Black screens due to outage
The outage started when users saw black screens with the X logo or Cloudflare messages reading “Connection timed out.” These messages indicated that the platform could not connect to its servers. Users reported that their timelines did not refresh and new posts were unavailable. Even repeated attempts to reload content often failed or showed posts briefly.
Downdetector reports
Downdetector recorded nearly 185,000 reports from the US. Japan had more than 129,000 complaints, while the UK saw over 20,000. Major cities affected included New York, Tokyo, Chicago, Osaka, and Yokohama. About 37% of reports were related to the X website, with the rest coming from mobile apps.
Grok, too, unresponsive
Grok, X’s AI chatbot developed by xAI, was also affected. Users could access it, but the chatbot failed to respond. Many received messages like “No response” or “Under heavy load.” The simultaneous failure of X and Grok increased frustration among users who rely on the platform for updates and communication.
Developer status page
X does not have a public-facing page to track outages. Its developer status page, intended for developers, inaccurately showed “all systems operational” during the outage. Users had to rely on social media and outage trackers to confirm the problem and follow developments.
Previous outages
In March, May, and August of last year, too, thousands of users reported access issues. The outages come after Elon Musk acquired Twitter in October 2022 for $44 billion and rebranded it as X. Platform changes include edited direct messages and hiding public likes.
Options for users
Users are advised to check outage tracking sites, log out and back in, clear caches, switch devices or networks, and wait for system-wide fixes. While these steps may resolve local problems, server-side issues require time for the company to fix.
