Hyderabad: A major internet infrastructure glitch caused by Cloudflare led to a widespread outage of social media platform X and AI chatbot ChatGPT across India on Tuesday evening.
Users began facing access issues from around 5:15 PM, with disruptions reported in logging in, signing up, posting content, and accessing premium services on X. ChatGPT users also reported trouble accessing the platform via its website, app, and API.
According to monitoring site Downdetector, a significant number of users globally experienced problems accessing both platforms. However, Downdetector itself became inaccessible due to the same root cause—a Cloudflare outage. The tech company provides key backend support that helps make internet applications faster and more secure.
Cloudflare confirms outage and begins investigation
Cloudflare confirmed in a statement that it was aware of the disruption and had initiated an investigation. “We are working to understand the full impact and to mitigate the issue,” the company said, promising further updates.
Preliminary data from Downdetector indicated that 43% of X users faced issues viewing posts, 23% encountered website access issues, and 24% experienced connectivity problems. For ChatGPT, 87% of users reported website issues, 9% had app-related complaints, and 3% faced API disruptions.
The platforms have experienced previous outages as well. On April 26, 2024, X was down for users around 1:15 PM. Earlier, on December 21, 2023, a global X outage left users unable to access posts, displaying a message saying “Welcome to X.”