On Thursday afternoon, a massive internet outage left millions unable to access their favorite online platforms. Popular services like Spotify, Google, Discord, Twitch, OpenAI, and others were hit hard, leaving users frustrated and confused.
The issue started around 1 p.m. Central Time, with outage tracker DownDetector recording a surge in complaints. Spotify alone had over 40,000 reports, with users saying they couldn’t stream music, open the app, or load playlists.
Cloudflare, a company that supports internet security and performance, confirmed the problem. At 1:19 p.m., it reported a “broad” outage affecting authentication services. This means many users were unable to log in to their accounts across different platforms.
The list of affected services kept growing. Google products—including Gmail, Google Maps, Drive, Meet, and Nest—had more than 9,900 complaints. Discord had over 10,000 reports, while Snapchat saw nearly 3,000. Gamers also felt the impact, with Twitch, Rocket League, and Pokémon TCG facing disruptions.
Even AI services like OpenAI and Character AI weren’t spared. DownDetector showed a significant spike in reports from users trying to access these platforms.
Although Google doesn’t run directly on Cloudflare, the company does provide protective services for Google Cloud. As noted on the Cloudflare website, it “offers a comprehensive set of security and performance services, protecting Google Cloud-hosted Internet properties.”
While the root cause of the outage is still under investigation, it appears linked to authentication failures on Cloudflare’s end. That one issue managed to ripple across multiple services worldwide.
For now, Cloudflare is working to fix the problem. Users are gradually regaining access, but the frustration from hours of disruption remains fresh.
