20% of internet down: Why X, ChatGPT, and Cloudflare Are Down

#ddos #outage #cyberattack #cloudflare

Date: November 18, 2025
Status: Ongoing / Recovering

If you cannot refresh your X (Twitter) feed or log into your favorite game right now, you aren't alone. A massive chunk of the internet struggles at this moment.

Rumors suggest a massive cyberattack causes this, but the reality involves a more technical explanation. Here is the full list of what broke, why it broke, and when it returns.

The Full List of Affected Services

Cloudflare causes the issue. Cloudflare acts as a "backbone" provider for millions of websites. Because Cloudflare faces issues, every app that relies on them faces issues too.

Based on Downdetector spikes and user reports, the following services currently fail:

Social Media:
- X (formerly Twitter): Fails to load feeds globally; users cannot post.
- Facebook / Meta: Rejects logins and fails to load pages.
- Truth Social: Displays accessibility errors.
- Grindr: App fails to connect.
AI & Productivity:
- OpenAI: ChatGPT and even the new video tool, Sora, deny access or show capacity errors.
- Canva: The editor runs slowly or fails to load entirely.
- Amazon / AWS: Specific services show instability (though core AWS remains up).
Entertainment & Gaming:
- Spotify: Stops music streams and prevents app access.
- League of Legends: Login servers and matchmaking systems fail.
- Letterboxd: The site refuses to load properly.
- bet365: Cloudflare error messages block access to the betting site.
Utilities:
- NJ Transit: Commuters face disruptions on the app and site.
- Downdetector: Ironically, the outage briefly took down the very site used to track outages.

Did a DDoS Attack Cause This?

Short Answer: No, a maintenance error caused this.

Long Answer: Confusion exists because two big stories broke at the same time:

The Real Issue (Cloudflare Outage): Cloudflare officially attributes the problem to internal infrastructure issues. Engineers performed scheduled maintenance in several data centers, but the traffic re-routing failed. This failure created a cascade of "500 errors."
The "Fake" News (Azure Attack): You might read headlines today about the "Largest DDoS Attack in History" (15.7 Terabits per second). Microsoft blocked this attack weeks ago. They simply released the report today. That attack did not cause the outages you see right now.

Current Status (As of 7:10 PM IST)

Cloudflare: Engineers identified the fix and are implementing it now.
Recovery: Services slowly return online, but expect error pages for the next few hours as traffic stabilizes.

The Bottom Line: Do not change your passwords or reset your router. Engineers are currently fixing the internet's plumbing. We simply wait for the water to flow again.