AWS Outage: On Oct 20, 2025 a major Amazon Web Services (AWS) outage — traced to a DNS-related failure in the US-EAST-1 region — disrupted Snapchat, Ring, Reddit, Fortnite, Roblox, many banking/payment services, and parts of Amazon itself. Services started recovering within hours after AWS mitigation, but user reports and queued requests continued to cause intermittent problems across the internet.
1) What actually happened — the short version
AWS Outage: Early on Oct 20, 2025 AWS reported increased error rates and latency affecting multiple services, and many consumer apps reported failures to authenticate, load feeds, or deliver messages.
Major platforms from gaming to finance saw outages because they rely on AWS infrastructure — especially resources in the US-EAST-1 region. Recovery began a few hours after the initial disruptions.
2) Why Snapchat and Ring showed the biggest user impact
Snapchat and Ring were highly visible victims because both use AWS for critical backend services such as authentication, media storage, and live-device signaling.
When AWS DNS and related services misbehave, clients can’t find the servers they need — logins fail, feeds don’t load, and smart devices (like Ring cameras) can’t reach cloud functions. That’s why users asking “is Snapchat down?” saw an immediate and global “yes.”
3) The technical root (as reported): a DNS / control-plane issue
AWS and multiple news outlets identified the underlying problem as a DNS-related or control-plane disruption that affected many internal services and routing in the US-EAST-1 region.
DNS is the internet’s “phone book”; when it’s impaired for cloud control services, large numbers of hosted apps fail or slow while requests queue and time out. AWS said the underlying DNS issue was mitigated and recovery progressed.
4) Timeline — how the outage unfolded
• ~03:11 a.m. ET: First error spikes and user reports start appearing on monitoring sites.
• Early morning: Major apps (Snapchat, Fortnite, Roblox, Reddit, Perplexity, Robinhood, Venmo, Ring, Alexa) report interruptions.
• ~05:27–06:35 a.m. ET: AWS posts updates that “signs of recovery” are visible and later that the DNS issue has been “fully mitigated.”
• Afterward: Services returned gradually while teams processed backlogs and throttled queued requests.
5) How you could tell Snapchat was down (and how to check)
Common, visible failure modes for Snapchat included: login failures, empty or disappearing friends lists, blank feeds, and “too many requests” errors on support pages.
To verify: check the official Snapchat status page or Twitter/X support account, view real-time spikes on Downdetector, and follow wire services for confirmation. Those sources showed big report spikes during the outage.
6) Downdetector and outage trackers — what they showed
Downdetector and similar trackers recorded dramatic surges in problem reports for Snapchat, Reddit, Ring and others — tens of thousands of user reports across regions at the outage’s peak.
Those services aggregate user-submitted error reports and provide a good early warning, but they do not substitute for official company statements or the AWS Health Dashboard.
7) What “AWS down” actually means for apps and devices
A large outage at a major cloud provider can cause multiple symptoms depending on how each app is architected:
• Services fully hosted on the affected region may go offline.
• Apps using multi-region redundancy may still be degraded if central control APIs (DNS, IAM, support APIs) fail.
• IoT devices (Ring, Alexa) can lose access to cloud controllers and show “offline” even when the hardware is on.
That’s why this outage seemed to hit very different types of services at once.
8) Who else was hit — a quick list of notable affected services
Major consumer apps and services that reported impacts included: Snapchat, Ring, Reddit, Roblox, Fortnite/Epic, Venmo/Chime/Robinhood/Coinbase (payment and trading services), Wordle/NYT games, Perplexity, Canva and parts of Amazon’s own consumer services (Prime Video, Alexa).
The list changed as services recovered, but coverage across gaming, finance, social apps and smart-home devices made the outage feel “global.”
9) Why recovery can take longer than the “fix” time
Even after AWS said the DNS issue was mitigated and most services were succeeding, many users still saw errors.
That’s because:
• DNS propagation and caches take time to update worldwide.
• Cloud services had backlogs of queued requests to process.
• Third-party services need to rehydrate sessions and caches.
So “AWS fixed it” and “your app is working again” are not always simultaneous.
10) What to do if Snapchat or Ring aren’t working for you
- Check official status pages first: Snapchat Support, Ring Status, AWS Health Dashboard.
- Look at outage trackers (Downdetector) to confirm user-report spikes.
- Restart the app and clear local cache; wait 10–20 minutes and try again — many apps reconnect after queues clear.
- If your smart device appears offline, check router and local Wi-Fi status — sometimes a local disconnect coincides with cloud problems.
- For payments or trades that failed, consult the platform’s official help center; keep screenshots and timestamps for disputes.
11) Is this a cyberattack? — what authorities and experts say
Early reports and AWS communications attributed the outage to an internal DNS/control-plane issue, not a confirmed malicious attack.
Security experts warn that outages and cyberattacks can look similar early on, but at the time of reporting there were no public indications that this was a deliberate cyberattack. Official status updates and forensic work govern the final attribution.
12) Business & financial impact — ripple effects
Large cloud outages can cause short-term revenue losses, failed transactions, and higher customer-service costs for affected businesses.
Analysts and media flagged possible multi-million-dollar impacts across merchants and platforms; Amazon’s reliance on AWS spotlighted systemic risk and prompted commentary about cloud diversification and resilience. Investors often watch AMZN (Amazon) and cloud-related tickers during such events.
13) How the industry is thinking about resilience now
This outage will likely accelerate moves that many technologists already favored:
• Wider multi-cloud or multi-region architectures for mission-critical services.
• More rigorous testing of cloud control-plane failures and DNS redundancy.
• Clearer customer communication playbooks for cloud providers and dependent services.
The goal: reduce single-point failures so “when AWS sneezes, fewer services catch a cold.”
FAQ — quick answers readers ask right now
Q: Is Snapchat down right now?
A: Check Snapchat Support and Downdetector. During the Oct 20 outage millions reported issues; AWS has posted recovery updates.
Q: Is AWS down today / is us-east-1 affected?
A: AWS posted service-health messages showing the issue was mitigated and many services were succeeding; US-EAST-1 was the primary region referenced. Check the AWS Health Dashboard for live status.
Q: Did a cyberattack take Snapchat down?
A: No public confirmation of a cyberattack; reporting pointed to an internal DNS/control-plane failure, though investigations and postmortems may provide more detail later.
Q: When will Snapchat be fixed?
A: Many services recovered within hours after AWS mitigation, but full global recovery can take longer due to cache and backlog processing. Watch official status pages for “all clear.”
Final takeaway — what you should bookmark and why
For trustworthy, up-to-date info during widespread outages, use three sources:
- The impacted product’s official status page (Snapchat Support, Ring Status, etc.).
- AWS Health Dashboard for cloud-level confirmations.
- Reputable wire services (AP, Reuters, The Verge) and outage trackers (Downdetector) for corroboration and user-report trends.
Outages like this are inconvenient — and sometimes costly — but clear, sourced updates and patient troubleshooting are the best responses while providers finish mitigation and backlogs clear.
Sources & Verified External Links
The links below are the primary, authoritative sources used to compile this article. Each was live and accurate at the time of writing.
- Associated Press — Amazon cloud computing outage disrupts Snapchat, Ring and many other online services.
https://apnews.com/article/654a12ac9aff0bf4b9dc0e22499d92d7. (AP News) - Reuters — Fortnite, Snapchat among major apps to go dark in global AWS outage.
https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/amazons-cloud-unit-reports-outage-several-websites-down-2025-10-20/. (Reuters) - The Verge — Major AWS outage takes down Fortnite, Alexa, Snapchat, and more.
https://www.theverge.com/news/802486/aws-outage-alexa-fortnite-snapchat-offline. (The Verge) - Al Jazeera — LIVE: Amazon’s AWS recovering after outage hits Snapchat, major apps, sites.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2025/10/20/live-snapchat-other-apps-sites-down-as-outage-hits-amazon-web-services. (Al Jazeera) - AWS Health Dashboard — Service health & status updates (AWS Health / service interruptions log).
https://health.aws.amazon.com/. (AWS Health) - Ring Status — Ring system status and incident updates.
https://status.ring.com/. (Ring Status) - Tom’s Guide — Snapchat outage live: latest updates.
https://www.tomsguide.com/news/live/snapchat-outage-live-october-20. (Tom’s Guide) - Downdetector (Snapchat) — User-submitted outage reports and live chart.
https://downdetector.com/status/snapchat/.
Disclaimer : This article summarizes verified reports and official status updates as of Oct 20, 2025 for informational purposes only. It does not provide technical forensic findings or legal advice. For the latest live updates, use the official status pages and the links above.