Slack down: Worldwide outage hits workplace messaging app

The instant messaging service was last reported down in June 

Chelsea Ritschel
in New York
Friday 07 September 2018 14:57 EDT
Comments
What is Slack?

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

Workplace instant messaging service Slack is up and working after a brief outage Friday afternoon plunged offices across the US into chaos.

“We’re in a spot of trouble right now,” the company said in a Twitter response to one user, after thousands of customers used the social network to confirm that the service was temporarily broken.

Slack – which is an acronym for Searchable Log of All Conversation and Knowledge – boasts around 8 million daily active users, with 3 million of them paying for the service.

The cause of the outage, which was reported by numerous people on Twitter, is not currently clear, however, the company kept users up-to-date via social media.

As people regained use of the messaging service, Slack HQ said on Twitter: "We had some connection issues earlier, but they should be all fixed up now. Sorry for the trouble!"

The US was hit worst by the connectivity issues given the time of day, as the workday has already ended in the UK and Australia.

The reactions to the outage ranged from aggravated to amused as people realised they could not rely on their go-to form of in-office communication.

"Slack is down. Maybe the weekend has come early," one person wrote.

Another said: "Slack is down, so everyone should just go home now.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in