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X is back!
X is now back for me and pretty much everyone else, according to Downdetector, just in time to see this unfortunately timed post from yesterday.
The answer to that question for many today was “nonexistent,” but fortunately the Cloudflare issues, which were almost certainly the root cause, have been fixed and the result is timelines full of Google Gemini 3 memes and hype that have returned.
In theory, that should be the end of the big X disruption of November 2025, but I’ll keep an eye on things just in case…
Cloudflare is clearly the root cause
While there has been no official statement from
The
Cloudflare previously said in a statement that it “saw an unusual increase in traffic to one of Cloudflare’s services starting at 11:20 UTC,” and its status says it is “continuing to work on a fox for this issue.”
Karma for Musk and X?
As TechCrunch noted, today’s X outage comes with notes of karma, as Elon Musk gloated over the recent AWS outage that broke much of the Internet (except his own social network).
Musk wrote on X at the time that “messages in the
Unfortunately, many of us are now unable to read any messages in X due to Cloudflare’s current issues. And those problems continue to grow, according to Downdetector…
Cloudflare reports “unusual traffic increase”
As you can read in our Cloudflare live blog, we just received this very intriguing statement from the cloud giant, which could reveal why the current problems at X and many other sites have been so long-lasting.
“We saw an unusual increase in traffic to one of Cloudflare’s services starting at 11:20 UTC. This caused some traffic passing through the Cloudflare network to experience errors,” Cloudflare’s statement said.
“We do not yet know the cause of the unusual increase in traffic. We are all hands on deck to ensure that all traffic is served without errors. After that, we will turn our attention to investigating the cause of the unusual increase in traffic. We will post updates to cloudflarestatus.com and deeper analysis when ready to blog.cloudflare.com,” the statement added.
This is pure speculation, but “an unusual increase in traffic” sounds a lot like a DDoS attack to me, and Cloudflare blocked a giant one in September. We’ll certainly learn more once Cloudflare has fixed the kinks…
Another big increase in reports
Wow, just when we thought the X outage had peaked, there’s been another big spike in Downdetector in the US and UK.
These issues have corresponded with a large increase in reported issues on Cloudflare. In the US, we have over 13,500 reports in the US and over 3,400 in the UK.
It looks like this outage is far from over: you can follow Cloudflare’s corresponding issues, which appear to be the root of the current problems, in our separate live blog.
The mobile application seems the most affected
For me and thousands of others, the X mobile app seems particularly affected by today’s outage.
On Downdetector, 61% of reports in the US and 60% in the UK say the main problem is the mobile app, although that may simply reflect how people use X.
The website has been more responsive for me today, but just as I say that, there has been a huge increase in Downdetector for X on all platforms…
ChatGPT and Photopea also arrive
It’s another one of those days where we learn how a critical point of cloud failure can cause ripples of instability across the web.
X remains down for many in the US and UK, and other services are experiencing replications of Cloudflare’s issues, including ChatGPT and Photopea.
Still, in better news, Cloudflare appears to have identified a fix: The cloud giant indicated on its updates page at 8:09 am ET / 1:09 pm GMT that “the issue has been identified and a fix is being implemented.”
Let’s hope this works for X and all the other sites it’s likely to hit…
X has gone down again for many
The X website and mobile app were once again down for me, although looking at Downdetector, that doesn’t seem to be the case for everyone.
In the US, we’re down to just over 1,600 reports, while in the UK it’s down to just 400 reports, so this is far from a total blackout.
Fortunately, it looks like we’re past the spike that occurred around 6:40 a.m. ET / 11:40 a.m. ET, but if you’re still having trouble getting your daily dose of AI-generated video, Gemini 3 hype, or Grok-based wisdom on X, you’re not alone.
Where do people go when X is down?
It seems that X fans don’t flock to Threads when their chosen social network is down, but to Bluesky.
At least that’s the conclusion of a quick check of Google Trends (above) that the guys at Search Atlas pointed me to.
While Bluesky has seen an increase in search interest today, Threads has remained fairly stable. On paper, Threads is closer to X in style (more conventional and centralized), but Bluesky may be closer to the original Twitter in spirit.
Either way, both have likely benefited from today’s X problems, which continue to rumble despite the promising drop in previous reports…
X is not the only site affected
While
At Downdetector, we’ve also seen spikes in online multiplayer play. League of Legendsa fanfiction site called Archive of our Own, plus Genshin Impact and Honkai: star lane according to Reddit.
The timing suggests a connection to Cloudflare’s problems: the internet infrastructure giant said at 7:37 a.m. ET / 12:37 p.m. GMT that it was “continuing to investigate this issue,” so expect to see other services it uses (along with X) up and running today.
X still has nerves
Despite the drop in reports on Downdetector, I’m still experiencing issues on X on both desktop and mobile; perhaps you’ve been spontaneously burned by the Google Gemini 3 hype.
Fortunately, that’s not the case for everyone, and reports on Downdetector have now dropped to around 2,400 in the US and just over 2,000 in the UK, suggesting the problems are decreasing.
This corresponds to a similar drop at Cloudflare, so while there has been no official connection between the two, it seems likely that Cloudflare’s problems have led to the lack of memes and outrage at X today.
Promising signs
Good news, it looks like the problems on
X has been in and out today, so it’s a little early to call this cut final, but it seems to be moving in the right direction.
Interestingly, Cloudflare’s problems seem to be moving in the opposite direction, so I’ll be keeping an eye on this one…
It’s coming to both mobile and desktop devices.
Today I feel noticeably less distracted than usual, and that’s because the X discontinuation is affecting both the web version and the mobile app.
Like many, I get the message “posts are not loading at this time” when trying to update the mobile app.
The problems have been going on for about an hour, but there are promising signs on Downdetector that they may be easing…
Is Cloudflare to blame?
One of the possible culprits for the current problems on
Ironically, even Downdetector itself (which uses Cloudflare) was experiencing issues for a brief period.
Cloudflare also posted the notice above saying it is “continuing to investigate” an issue affecting multiple customers. In fact, it appears to be growing: Cloudflare reports “500 widespread errors” and “Cloudflare’s dashboard and API are also crashing.”
Let’s hope this isn’t too widespread…
X seems to be down for everyone
X is definitely experiencing a major outage today, with tens of thousands reporting the issue on Downdetector.
At the time of writing, there are 11,150 reports in the US and 3,895 in the UK on Downdetector. The issues affect both the mobile app and the web browser version, and both are giving me the message “posts are not loading at this time.”
The culprit could well be Cloudflare, which says its global network is “experiencing issues”…
