Latest on the Skype Outage

August 16, 2007
Skype's Villu Arak responded to all the rumors as to why the Skype network went down.

It's not due to any Microsoft patch(es) or any hacker attacks. Just some boring reason about an algorithm deficiency. Still pretty vague if you ask me, especially considering the hooplah surrounding this outage. In any event, here's what he said:

Hello everyone,

Apologies for the delay, but we can now update you on the Skype sign-on issue. As we continue to work hard at resolving the problem, we wanted to dispel some of the concerns that you may have. The Skype system has not crashed or been victim of a cyber attack. We love our customers too much to let that happen. This problem occurred because of a deficiency in an algorithm within Skype networking software. This controls the interaction between the user’s own Skype client and the rest of the Skype network.

Rest assured that everyone at Skype is working around the clock — from Tallinn to Luxembourg to San Jose — to resume normal service as quickly as possible.

(Updated at 10pm GMT)

Post a comment

See this page in TechnoratiTechnoratibook mark in del.icio.usDel.icio.usSlashdot.comSlashdotSubmit to Digg.comDigg

Tags: , ,

Search Technorati: , ,
Related Tags: ,

Listed below are links to sites that reference Latest on the Skype Outage:

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL:
http://blog.tmcnet.com/mt3/t.fcgi/33286

Comments to Latest on the Skype Outage


  1. Bo Desisk :
    August 16, 2007 6:03 PM

    What...not one good conspiracy theory on SKYPE?? Russian extortion, arab evil doers, microsoft, Karl Rove??? Come on? How can it go down worldwide for 24 hours on a glitch???


  1. Matt :
    August 16, 2007 8:21 PM

    When was the last time a network this big went down for this long? I can not remember anything close to this scale.

    I wonder who is in charge of fixing it. I can imagine the chain of command has broken down, no one knows whom to listen to, or what to do. If there is no data loss I will be very surprised. There will probably be case studies on this outage, what a black eye.

    If I had to guess what happened, an internal upgrade went horribly wrong and corrupted critical data and they are trying to bring the database back to a stable state. It is probably the old case that if they would have rebuilt from scratch and applied a backup it would have been fixed by now - but it probably seemed fixable so they have spent all this time 'fixing' it.

    -Matt


  1. Pascal (boo) :
    August 17, 2007 5:30 AM

    From Skype's Sten at 7.00AM GMT

    'Hey,

    even though it is too early to call out anything definite yet we are now seeing signs of improvement in our sign-on performance. We continue to monitor the situation through Europe waking up this morning and have more for you in approximately 4 hours.

    My client is now occasionally bringing in stacks of unread multichats. Hope yours too.'


    To me 'signs of improvement' means the are no nearer to finding a solution. Nobody I know has there service back. Now we see why all VoIP companies have to state that their services cannot be used for emergency calls. With regards to this outage; I cannot beleive that there in no connection with the major maintenance they carried out some hours beforehand. Or could there be a connection with the recent stocks/shares crash, LOL. Having said that I wish Skype all the best, and hope they solve this and learn some lessons from it.

    boopolo


  1. jhs :
    August 17, 2007 10:47 AM

    I am in Guatemala, it's morning, but it is afternon in Europe. Skype IS NOT WORKING! Mac OSX, if that matters. Very frustrating...


  1. Pascal (boo) :
    August 17, 2007 6:36 PM

    My skpe has been back for a few hours now. It was a bit shakey at the start (was loging in and out. There was over 5 million online 30 mins ago, but this has reduced to 4.3 million now. Am sure this is because of the time of day. My skype (via Fring) on my N95 is aso working fine now too.

    'If anything can go wrong, it will, and usually at the most inopportune moment' says Murphy.

    Whilst learning to fly light aircraft, I was thought about Murphy's Law and how to deal with it. Skype engineers take note.....

    Boopolo


(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)