Hundreds of websites crashed after Cloudflare was hit by issues.
Visitors to parts of the internet including social media site X and film reviewing site Letterboxd were met with an error message at lunchtime on Tuesday, revealing that there was “an internal server error on Cloudflare's network”.
Cloudflare is often used to make websites and applications faster and more secure, helping to protect users from cyber attacks and helping them stay online during heavy traffic.
In an update on Tuesday the company wrote: “Cloudflare is aware of, and investigating an issue which potentially impacts multiple customers. Further detail will be provided as more information becomes available.”
Many websites have returned online but some are still suffering intermittent problems.
We’ll bring you latest updates below...
What caused the outage?
17:17 , Matt WattsCloudflare has said the outage was caused by an automatically generated configuration file, designed to manage potential security threats.
The file grew too large and crashed the software system handling traffic for several Cloudflare services, the company, whose network handles around a fifth of web traffic, said.
The company said it has started to investigate and has deployed a fix but some customers might still be impacted as it recovers service globally.
Outage has been fully resolved
15:54 , Nuray BulbulIn its latest statement, Cloudflare has explained the outage has been fully resolved.
“Many of Cloudflare's services experienced a significant outage today beginning around 11:20 UTC. It was fully resolved at 14:30 UTC. The root cause of the outage was a configuration file that is automatically generated to manage threat traffic. The file grew beyond an expected size of entries and triggered a crash in the software system that handles traffic for a number of Cloudflare's services.
“To be clear, there is no evidence that this was the result of an attack or caused by malicious activity. We expect that some Cloudflare services will be briefly degraded as traffic naturally spikes post incident but we expect all services to return to normal in the next few hours. A detailed explanation will be posted soon on blog.cloudflare.com. Given the importance of Cloudflare's services, any outage is unacceptable. We apologise to our customers and the Internet in general for letting you down today. We will learn from today's incident and improve.”
X is back to normal
15:42 , Nuray BulbulUsers can now access X without any service disruption.
Cloudflare working on remaining disruption
15:25 , Nuray BulbulIf you’re still having trouble with certain services, there’s no need to panic — Cloudflare is addressing it.
The company noted: “Some users may continue to face difficulties logging into or using the Cloudflare dashboard. We are actively working on a fix and monitoring for any additional problems.”
Cloudflare says incident has been resolved
15:03 , Jacob PhillipsCloudflare has said that it believes it has resolved the global outage.
The company explained that a fix has been implemented, adding that it is continuing to monitor for errors to ensure all services are back up and running.
Cloudflare handles around a fifth of web traffic on its network.
Cloudflare shares down around 5% before market trading
14:45 , Jacob PhillipsCloudflare’s shares were down around 5% in premarket trading following the outage on Tuesday.
The company runs one of the world's largest networks that helps websites and apps load faster and stay online by protecting them from traffic surges and cyberattacks.
Last month Amazon's cloud service caused global turmoil as thousands of popular websites and apps, including Snapchat and Reddit , were inaccessible due to the disruption.
The Cloudflare outage prevented thousands of users from accessing platforms such as Canva, X, Grindr and ChatGPT, prompting users to log outage reports with Downdetector.
Recap: Global outage appears to ease
14:27 , Jacob PhillipsA global outage at web-infrastructure firm Cloudflare appears to be easing with some sites appearing to return.
Social media site X appeared to flicker back into life on Tuesday afternoon but the Standard witnessed the site crash on multiple occasions.
Thousands were prevented from accessing major internet platforms, including X and ChatGPT.
Cloudflare, whose network handles around a fifth of web traffic, said it started to investigate the internal service degradation around 11.40 GMT.
The company said it has deployed a fix but some customers might still be impacted as it recovers service.
Cloudflare still working on restoring services
14:15 , Nuray BulbulCloudflare says it’s still working on restoring services in a recent update.
Cloudflare share statement
14:08 , Nuray BulbulCloudflare in its recent statement shared: “We saw a spike in unusual traffic to one of Cloudflare's services beginning at 11:20 UTC. That caused some traffic passing through Cloudflare's network to experience errors. We do not yet know the cause of the spike in unusual traffic. We are all hands on deck to make sure all traffic is served without errors. After that, we will turn our attention to investigating the cause of the unusual spike in traffic.”
Services are still down
13:47 , Nuray BulbulSome service are still down but outage reports are dropping.
When did the problem first start?
13:36 , Nuray BulbulReports of platform issues started around 11am with most users experiencing difficulties accessing the services.
Problem has been identified
13:22 , Nuray BulbulCloudflare says on its update page that the problem has been pinpointed and a solution is currently being rolled out.
Residents in London can also relax, as the company reports: “We’ve made adjustments that allowed Cloudflare Access and WARP to recover, and error rates for these services have returned to normal levels.”
The big services that are currently down
13:15 , Nuray BulbulX (formerly Twitter) — widely reported to be having access issues.
OpenAI / ChatGPT — API requests experiencing timeouts and latency issues.
Canva — users are reporting “just a moment” loading screens and app crashes.
Grindr — mentioned by news sources as being affected by the outage.
League of Legends — some multiplayer game servers are reportedly down .
Bad news for Londoners
13:12 , Nuray BulbulCloudflare says it has taken firm action in London as part of its efforts to fix the problem.
The company explained: “While working on the issue, we’ve shut off WARP access in London. Anyone in the area using WARP to get online will be unable to connect.”
X is still down
13:08 , Nuray BulbulThere is another spike in outage reports on DownDetector.
Platforms like X are still down.
What is Cloudflare?
12:58 , Nuray Bulbul
Cloudflare is a web infrastructure and security company that helps keep websites fast, reliable and protected.
In simple terms, Cloudflare sits between a website and the people visiting it, providing several important services.
Services are starting to recover
12:49 , Nuray BulbulCloudflare says some services are starting to come back online after the earlier problems.
In an updated statement, the company noted: “We’re seeing signs of recovery, though users may still experience elevated error rates while we continue working on a full fix.”
Founder & CEO of Chargebacks911/Fi911 Monica Eaton says today’s outage is a wake-up call for online businesses
12:43 , Nuray BulbulExpert Monica Eaton warns that merchants rely heavily on “invisible services” that keep digital operations running — and when one of them fails, even briefly, the entire internet “flickers” including payments.
Eaton explains that outages create chaos behind the scenesCustomers retry purchases, cards get charged multiple times, and confirmation pages freeze. All of this confusion often turns into billing disputes later, leaving merchants dealing with unintentional or duplicate charges.
She urges businesses to treat outages as routine risks, not rare anomaliesHer advice: track failed or duplicate transactions, communicate proactively with customers, and log everything that happened today to avoid scrambling for answers when chargebacks start arriving.
Eaton stresses this isn’t about panic — it’s about preparationCloudflare was down today, she says, and another provider will inevitably go down tomorrow. What matters is whether businesses learn from situations like this or continue relying on luck.
Which sites are impacted?
12:35 , Nuray BulbulThe outage appears to have affected several major online platforms and services. Among those impacted are AWS, PayPal, X (formerly Twitter), OpenAI, Spotify, and Canva.
Cloudflare warns multiple customers facing issues
12:27 , Jacob PhillipsInternet infrastructure company Cloudflare, which supports thousands of websites, reported that it was investigating an issue at around 11.40am on Tuesday.
The company's shares fell 4.1% in premarket trading, according to Reuters.
In an update sent to clients, the company said: "Cloudflare is aware of and investigating an issue which potentially impacts multiple customers. Further detail will be provided as more information becomes available.”
Thousands left unable to use X as site crashes
12:24 , Jacob PhillipsThousands of users have reported that X was down shortly before midday on Tuesday.
More than 5,600 reports of issues were recorded on the Elon Musk-owned social media site in the US, while users in the UK experienced similar issues, according to Downdetector, which tracks online outages.
Web infrastructure company Cloudflare has also been hit by issues that impacted other services. It was not immediately clear whether the outages were related.
