back to article Hello? HELLO? Major Skype outage hits folk WORLDWIDE

Microsoft-owned video chat service Skype has 'fessed up to a major outage affecting its customers, promising it is "working on a quick fix" to the problem. The problem appeared to start just after 9am BST. In a statement the company said: We have detected an issue with the status settings of Skype. Affected users will not be …

  1. Dan 55 Silver badge
    Black Helicopters

    That's Skype, the P2P network

    Or, it was...

    1. Voland's right hand Silver badge

      Re: That's Skype, the P2P network

      _WAS_. Long ago. The architecture has stopped being true P2P for a while now (mostly because of the legal intercept limitations in a P2P environment).

      1. Mage Silver badge

        Re: That's Skype, the P2P network

        I use QQ now on Windows, I'm more comfortable being spied on by China than NSA and GCHQ as I'm not Chinese. Sadly doesn't work on Linux (ironically Skype works better on Linux than Windows!). There is always email and IRC if it's just text chat rather than voice or video. QQ video has better features too.

        1. frank ly

          @Mage Re: That's Skype, the P2P network

          "Sadly doesn't work on Linux ..."

          Is that the Linux version of QQ doesn't work, or the Windows version doesn't run in WINE, or .... ?

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: That's Skype, the P2P network

          Pidgin has a QQ plugin

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Paris Hilton

        Re: That's Skype, the P2P network

        >"(mostly because of the legal intercept limitations in a P2P environment)"

        "legal"? WTF?

        Did you REALLY, SERIOUSLY mean to imply that the greater relative difficulty of ILLEGAL interception bore ABSOLUTELY NO weight in the decision for NSAFT to buy and "re-implement" Skype with the P2P architecture and cryptography both conspicuously subverted?

        >"(mostly because of the intercept limitations in a P2P environment)"

        There... FTFY O:)

    2. petur

      Re: That's Skype, the P2P network

      Funny that, I actually stopped using skype due to it being p2p, when my home computer was selected as supernode and ate through my bandwidth and volume in no time.

      1. Nym

        Re: That's Skype, the P2P network

        Using Win 10? Unless you've changed Update Settings you're on a TOR there and I just don't comprehend the idea of a network whose security can't be breached. Especially (pardon me, but I am a skeptic) when it's Micro-Cephalic. Soft. Soft. I mean SOFT.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: That's Skype, the P2P network

      Maybe they haven't migrated it all to Azure yet and it still uses AWS?

      1. Phil_Evans

        Re: That's Skype, the P2P network

        Maybe they have :-D

  2. Andy Non Silver badge

    It's down in France too.

    I was beginning to think something serious was happening as Skype has spent all morning offline and trying to connect. Just glad Microsoft haven't "retired" Skype for Linux, which was my main concern.

  3. CAPS LOCK

    Unable to sign in here

    So instant messaging NOT being delivered...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Unable to sign in here

      >> So instant messaging NOT being delivered... <<

      When it first fell over, I thought the same.

      I can't apparently log on either. I can't see the status of my contacts - they all show as offline. However, I can double click the contact and IM as normal, despite this.

      HTH

    2. jonathanb Silver badge

      Re: Unable to sign in here

      I was able to send instant messages between my personal account on my phone and my work account even though neither were logged in.

  4. max allan

    No voice calls with Skype Web

    A colleague and I just tried Skype Web and it failed to connect a voice call.

    That may be due to Mac/PC reasons rather than Skype reasons though.

    (NB You can't even try to make calls from Chrome on Mac, you have to use Safari. I never tried it before to know if it should work or not.)

    Someone is getting fired over this!

  5. Mike VandeVelde
    Alert

    Canada: bed thoroughly shat in over here as well - unable to log in

    "engineers regard any system that’s actually working as a temporary anomaly"

    1. Nym

      Re: Canada: bed thoroughly shat in over here as well - unable to log in

      "RTFM, you idiot!"

      "I can't read, there is no manual and I don't comprehend the other part! I'm a janitor, damn it!"

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It is just me...

    ... or this trend of "enhancing" news with screenshots of twits is getting really annoying?

    Twitpics or it didn't happen?

    Then again I *am* old.

    1. PhilipN Silver badge

      Re: It is just me...

      Not just you.

      But be grateful El Reg is not asking punters for personalised stories, "email us if you were there", and "tell us how gutted you were so our readers can empathise and experience by proxy because we do not have any reporters there and even if we did their editorials are pathetic" a la Auntie Beeb.

      1. JetSetJim

        Re: It is just me...

        Fascinating that someone was on it watching "their parents giving birth" though. Not something I'd be keen on sharing with earlier progeny, but I guess the world is made up of lots of different people.

        1. ZSn

          Re: It is just me...

          Giving birth is probably better than 'shitting a brick'.

    2. KevCoffeeJunkie

      Re: It is just me...

      Not sure about annoying but posting ones complaining of someone's inability to use a webcam for reasons Freud would write entire textbooks on certainly slowed my scrolling.

    3. Nym

      Re: It is just me...

      And the other screenshots are of tw...that would sound too sexist, when I'm trying to point out the sexism as well as agreeing with the lack of originality--the sexism will bring the clicks, we males have been conditioned to do some of our 'thinking'--never mind. The point is made, or I should be shot. Probably both.

  7. John Doe 6

    Just checked from Denmark (the country in northern Europe)

    ...and it is down here too.

    1. NorthernCoder

      Re: Just checked from Denmark (the country in northern Europe)

      Same thing across the Sound (i.e. southern Sweden) since 9 or 10 this morning.

  8. Britt
    Facepalm

    News from the front, I had to email a funny picture instead of bunging it in Skype.. the horror.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I offer reasonably priced consulting to help you cope with this ordeal.

    2. stucs201

      Even worse some people have even had to use their phones to make phone calls.

      1. DropBear

        But, but, but... Skype doesn't work on my phone either!

        ....what? You mean I can make calls without Skype too on this thing?!? Huh... who knew...

      2. ZSn

        App?

        Wait - there's an app for making a call. Where did you get that from?

      3. Nym

        My god, think if someone were forced to use a dial phone!!!!

  9. Your alien overlord - fear me

    Forcing you to use the new Skype in the Edge browser - very suttle Microsoft

    1. Billa Bong

      huh?

      Web Skype works for me in firefox... not sure why anyone would want to fire up Edge just because Skype for Desktop is scuppered...

  10. Michael Kean

    A temporary boon for Facebook Messenger and the like...

  11. simonb_london

    If its any consolation, Bitchat and Bleep aren't "down".

    1. Geoff May

      "Bitchat"

      Is that "Bitch At" or "Bit Chat"?

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Did the cleaner unplug the wrong plug again?

    1. Anonymous South African Coward Bronze badge

      Or they had some serious legacy hardware which they did not (or could not) replace in time, and now something borked...

  13. Mig 31

    Down in Spain

    Down here in Spain.

    Nothing was posted on their status page earlier this morning when I looked

  14. Anonymous South African Coward Bronze badge
    Trollface

    Maybe some n00b engineer decided to run software updates on a critical server, borking something in the process. Or it could be some spammah/pornbot throwing a hissy fit because I've told her off because of her small titties....

    We use a Polycom video conferencing system. Many times I wished to kick it out, and installing Skype instead of that.

    Now I'm glad I didn't...

    Skype services still offline in South Africa. Not going to break my head about that. They'll sort it out in due course.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    NSA upgrade... like last time

    1. Nym

      They upgraded it to Homeland Security, actually...

  16. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    Repeat after me

    The Cloud is magical. The Cloud solves all your problems. The Cloud is always with you. The Cloud is always reliable.

    At least that's the drivel Cloud apologists wish us to believe.

    But they never have to contend with reality.

    1. lotus49

      Re: Repeat after me

      Clearly services that aren't cloud based never go down, which makes them so much better.

      If all the services I use were as reliable as Skype has been over the years I've used it, I'd be pretty pleased.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Well deserved, since some idiot decided to scoop my adress book from Skype

    After one of the latest updates I found my all of my address book numbers in Skype.

    It turned out it was a new option added in the mobile version, and turned on by default.

    Nadella's Microsoft has done a nasty turn, and it's getting worse than it was before. But I'm sure the "freeeee stuuuuf" will blind people like Google did before.

    1. largefile

      Re: Well deserved, since some idiot decided to scoop my adress book from Skype

      So basically there is nothing that Microsoft can do that would make you happy. If they charged for everything they would be greedy pigs and if they give stuff away they are greedy pigs. Guess you must be waiting for a non-profit company to come to your rescue.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Well deserved, since some idiot decided to scoop my adress book from Skype

        No, it may just not be convenient if your alter ego is Fisting Bondage Master from Acton and damn Skype wants to add your family, friends, and business contacts.

        Fucking Microsoft can change the settings 'cos they think it is what people want, seeming to ignore fact those users have a brain, and can add whomsoever they choose, without someone in the app development team choosing for them, with no "skip" option.

  18. SecretSonOfHG

    "change status" means from disconnected to connected

    As of now, Skype login takes multiple attempts, and it works once in a blue moon, only long enough to disconnect itself after a few seconds, enough to get the outstanding messages in IM conversations (are you there? and such) updated.

    I'd say that being able to log into the service, while technically a "status change" is way more serious than it sounds from Skype's statement.

    Good chance for Hangouts I guess, which has worked nicely so far. Perhaps it would be enough to convince management of switching. We're already on company paid Google accounts after all.

    1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: "change status" means from disconnected to connected

      Perhaps the 'Sky'pe has been 'Obscured By Clouds'?

  19. kgamarketing

    Skype for web also out

    The statement that Skype for web is unaffected is bullshit - here is what my attempt to web connect is telling me ... "Oops, something went wrong... We're having technical problems. We're sorry for the inconvenience. Please try again after a few minutes." That was four hours ago and still counting.

  20. Jess

    Instant messages are still being delivered as usual.

    The service would have to be out for several days to tell any difference to their 'instant' message.

    I just had a video chat to a friend, however that was using standard sip protocol (videophone/jitsi)

    Here is a rather useful sip/webrtc service:

    https://www.getonsip.com/webrtc/

    Provides sip accounts, and a web interface (voice works to normal sip, but video only works to other browsers) and a url that can call your account, without the other end signing up for anything.

  21. Paul Hovnanian Silver badge
    Joke

    Hello? Hello?

    This is Major Skype with a person-to-person call for General Failure.

  22. DeVino
    Thumb Up

    Hey baby

    My company's IM solution.

    Nice to have a day of not being contacted by Nigerians pretending to be open-minded, insolvent girls.

  23. Andy Non Silver badge
    FAIL

    Still down

    12 hours+ and still down. Emphasis definitely on the "major" outage. Would love to know the cause, wonder if Microsoft will eventually elaborate.

  24. Androgynous Cowherd

    Holy sheete. Email it is then.

    1. Hans 1
      Boffin

      Ever heard of WebRTC, preview of Edge supports it as well, along with Chrome and Firefox, Hello ?

  25. lotus49

    It's a bloody disgrace

    They give me something for nothing that has worked pretty well for years and then gets a bit flaky for a few hours.

    It's outrageous. I expect 100% availability for a service if I've paid £0 for it. If they don't buck their ideas up, I'll take my £0 elsewhere.

    1. Andy Non Silver badge

      Re: It's a bloody disgrace

      If you pay nothing you can't complain. I have a paid account and use Skype to make international calls to people who only have land-lines. The calls are dirt cheap too and the credit doesn't expire if you don't use it by a set time. The uptime has been impressive; this is the first time Skype has failed in all the years I've been using it, so can't complain. I just hope this isn't a sign of things to come or that the outage lasts much longer.

      1. M Mouse

        Re: It's a bloody disgrace

        LOL Andy, you surely saw it was a piss-take... making much the same point...

        Dirt cheap (free in many cases) comms outage hits, big deal [[ NOT ]]

        Quite understand paid users being a bit miffed, just as I was when my landlines went down 3 times for several days each time... landlineS and therefore my two broadband connections. OK, not both at once, so just slight irritation, but service problems are why I have more than 1 line and more than 2 "unlimited data" ISP accounts.

  26. Barry Rueger

    So Disappointed

    Really folks, has no one else thought to suggest that this is because Microsoft insisted that Skype's servers be upgraded to Windows 10?

    (Yeah, yeah, I don't even know if there's a Win 10 server software, and am too busy to look.)

  27. Dave559 Silver badge

    Linphone

    Has anyone tried Linphone as a (SIP standards-based) alternative to Skype?

    As somebody who has been on the internet for longer than I care to remember, I find it annoying and perplexing that almost every New Shiny Thing these days seems to be based around closed proprietary protocols, meaning that users get locked in and there isn't the advantage of competing clients (or competing servers) that you can use if the Shiny Thing soils itself..

    Linphone seems to be available for most desktop and mobile platforms, and, apart from the fact that I only found out about it recently and it doesn't seem to be very well-known, it looks like it could be pretty good.

    http://www.linphone.org/

    1. M Mouse

      Re: Linphone

      SIP is probably recognised by anyone reading ElReg, so links and comments like this could prompt some to assume (A) it may be the author, hoping for publicity or (B) it could include malware.

      Not claiming this is case A or B but to perhaps explain why I, and I assume many others, rarely visit such sites.

      1. Dave559 Silver badge

        Re: Linphone

        I take your point, that possibly did look a bit potentially spammy, but then perhaps wouldn't any post that attempts to share information about any lesser-known service?

        You may be right that many (I think 'all' might still be a bit generous) Reg readers might know about the SIP protocol, but it's everybody else who started to use Skype because they had originally heard about it from a friend that maybe also needs to hear about what other alternatives also exist. It's through the human network effect that any program and protocol becomes well-known and gains market share.

        I'm not involved with Linphone in any way (it is open-source software developed by a company in France created by its original developer); I could equally well have highlighted Ekiga, but it is not available on as many platforms, unfortunately.

        Without checking the source code and the binaries myself (beyond my skills), I have no means to check whether Linphone may contain any malware, the same as for any software. I have just enough faith in humanity (possibly misplaced, in this day and age) to hope that most FOSS developers are creating software for decent and honest reasons, which, unfortunately, is often more than can be said for many New Shiny Thing proprietary communication programs which seem to have as an aim from the start to snarf your contacts list, carry out data mining, serve ads, etc..

        Many people are also very reluctant to trust Skype, come to that, for exactly the same reasons!

  28. Stuart21551

    Why didn't they post 'IT'S NOT YOU' on their support homepage?

  29. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Here in Southern France the skyBox has been down since Saturday. The local TV man cannot handle it, doesn't return phone calls anymore. Not at the moment anyway.

  30. Hans 1
    Unhappy

    Christ, really, so many still using Skype on here ? It saddens me to read this. You guyz, here, are the finest IT techies the world has on offer and you use Skype ???

    Eavesdropping by design, phishing by design, ALL YOUR DATA IS BELONG TO MS.

    The world is a Sad place, I tell ya!

    1. Dave559 Silver badge

      Hans 1, out of curiosity, what software do you use for videocalls?

      (I, also, would be very wary of trusting Skype)

  31. DToma

    I don't use Skype. I did install it once, before it became part of hotmail; but, was not impressed. So, I uninstalled it and have not used it since.

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