Snapchat down: Massive AWS outage disrupts Reddit, Alexa, Fortnite, more

Amazon Web Services (AWS) experienced a major outage early Monday, disrupting several major platforms and services across the internet, including Reddit, Snapchat, Alexa, Ring, and even parts of Amazon’s own infrastructure.

The outage also impacted popular online games such as Fortnite, Roblox, and Pokémon GO, leaving millions of users frustrated worldwide.

According to Amazon, the outage originated in its Northern Virginia data centre, known as the US-EAST-1 region, one of AWS’s oldest and most heavily used hubs.

The problem began shortly after midnight Pacific Time, when a DNS resolution issue with DynamoDB caused widespread failures.

Essentially, the internet’s “phone book” failed to locate the correct database addresses used by thousands of apps and websites.

The disruption also extended to major platforms like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Slack, Canva, Robinhood, and Venmo.

According to The New York Times, LaGuardia Airport in New York City (NYC) also faced technical issues at its check-in kiosks, causing delays.

By 3:35am, Amazon reported that the core DNS issue had been “fully mitigated” and that most services were returning to normal.

However, AWS noted that some users might continue to face delays on its Lambda and EC2 platforms as systems cleared backlogs.

The incident once again highlights the internet’s deep dependence on AWS.

Notably, previous outages in the same region, in 2017, 2021, and 2023, similarly triggered widespread disruptions across the digital ecosystem.