iCloud outages resolved after nearly every Apple service went down globally

AppleInsiderAppleInsider
Posted:
in General Discussion edited March 2022
Apple's iCloud experienced issues on Monday, with unexpected downtime impacting some of Apple's online services for a number of users.




Starting from 12:50 p.m. eastern on Monday, AppleInsider staff encountered problems with various Apple services. This included iCloud going down, which is a key element that impacts other services and apps with online components.

This included Mail, which became unreliable in fetching messages for multiple staff. Some found Apple News wasn't loading stories, while Apple Music on Mac fails to bring up any pages at all.

A few minutes after initial publication, AppleInsider staff encountered further problems with iMessage, as well as Apple Maps.

However, at the outset, the outages appeared to affect users in different ways, with some experiencing normal access for some apps, but not others.

At the time the outages were spotted, DownDetector reports a lot of Apple services received a spike in reports, including Apple TV+, Apple Fitness+, and the App Store. Some other unconnected services also experienced a similar spike, including PayPal, Google Maps, and Plenty Of Fish.

A sampling of DownDetector outage reports for Apple's services.
A sampling of DownDetector outage reports for Apple's services.


Naturally, users took to social media to complain and find out if they are the only people affected, only to discover they aren't. Some posted images of DNS failures when visiting some Apple websites in a browser.

At the time of initial publication, all of Apple's services on the System Status page were reporting as "Available" with a green circle. A later update then listed a total of 11 outages, with the earliest starting at 12:32 p.m. eastern.

The list of affected services as of the 1:33p.m. eastern update included:
  • App Store
  • Apple Arcade
  • Apple Music
  • Apple TV+
  • iTunes Store
  • Podcasts
  • Radio
  • Apple Business Manager
  • Apple School Manager
  • Device Enrollment Program
  • Schoolwork
At 12:50 p.m. eastern, the list was updated to show 12 current outages. While Apple Business Manager, Apple School Manager, Device Enrollment Program, and Schoolwork were removed, five others were added:
  • Find My
  • Maps Display
  • Maps Routing & Navigation
  • Maps Search
  • Maps Traffic
Minutes later at 12:59p.m., the list grew to 19 outages, adding:
  • iCloud Account & Sign In
  • iCloud Calendar
  • iCloud Drive
  • iCloud Keychain
  • iCloud Mail
  • iCloud Web Apps (iCloud.com)
  • AppleCare on Device
Apple then added back three of the four it removed, excluding Schoolwork, along with the new addition of Apple Fitness+.

At 1:45 p.m. eastern, the list was updated to show 14 current outages and 12 resolved outages. By 2:07 p.m., Apple had 9 ongoing outages, 19 resolved.

The System Status page said most of the services "may be slow or unavailable" with users "unable to sign in" for some of them.

A status update after 3 p.m. changed all remaining outages to read as resolved. The latest time a service became listed as fixed was 2:37 p.m. eastern, giving a total outage time of 2 hours and 12 minutes, and 30 outages resolved.

The Apple System Status page at 1:03p.m. eastern.
The Apple System Status page at 1:03p.m. eastern.


According to Mark Gurman on Twitter, Apple's outages weren't just affecting public-side services, with corporate and retail systems also suffering downtime issues.

The claim was verified by a photo from Michael Billig posted to Twitter, showing staff working using paper and iPhones.

Apple store systems are down and they're literally doing everything on paper lol pic.twitter.com/tdNpVPIepw

-- Michael Billig (@michael_billig)


While the System Status page was visible throughout, the Developer System Status page failed to load at all from the start of the outage. The page eventually became available to view as of 12:52 p.m. eastern.

Like the main System Status page, the developer version now shows all issues as resolved.

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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 34
    bloggerblogbloggerblog Posts: 2,463member
    Ah been having issues with iMessage since yesterday
    Alex_V
  • Reply 2 of 34
    joninsdjoninsd Posts: 74member
    Definitely directions with Apple Maps is messed up, first time I’ve had to fire up Google maps in a long time.
    StrangeDaysAlex_V
  • Reply 3 of 34
    jdb8167jdb8167 Posts: 626member
    What is the point of the System Status page if it is just going to always report everything green. Right now, as far as I can tell, anything requiring AppleID authentication is down. According to Find My on my Mac, the last time I was able to contact that system was 11:35 AM. So almost 2 hours later and everything is still green? 
    JaiOh81Alex_V
  • Reply 4 of 34
    longpathlongpath Posts: 393member
    Strangely, Apple's status page shows all greens; but that's clearly not the case. Emails I am trying to send disappear from the Outbox; but never get to Sent, and attempting to log into iCloud.com on my laptop is failing miserably.
    JaiOh81Alex_V
  • Reply 5 of 34
    baconstangbaconstang Posts: 1,105member
    iTunes Match is not playing any songs from the cloud.
    Alex_V
  • Reply 6 of 34
    skippingrockskippingrock Posts: 187member
    Suspicious this is. The fact that it is happening to other sites and services too. 
    chadbagAlex_V
  • Reply 7 of 34
    skippingrockskippingrock Posts: 187member
    TestFlight is also down. 
    Alex_V
  • Reply 8 of 34
    chadbagchadbag Posts: 2,000member
    Suspicious this is. The fact that it is happening to other sites and services too. 
    Was my thought.  Interesno  Nyet?
    JWSCAlex_Vjas99
  • Reply 9 of 34
    jdb8167jdb8167 Posts: 626member
    So the status page finally shows some outages but it still isn't complete. It is showing iCloud web apps as available but clearly they aren't if you try to go to iCloud.com. Again, what is the point of the status page that doesn't show actual service availability?
    muthuk_vanalingamAlex_V
  • Reply 10 of 34
    rare commentrare comment Posts: 199member
    maybe a private relay problem?
    Alex_V
  • Reply 11 of 34
    netroxnetrox Posts: 1,421member
    I have the same problem - my account is now "offline" 
    Alex_V
  • Reply 12 of 34
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,212member
    chadbag said:
    Suspicious this is. The fact that it is happening to other sites and services too. 
    Was my thought.  Interesno  Nyet?
    Both Google and AWS Cloud services indicate all is good at the moment, and no outages in the past 24 hours. There's no indication the fault lies with either of those two Apple Cloud storage providers.
    muthuk_vanalingamJWSCAlex_V
  • Reply 13 of 34
    22july201322july2013 Posts: 3,570member
    Apple Arcade feels extremely sluggish causing disconnects and severe game performance issues. It's basically unusable unless you can tolerate Force Quits and Restarts.
    Alex_V
  • Reply 14 of 34
    johnwhite1001johnwhite1001 Posts: 45member
    You know it is bad when you see red on the status page.  Usually it shows green even if things are down.   Apple News was not working for me here in California but appears back up now.
    Alex_V
  • Reply 15 of 34
    magman1979magman1979 Posts: 1,293member
    This is not isolated to Apple; lots of spikes in reported failures on DownDetector for cellular providers, landline ISP's, Spotify, PoF, stock market apps, etc. This seems wide-spread and not internal to Apple.
    rezwitsAlex_Vjas99
  • Reply 16 of 34
    johnwhite1001johnwhite1001 Posts: 45member
    magman1979 said:
    This is not isolated to Apple; lots of spikes in reported failures on DownDetector for cellular providers, landline ISP's, Spotify, PoF, stock market apps, etc. This seems wide-spread and not internal to Apple.


    I think you are right.  Noticed webpages were very sluggish on quite a few websites earlier.  Seems better now though.
    Alex_V
  • Reply 17 of 34
    AppleishAppleish Posts: 691member
    All roads lead to Putin.
    baconstanggeorge kaplanwelshdogchasmjas99
  • Reply 18 of 34
    johnwhite1001johnwhite1001 Posts: 45member
    Appleish said:
    All roads lead to Putin.


    Maybe.  Googles Services were having problems a couple days ago.   
    Alex_V
  • Reply 19 of 34
    rorwesselsrorwessels Posts: 81member
    You may or may not have noticed this, but the government just released a statement warning everyone of cyber attacks from well, that place over in Eurasia...  This is no joke and I was even forced, by Apple, to reauthenticate on my iPhone for some of my normal services.  So there is something going on.
    JWSCAlex_Vjas99
  • Reply 20 of 34
    rorwesselsrorwessels Posts: 81member
    Appleish said:
    All roads lead to Putin.
    You are likely not wrong, unfortunately.
    welshdogjas99
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