back to article iTunes snafu: DNS fail borked Apple's app & iTunes stores for 10 HOURS

Apple has blamed a server configuration blunder for a 10-hour-long outage of its highly lucrative App Store, Mac App Store, iBooks Store, and iTunes Store yesterday. The iPhone giant said in a statement to the media that today's downtime was caused by problems with its DNS setup. Apple's system status page confirms various …

  1. smartypants

    Won't cost them much...

    People are nicely walled in. They'll have to wait till it's up again, and then will just buy what they were going to anyway.

    Nothing to see here!

    1. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

      Re: Won't cost them much...

      But think of the lost impulse buys! :)

      I've certainly woken up after an in-depth summit at the local bar and discovered unexpected albums and software purchased on my iThing. I mean, who would buy 3 hours of TV theme music when sober?

      C.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Won't cost them much...

        No one is doubting it will have cost them some money but I'd say most people will just delay their purchases - so yes expensive mistake but I'd be surprised if the actual loss was more than 10-20% of the 'worst case' figure touted.

        1. Tromos
          Joke

          Re: Won't cost them much...

          I reckon everyone attempting to pre-order the 17k watch will have given up in disgust and drifted off to see what Argos has to offer.

        2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

          Re: Won't cost them much...

          "No one is doubting it will have cost them some money but I'd say most people will just delay their purchases"

          Yes, but while they're buying what they couldn't buy whilst it was down they'll be too busy to buy whatever else they'd have been buying now.

      2. Florida1920

        Re: Won't cost them much...

        I mean, who would buy 3 hours of TV theme music when sober?

        The best themes in life are free!

        1. Mystic Megabyte
          Holmes

          Re: Won't cost them much...

          Nice

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsQYzpOHpik

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Flummoxed Fanbois Frustrated As Fruity Fail Forces Fortitude From Afar

    Walled garden woes wobble wishful watch waiters as DNS doofus denies downloads.

    Do I get the job?

  3. DNTP

    So if they were down for ten hours, by Apple logic that makes it a whole day, not just the 'morning', right?

    1. usbac Silver badge

      Remember, when you are in the Reality Distortion Field, time passes a different rate than for us on the outside...

  4. Slx

    I'm not going to get into iOS vs Android or any other platform argument ... Google isn't exactly a land of love and hugs either. All these companies either wall you in or slurp your data or a bit of both.

    I'm not impressed with how long Apple waited before admitting that they had a problem. They left a lot of people high and dry without any explanation until opening of business in the US!

    It's portraying iOS as a premium product with top class support yet didn't even bother to update the service status page until well into the fault and well into the afternoon in major markets like Europe!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Well... these days it's how it goes.

      I love my android, but currently the latest update borked the play store. No idea if it's a DNS error, other app, login error, timeout whatever, all I know is the store no longer works and nothing has solved the problem (so it sounds like a server side error to me).

    2. This post has been deleted by its author

  5. PhilipN Silver badge

    Confused of Worthing asks ..

    Haven't they heard of mirrors? Or would that not have avoided this particular problem.

    And if not why not.

    1. Ashton Black

      Re: Confused of Worthing asks ..

      Since it was a DNS issue, I doubt a mirror would have helped, as the redirection to said mirror also uses DNS.

  6. Bob Vistakin
    Facepalm

    As usual, with Apple you pay more and get less

    Tut tut tut.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: As usual, with Apple you pay more and get less

      Because Google Play never goes down right?

      http://www.slashgear.com/google-experiencing-widespread-outage-affecting-most-services-05372258/

    2. The Crow From Below

      Re: As usual, with Apple you pay more and get less

      I know the article references an "idiot tax" but I can only conclude that you have some sort of idiot tax avoidance scheme because the force is damn strong in you if you've actually been paying to access the iTunes store.

  7. Annihilator
    Meh

    "The problems come at a rather inopportune time for Apple: the biz is enjoying acres of rapturous copy after CEO Tim Cook unveiled a new MacBook and set a firm release date for the Apple Watch."

    I'm sure they won't mind that much. Any story is a new story to click-bait users and at the bottom of all the articles about the outage there'll be another 8 "see also" stories about that watch. All it'll do is help them float back to the front page.

  8. Corin

    I do appreciate that they state the "Service is unavailable for all users" rather than the usual cruft that usually gets trotted out - "a limited proportion of users may have experienced slight difficulty."

  9. naive

    DNS is blamed quite often for front page outages

    May be i am imagining this, but often DNS is named as a reason for long term outages on major sites.

    I only manage micro sites compared to Apple, it is interesting to see what type of DNS issues can cause multiple hours of down time, if there was a change it should be easy to rollback ?.

  10. TechicallyConfused

    There seems to be rather a lot of DNS related issues lately. The other most notable one effected Sony and Samsung Smart TV;s recently. How is it that something so simple, established and previously almost foolproof is suddenly falling on its arse so often now?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Simple, DNS doesn't just die. The people and processes configuring and managing it do.

  11. Paul Bruneau

    Cupertino idiot-tax operation

    I appreciate a good jab, but it's just getting boring and not funny. Bye.

  12. Borg.King
    FAIL

    No Ethernet port. . .

    . . . on the new MacBook DNS server was to blame.

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