Apple App Store buckles under weight of Super Mario Run, service unavailable to some users [ux2]

Posted:
in iPhone edited December 2016
It appears the crush of eager customers awaiting Thursday's "Super Mario Run" launch is wreaking havoc on Apple's iOS App Store servers, as a number of users are unable to conduct searches or view certain apps, including the new Mario game.




Though Apple's system status webpage is currently showing green across the board, users have taken to social media to report sporadic App Store service outages and general feature unavailability.

Impromptu tests conducted by AppleInsider confirm the iOS App Store is not working as designed on devices located on both coasts, suggesting the problem is nationwide. As of this writing, attempts to use the app's search function redirects to a landing page reading, "The App Store is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later." This same page appears in other areas, indicating Apple's servers are unreachable.

In a seemingly related issue, browsing through app categories triggers the generic WebKit error message seen above. Specifically, the page appears when attempting to access "Entertainment" under the Categories pane. Other error messages like "Try again" pop up while browsing other App Store areas on an iOS device.

The problems appear to be associated with the launch of Nintendo's much-anticipated release "Super Mario Run," which saw release on the App Store earlier today. Tellingly, all six of Apple's promotional carousel spots currently sitting atop the App Store's Featured section lead to an error page of one kind or another.

Announced during Apple's iPhone 7 event in September, Super Mario Run is Nintendo's first attempt at developing a third-party mobile platform title based on one of its many legendary franchises. Today's release was hyped for months, with Apple going so far as to set up a special notification system to alert users when downloads went live.

For an in-depth look at the game's mechanics, features, in-app purchases and more, check out AppleInsider's "Super Mario Run" hands-on.

Update: Apple has updated its system status webpage to reflect an outage affecting all online stores, including the iOS App Store, Mac App Store, Apple TV and Apple Music. Problems began a few minutes after 4 p.m. Pacific and have been ongoing for more than three hours.

Update 2: All services were back up and running just after 7:00 p.m. Pacific on Thursday.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 18
    calicali Posts: 3,494member
    Apple+Nintendo are unstoppable. 
    lolliverwatto_cobra
  • Reply 2 of 18
    bluefire1bluefire1 Posts: 1,301member
    Downloaded it, paid $9.99 to open up all worlds and loving it. Graphics are excellent and gameplay is wonderful. Now on to Bowser!
    supadav03lolliverwatto_cobra
  • Reply 3 of 18
    Did anyone else not receive the notification? I suspect this might be why.
    lolliver
  • Reply 4 of 18
    SoliSoli Posts: 10,035member
    Did anyone else not receive the notification? I suspect this might be why.
    I received my notification an hour or so ago, but downloaded the game some 8 hours ago. The late notifications are typical.
  • Reply 5 of 18
    Did anyone else not receive the notification? I suspect this might be why.
    Did you register to be notified? It was a button where GET is now.
  • Reply 6 of 18
    cali said:
    Apple+Nintendo are unstoppable. 
    I hope this leads to more Nintendo titles coming over. I was able to download SMR with no issues.  Game runs great, and is pretty fun so far.  Will likely pay the $10 to get the full version 
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 7 of 18
    jungmarkjungmark Posts: 6,926member
    Yup. Definitely Mario's fault. 
  • Reply 8 of 18
    C'mon Apple.  Get the capacity for the workload.  I couldn't imagine Amazon would crash under the weight of the holiday shopping season. We're talking a fricking game.  
  • Reply 9 of 18
    C'mon Apple.  Get the capacity for the workload.  I couldn't imagine Amazon would crash under the weight of the holiday shopping season. We're talking a fricking game.  

    Amazon doesn't have nearly the number of users as iOS.
    netmagewatto_cobra
  • Reply 10 of 18
    SoliSoli Posts: 10,035member
    C'mon Apple.  Get the capacity for the workload.  I couldn't imagine Amazon would crash under the weight of the holiday shopping season. We're talking a fricking game.  
    Amazon doesn't have nearly the number of users as iOS.
    And I'm not sure what he's referring to. Hitting Buy Now on a new TV, which is clearly more expensive than a game v. making a purchase on the App Store and then having  205 MiB downloaded from a server isn't analogous.

    That isn't to say that Apple hasn't had their share of snafus and gaffes when it came to internet-based access during peak usage, but a comparison to a sale v a sale and download doesn't make sense, unless he's referring to Amazon's Fire devices, which are comparatively miniscule.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 11 of 18
    Looking for Donkey Kong to roll in sometime in the future
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 12 of 18
    I downloaded the game in my phone yesterday with no problems...but just now, I'm getting the errors when just opening the App Store on my iPad...
  • Reply 13 of 18
    I can download it from the "purchased" tab...but none of the featured or categories pages will load. Apple is showing no issues.
  • Reply 14 of 18
    slurpyslurpy Posts: 5,382member
    C'mon Apple.  Get the capacity for the workload.  I couldn't imagine Amazon would crash under the weight of the holiday shopping season. We're talking a fricking game.  
    You clearly have no clue what you're talking about, or how servers work. Your analogy is ridiculous in its falsity. You're comparing increased traffic in a shopping "season", which spans a wide range of time, and in which people are loading pages with the largest assets being some images less than 100KB large.. to millions of people making a download that is HUNDREDS of megabytes large at literally the EXACT same time. There is zero comparison there. Also, as I recall this is the 1st time in 8 yrs that the appstore has buckled because of a specific app, which goes to show the popularity of this game, not the weakness of the appstore. But sure, carry on. Anything to bash Apple, right?
    edited December 2016
  • Reply 15 of 18
    I'm a pretty notable gamer among my crowd of people and I downloaded this way before I got a notification. Though I see the free to play as a gamer challenge to see how far I can go through the game without paying for anything. It is great to hear that people are paying for the full game as I think it is worth more than $10 and it meets all of the quality and refinement a Mario game always has from Nintendo. Maybe at some point I'll pay for part of it, but right now the challenge to unlock what I can for free is keeping me from paying anything.
  • Reply 16 of 18
    I really would love to see Nintendo bring the entire library of old games to AppleTV. It would be fairly easy to do and would make them millions. I do like them designing new games to work with iPhone...simply porting a console game to iPhone doesn't seem to work very well for obvious reasons.
  • Reply 17 of 18
    It's 12/17 and I'm still experiencing this with the my update this morning.
  • Reply 18 of 18
    Still happening and on lots of categories not just Entertainment. I'm trying to download a travel app and nothing.

    Downlading apps I purchased before via "Purchased" worked fine though.
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