On March 27th, baseball fans were eager to tune in for Opening Day, but MLB TV wasn’t quite ready to play ball. As games got underway, thousands of users flooded to Downdetector, reporting problems with the MLB TV App and Website, preventing them from watching or listening to live coverage.

For fans, Opening Day is one of the most anticipated events of the season, but it’s also a day when reliability is paramount for streaming services. With Downdetector’s real-time outage tracking, users were able to monitor the situation as it unfolded, but the experience was far from ideal for baseball fans hoping to catch every moment of the season’s first pitch.

A Rough Start for Streaming

Shortly after the first game of the day started at 3:05 PM EDT, outage reports began to appear on Downdetector. With fans across the country scrambling to stream the games, the problem escalated rapidly. By 4:10 PM EDT, 10 games were airing simultaneously and Downdetector’s tracking showed the outage peaking at over 20,000 reports, marking a rough start to the season.

Users took to Downdetector’s comments and social media to vent their frustrations over the inability to access streams with error messages popping up across a wide range of devices, including mobile apps, smart TVs, and web browsers. Many expressed their disappointment over missing key matchups and the lack of communication from MLB TV regarding the outage on one of baseball’s biggest days.

Tracking Outages in Real Time

Throughout the outage, Downdetector’s real-time monitoring offered a comprehensive view of the affected areas, showing the scale of the disruption. Outage reports revealed the geographical spread of the issue, with major baseball markets being hotspots for reports.

The high volume of user reports underscored the critical importance of reliable streaming services, especially on major sports days like Opening Day. While MLB TV eventually regained its footing, the lack of timely updates from the platform left fans in the dark, amplifying the frustration of missing the action.

Interested in learning how Downdetector can help your company prepare for its biggest days? Contact us.

On February 7th, signs of a major outage impacting the gaming industry surfaced on Downdetector as early as 3:00 PM PDT. The outage, experienced by PlayStation Network (PSN), lasted over 24 hours and generated more than 3 million reports globally in Downdetector. This article provides a full breakdown of the outage as seen through Downdetector data and PlayStation’s response.

This isn’t the first time PlayStation has faced an outage of this magnitude, leaving gamers uncertain about resolution timelines. Just last October, a PlayStation outage generated over 600,000 reports in Downdetector and lasted more than four hours. However, for many longtime PlayStation users, this incident sparked flashbacks to the infamous 2011 PlayStation Network breach—a cyberattack that led to a 23-day outage.

While this recent outage was nowhere near as prolonged, it underscored the need for swift response and transparency from affected companies.

February 7th

3:00 PM PDT — Signs of a Massive Gaming Outage Surface

Downdetector began receiving a sudden spike in reports on gaming services, signaling the early stages of a significant disruption. Over the next few minutes, many major games and services, in addition to PSN, flooded the Downdetector homepage with reports of an outage. Meanwhile, Steam and Xbox users remained largely unaffected. With these insights, it became clear almost immediately that the issue was limited to PSN, well before PSN’s own status page showed signs of a disruption.

3:45 PM PDT — Outage Numbers Peak

With the source of the issue identified, reports for PSN peaked as users flooded to Downdetector to report, track, and discuss the ongoing disruption. Over the course of the outage, Downdetector remained a popular forum for discussion as gamers waited for any signs of resolution.

4:00 PM PDT — PlayStation Status Page Updated

Almost an hour after Downdetector users were already well aware of the outage, PlayStation acknowledged the issue by updating their status page with a vague message: “Some services are experiencing issues.”

5:46 PM PDT — PlayStation Acknowledges Outage Publicly

Even after the status page was updated, it took until 5:46 PM for PlayStation to release a public statement on their X page, Ask PlayStation. Users were met with a message that offered no insight into the causes of the disruption or any timeline for resolution.

February 8th

2:00 PM PDT — Global Reports Exceed 3 Million

As the outage continued into the next day, the volume of reports surpassed 3 million globally, with the most reports coming from the United States, Germany, United Kingdom, and France. While the number of new reports began to slow down, Downdetector’s comment section remained active. Downdetector received more than 30,000 comments, ranging from anger and frustration to lighthearted exchanges as gamers looked for alternative ways to pass the time. This ongoing flood of commentary underscored how Downdetector served not only as a monitoring tool but also as a real-time forum for users to vent, discuss, and stay informed during disruptions.

3:58 PM PDT — Outage Resolved

More than 24 hours after the outage first appeared on Downdetector, PlayStation announced that the issue had finally been resolved via a post on X. While the official cause of the outage remains unknown, later that night another update was posted, attributing the cause to an “operational issue” and offering 5 free days of PlayStation Plus membership to existing members as a gesture of goodwill.

Throughout the duration of the outage, Downdetector demonstrated the power of real-time, crowdsourced insights, with user reports helping identify the source of the disruption and when the issue was resolved. Thanks to the continuous stream of comments and reports from gamers, Downdetector served as a vital resource for users looking for updates on the situation in real-time, ahead of any official statements.

For businesses, Downdetector provides access to dashboards that deliver early alerts, enable outage correlation, and allow for direct communication with users, ensuring a proactive approach to incident management. Learn how you can leverage Downdetector to be better prepared for outages here.

On December 11th, 2024, a significant outage affected Meta services, disrupting Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger users worldwide. Reports of the outage flooded into Downdetector, with the platform providing real-time insights as the event unfolded. The scale of the disruption underscored the critical role Downdetector plays in tracking and identifying service issues for businesses and consumers alike.

Here’s a timeline of how the outage progressed, based on data captured in Downdetector.

9:45 AM PST — Initial Reports Appear in Downdetector

Reports of a Meta service disruption began to surface, with users globally reporting issues on Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram. Users received error messages when attempting to access the services.

10:00-10:15 AM PST — Outage Number Peaks

With the outage peaking across the world during this time, using Downdetector data we compared the reporting numbers on Meta’s services across the Americas. In the United States, Facebook reported the highest number of disruptions, with nearly 100,000 user-submitted incidents during this 15 minute window.

Meanwhile, in Brazil, WhatsApp saw the most significant impact, with 66,000 reports in the same timeframe.

In Canada, Instagram peaked with the most reports with 17,000 reports during this time.

These figures highlight the global reach of the outage and shows how the popularity of Meta’s services vary by region, with different platforms experiencing peak number of reports in different countries.

10:48 AM PST — Meta Acknowledges the Outage

Over an hour after Downdetector users were first notified of a potential disruption, Meta addressed the issue on X, assuring users that they were aware of the outage and were actively working to resolve it.

11:30 AM PST — Reports Exceed 3 Million Globally

As Meta worked on resolving the issue, users were still impacted and reports continued to flood into Downdetector. As of 11:30 AM PST the total number of reports exceeded 3 million globally.

12:00 PM PST — Speedtest Counts Peak

During the outage, many users turned to Speedtest to troubleshoot their internet connections, unsure if the issue stemmed from their provider or Meta’s services. As a result, Speedtest Intelligence® recorded a sharp increase in test counts throughout the outage. Starting at 10:00 AM PST, test activity began to rise, peaking at over 110,000 tests on fixed providers in Brazil alone by 12:00 PM PST.

This surge demonstrates a clear correlation between Speedtest and Downdetector, as users rely on both platforms as essential tools for diagnosing connectivity and service issues.

2:26 PM PST — Resolution Announced

After 5 hours and nearly 4 million reports across Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram globally, Meta announced that 99% of the outage had been resolved, with services returning to normal. As of this time, the exact cause of the disruption has not been disclosed.

Downdetector has proven to be an invaluable tool for real-time outage reporting, identifying issues faster than official communications from service providers. If you’re interested in learning how Downdetector can help you identify and prevent disruptions from becoming major outages contact us here.