AWS outage at the very least confirmed that IT language can generally be unintentionally poetic.
2. The Premier League misplaced its digital referees
Offside strains have been drawn for the primary time this season to rule out Thiago’s second aim for Brentford. No semi-automatic offside know-how out there immediately on account of AWS outage pic.twitter.com/7vxv6fZ3CEOctober 20, 2025
Not even Premier League soccer was protected from the AWS outage. There have been no old-school floodlight failures or sort out fiascos, however the issues did deactivate the semi-automatic offside know-how throughout Monday night time’s match between West Ham and Brentford.
Unfortunately, as Sky Sports beforehand identified, that meant the referees needed to deliver out their much-maligned rulers once more to see if Brentford’s second aim was offside or not. The human assistants determined it was offside, which predictably sparked outrage on social media.
The semi-automated Offside know-how is run by an organization known as Genius Sports, which just lately migrated its infrastructure to a usually protected pair of arms known as Amazon Web Services. Unfortunately, this week AWS scored the equal of an enormous personal aim.
3. Amazon.com turned a canine gallery
An outage affecting Amazon.com’s homepage is a rarity, however now we all know what to anticipate when it occurs: a number of canine photographs.
At the peak of the AWS outage, Amazon’s personal homepage was among the many victims, leaving many unable to view their order histories, with hundreds additionally going through the above error display screen.
Now, we’re often not followers of tacky blooper pages, however we loved this one: The Amazon web page confirmed a number of photographs of various canines, all of which belong to Amazon employees.
An spectacular 15,000 canines are registered to work in Amazon places of work and you may meet extra of them away from the annoying error pages on the Meet the canines on the Amazon web page.
4. Starbucks followers have been impressed by the expertise.
You’d assume the espresso world could be comparatively protected from DNS failures, however no: the AWS outage even affected the delicate Monday morning lives of Starbucks followers who found their cell app was down.
In maybe the perfect instance of a First World drawback but, this meant that Starbucks prospects needed to go to their native department and order their espresso in particular person, similar to the previous days.
The Starbucks app would not work and now I’ve to go in and order like a peasant.October 20, 2025
Fortunately, the Starbucks outage solely lasted a few hours, a relatively gentle sentence in comparison with the a number of hours of meme deprivation that Snapchat customers skilled.
Others discovered solace in a collective AWS expertise shared in espresso outlets, and a few in Rags describing the formation of a “circle of empathy” for these affected. After all, this was an web outage that was finest shared with others.
5. Wordle and Duolingo followers threatened to riot.
PSA: your streaks will likely be saved! thanks on your endurance #awsoutage pic.twitter.com/tYvfLwzikJOctober 20, 2025
If we did not already know that the Internet takes puns critically, the AWS outage confirmed that it’s a life or dying expertise for a lot of.
Panic set in amongst Wordle followers who apparently misplaced their day by day streak because of the issues. The New York Times homes the puzzle sport, and was hit fairly a bit in the course of the outage, leaving many questioning if they’d be capable to log again in earlier than the midnight deadline for that day’s puzzle.
If you assume you are having a foul Monday, the #AWS outage means my 210-day #Wordle streak is gone!October 20, 2025
Fortunately for a lot of, Wordle has apparently restored the streaks misplaced because of the AWS outage, which was in all probability smart provided that Halloween would battle to match a sight as terrifying as a horde of offended Wordle followers brandishing pitchforks.
That mentioned, one other group rivaled Wordle followers for his or her fury in the course of the AWS outage. Some Duolingo followers threatened “uproar” in the event that they misplaced their streak, however the language studying app moved rapidly to reassure them, confirming in a x publication that “your streaks will likely be saved.” Phew.
Our solely query now’s who would you need in your aspect throughout a zombie apocalypse, Duolingo or Wordle followers?
6. Airline passengers misplaced check-in info and seat reservations
In an echo of the airport carnage we noticed in the course of the Great Crowdstrike Meltdown of 2024, yesterday’s AWS outage additionally created widespread confusion for airline passengers.
As CNBC reported, some Delta and United passengers noticed reservations and seat assignments disappear, whereas additionally discovering they could not examine in for flights.
As United’s programs struggled with the AWS outage, lengthy queues and nightmarish check-ins ensued. reported in airports all through the United States.
Fortunately, main delays have been averted, however once more it left many questioning why such essential programs stay so fragile and overly depending on a handful of know-how firms.
7. Even college exams have been delayed
For some, the AWS discontinuation was truly excellent news. Many college students and academics within the US use Canvas, a web-based instructing assist that homes classes, assignments, and course info.
Unfortunately (or thankfully, relying in your scenario), Canvas was severely impacted by the AWS outage and was down for over 12 hours. Some college students noticed this as a blessing, writing on Reddit that “my midterms are inaccessible” and that they have been having a “nice day.”
For othersThe expertise was extra traumatic and prevented them from finding out for the exams they’d hoped to move, with out the promise of additional time from academics.
Canvas is now again on-line, though the platform’s creator, Instructure, did. notify earlier than that “some customers could also be experiencing slowness or timeout errors.” All of which is a well timed reminder to these of us who keep in mind essays and exams being a pencil-and-paper expertise that faculty is a little bit totally different now.
8. Bank transfers disappeared into the ether
Some of essentially the most extreme impacts of the AWS outage have been on banks and cell cost apps like Venmo.
On Venmo, many had hassle sending and receiving funds, inflicting untold stress to many who have been, for instance, attempting to pay for a marriage.
Many UK banks, equivalent to Lloyds and Bank of Scotland, have been additionally withdrawn, and the bbc He even reported on the case of an individual who was £50 quick after transferring cash to his companion.
The financial institution mentioned it was attempting to resolve the difficulty “as rapidly as potential,” which is worrying. But with different platforms like Coinbase (the most important cryptocurrency alternate within the US) and buying and selling app Robinhood additionally affected by the curse of AWS, it was once more one other reminder that the worth of immediately’s monetary comfort is a severe jolt of panic when issues go flawed.
9. People found that they really love “Internet snow days.”
The AWS outage was, for a lot of, a massively irritating expertise that additionally price companies round $75 million per hour, in accordance with Tenscope analysis.
But for a lot of who did not have essential duties that relied on Amazon’s cloud spine, it was a reminder that life can truly be higher with rather less Internet, and that perhaps we need not construct our lives so religiously round our favourite apps and providers.
As some identified in a Reddit thread As for a way the AWS outage was affecting them, some famous that “snow days with the Internet are enjoyable,” that their “cellphone reception received lots higher” as networks have been capable of breathe underneath the decreased pressure, and that they felt like “form of like a nineteenth century peasant” with out trendy luxuries like video doorbells.
Of course, the twenty first century world rapidly crashed once more as AWS returned to full well being, however the outage was a well timed reminder that our trendy Internet can come undone due to some old-school errors.
