Bulletins

Slack started the year with an outage that got worse, not better

First it was an "incident," then it was an "outage."

Slack

This sign was about as interactuve as Slack's software Monday morning.

Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Slack's outage grew in severity Monday morning, as its services remained down for many users hours after initial disruption began.

Issues began to bubble up around 10 a.m. EST, according to Downdetector, which tracks such problems. Users were unable to send messages or load channels. The outages came as many in the U.S. and elsewhere returned to work after the holiday break, ironic timing that was not lost on customers.

Slack initially described the problem as an "incident" and said its teams were "aware" and "investigating the issue," a spokesperson told Protocol. The company then updated its statement to "reflect an outage in service," but declined to provide an underlying reason for the problems. Anecdotally, the service appeared to be recovering at around 12:30 p.m. EST.

It's not uncommon for providers to report short-term glitches in services. Google, for example, encountered issues in December that took Gmail and other products offline for roughly 45 minutes.

Joe Williams

Joe Williams is a writer-at-large at Protocol. He previously covered enterprise software for Protocol, Bloomberg and Business Insider. Joe can be reached at JoeWilliams@Protocol.com. To share information confidentially, he can also be contacted on a non-work device via Signal (+1-309-265-6120) or JPW53189@protonmail.com.

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Bulletins