Skype down?

September 16, 2004

Is it just me, or is Skype's website down today?

I also had some difficulty initiating a Skype call initially. First major Skype outage perhaps?

UPDATE! 12:00pm - Someone posted to my Comments that the DNS entry for Skype was removed somehow.
Is there foul play involved here or a simple accident? With Skype's popularity, i'm sure it has its share of enemies. I'll investigate and post here.

UPDATE #2: It looks like Andy Abramson discovered the same thing. We had problems making Skype calls, so it's not just the Skype website.

Update: 8/16/2007
Now in additon to the part DNS issue, today Skype is experiencing a major outage due to software issues. Check it out: Skype Outage



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Comments to Skype down?


  1. Keith Petersen :
    September 16, 2004 11:54 AM

    Tom, this is a DNS problem. www.skype.com has disappeared from the DNS. I have notified their DNS administrator.

    --Keith


  1. Keith Petersen :
    September 16, 2004 12:01 PM

    Tom, this is a DNS problem. www.skype.com has disappeared from the DNS. I have notified their DNS administrator.

    --Keith


  1. 8 :
    January 15, 2005 5:02 PM

    Skype.com still down; amazing that none of the net media has picked this one up -or is my IP caching their..non-existing..DNS?


  1. Steve :
    September 1, 2005 7:22 AM

    Skype is down , i have being tryin to get on for nearly 3 days , something is wrong ....
    This sithe error i get

    Network Error (tcp_error)


    A communication error occurred: "Operation timed out"
    The Web Server may be down, too busy, or experiencing other problems preventing it from responding to requests. You may wish to try again at a later time.

    For assistance, contact Customer Support


  1. Brian :
    December 15, 2005 10:50 AM

    Yes the sites down for me as well for two days.
    not that it matters but I'm on the eastcost NYC.
    cable modem optonline.net.

    I can ping skype.com IP returned is 198.63.210.250
    but no web site I dont know about making calls I formated my PC I need the software so I could not make calls.


  1. Yassin[TypeKey Profile Page] :
    November 14, 2006 4:52 AM

    Network Error (tcp_error)

    www.skype.com cannot be displyad, I don't know why, I got this message, can u please help me to download skype
    A communication error occurred: ""
    The Web Server may be down, too busy, or experiencing other problems preventing it from responding to requests. You may wish to try again at a later time.

    For assistance, contact Customer Support.


  1. Dirk :
    August 16, 2007 9:00 AM

    I'm not too sure whether not reaching skype.com and the failing Skype P2P network are related to each other. The technical reason should be different for sure. As far as I know, the Skype login servers do not rely on DNS but on (hard-coded) IP addresses.

    I might very well be that whatever caused the rupture of the network is long gone and that right now, it's only a bootstrapping problem that we experience: about 5 million nodes trying to log in to the same network might be some severe load. Skype is P2P but the login servers are centralized and constitute their single point of failure.


  1. thedeed :
    August 16, 2007 9:42 AM

    Skype was able to make calls last night, but now wont even connect this morning. Also the website is having problems (Page cannot be displayed)Im in the north Texas area.


  1. charley :
    August 16, 2007 10:24 AM

    Skype is down for me ths morning. The icon went grey and will not accept an online Green color 8-16-07


  1. charley :
    August 16, 2007 10:25 AM

    Skype is down for me ths morning. The icon went grey and will not accept an online Green color 8-16-07


  1. Sasha Cooper :
    August 16, 2007 10:32 AM

    New York, Sep 16, 2007 - skype is down. there's no connect


  1. Lynn :
    August 16, 2007 10:39 AM

    Hi -- Just discovered this on Skype's website, after trying repeatedly to login.

    UPDATED 16 August, 2007 14:02 GMT: Some of you may be having problems logging in to Skype. Our engineering team has determined that it’s a software issue. We expect this to be resolved within 12 to 24 hours. Meanwhile, you can simply leave your Skype client running and as soon as the issue is resolved, you will be logged in. We apologize for the inconvenience.


  1. Andre :
    August 16, 2007 11:13 AM

    interesting one.... skype is actually also down today. just came here via google as skype seems to be down all day today thursday the 16th of August...


  1. charles poncet :
    August 16, 2007 12:41 PM

    You bet the whole think is down ! I am in Austria, near KitzbĂ¼hl and nobody can connect although the internet connections work perfectly. Does any body know what the heck is going on ?


  1. chris killin :
    August 16, 2007 1:02 PM

    bummer.. back to AIM and Jangl. Hope they get this sorted, love skype IM


  1. skyper :
    August 16, 2007 2:04 PM

    Yea, this puts a real dent in my day. Time to watch those cell phone minutes tick away!


    ugh, FIX THIS!!!

    Wonder if subscribers will get some kind of compensation if this lasts more than 24 hours?


  1. JJ :
    August 16, 2007 2:33 PM

    Skype down all day for me also. Thanks for the updates.


  1. Pascal (boo) :
    August 16, 2007 5:24 PM

    Latest from skype's Villu Arak at:10pm GMT

    '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)


  1. Justin McArdle :
    August 16, 2007 6:27 PM

    Concerns???? It is down, man. Skype is no longer the lovable right-on world communicator. There's too much outright capitalism about Skype these days. Don't wait for any compensation - let's think of the interest Skype have gained on everyone's SkyeOut/In deposits which cannot be utilised. More seriously, it's a shame because it questions the viability of Skype as a reliable business tool. Hope they fix it soon. The outage coincided with the installation of my new router - spent most of the day scratching my head as to why Skype wasn't working. Learned a lot about port forwarding etc. before finally seeing the message on the Skype website. Very disgruntled!!!


  1. Lynn :
    August 17, 2007 10:17 AM

    Well, it's been over 24 hours and still no Skype service in North America, to my knowledge.

    Here's the latest on their website:
    "Hello all,

    As Europe has woken up to a new day and Asia is entering the evening hours, here’s the latest on the sign-on problem.

    We’re on the road to recovery. Skype is stabilizing, but this process may continue throughout the day.

    An encouraging number of users can now use Skype once again. We know we’re not out of the woods yet, but we are in better shape now than we were yesterday.

    Finally, we’d like to dispel a couple of theories that we are still hearing. Neither Wednesday’s planned maintenance of our web-based payment services nor any form of attack was related to the current sign-on issues in any way.

    We’ll update you again as soon as we can. Thanks for hanging tight."

    I'm hanging, Skype engineers. I'm hanging. But given that I just bought my membership two days ago, this doesn't bode well.


  1. Thomas :
    August 17, 2007 12:59 PM

    Also down all over Brazil...

    What the heck! I use it a lot and now it's gone for two day : p


  1. dan saunders :
    August 18, 2007 8:49 AM

    "we're on the road to recovery"

    "we're in better shape than we were yesterday"

    "skype is stabilizing"

    ....as far as i'm aware, Skype is not a sick cat....either they've found the problem and fixed it, or they haven't. What a load of old cobblers from Skype...it's stabilizing. Ha! sounds like they haven't got a clue what's wrong and they're praying for some divine intervention.

    It's not working in London either.


  1. voip list :
    September 12, 2007 11:38 AM

    definitely a pain when the entire network goes down. geesh man.


  1. Somu :
    September 20, 2007 12:45 AM

    dan saunders :

    August 18, 2007 8:49 AM


    "we're on the road to recovery"

    "we're in better shape than we were yesterday"

    "skype is stabilizing"

    ....as far as i'm aware, Skype is not a sick cat....either they've found the problem and fixed it, or they haven't. What a load of old cobblers from Skype...it's stabilizing. Ha! sounds like they haven't got a clue what's wrong and they're praying for some divine intervention.

    It's not working in London either.


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