
Slack is down - tspike
https://status.slack.com/
======
diggan
When things like this happen, I start thinking how much we got some things
wrong, especially things like chat.

Here I sit, with my colleagues, connected to the same network, with the same
application open, but we cannot write to each other, because some backend
server in the US have a problem.

How in the world could this not have been fixed yet? Our internet backbone
addiction is seriously crippling us when things go sour. Not thinking
specifically about Slack, but other more mission-critical tools that just...
stops working because they cannot ask the time from their backend server.

We seriously need P2P systems (without blockchains please) that can be used by
normal applications to solve issues like this. Offline and local network
communication should be obligatory today.

~~~
rwmj
Why not simply use IRC?

~~~
throwanem
Because, while you can by dint of extreme effort produce a user experience
with IRC that's broadly comparable with what Slack offers out of the box,
doing so requires so much relatively rare expertise, and so much more support
investment, that it's not cost-effective to do so.

~~~
walrus01
We have an IRC server that lives in private IP space and is only accessible by
VPN. It was not rocket science to set up. If you think that running ircd-
hybrid on debian requires "rare" expertise, then your definition of rare and
mine do not exactly match.

~~~
throwanem
Running an ircd doesn't require rare expertise. Running an IRC infrastructure
that your sales team can and will use, that's as reliable as Slack is - well.

~~~
u801e
Is using an IRC client any less intuitive compared to using a locally
installed Slack client (or, in the past, using something like AIM, MSN
Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, Google talk, etc)?

~~~
throwanem
No, as long as you pick a client that supports automatic image unfurling, file
sharing via some cloud storage service or other, a broad range of emoji
including customizable ones (people care more than you think!), _and_ run a
bouncer so your users don't lose their entire scrollback every time they
disconnect.

I'm not saying that an IRC experience comparable to Slack _can 't_ be
achieved. I'm saying that it is so much work to do so that, for many
organizations, just paying Slack a few bucks a user makes a lot more sense
than sinking scarce and vastly more expensive engineer time into reinventing
that particular wheel.

~~~
walrus01
There are a number of people that will say automatic image unfurling and file
sharing are unwanted features which also pose security risks, if you want to
operate a truly internal-only text chat system...

~~~
throwanem
If you want a truly internal-only text chat system for security reasons,
you're not looking at Slack to begin with.

------
tcarn
But the stupid status page says it's still up.... this is like S3 all over
again

[https://status.slack.com/](https://status.slack.com/)

~~~
mtrpcic
I swear, most of these status pages could just be static HTML with how
inaccurate they are during an actual outage.

~~~
tcarn
HN Could make a killing selling a saas product that monitors if sites are up.
Honestly it's more reliable at this point.

~~~
snoman
Ostensibly, that already exists:
[https://www.statuspage.io/](https://www.statuspage.io/)

------
p2t2p
Hooray! Everybody can do some work now, without distractions! Be swift
everybody, that’s your rare chance!

~~~
themoat
He typed on Hacker News...

~~~
p2t2p
Yep, that’s another funny part :)

------
grafelic
Mmmh, how peaceful it feels. Like someone turned Internet loudness off and the
balance has shifted to life for a while.

------
decentrality
For the past few weeks there have been a series of 500 errors accumulating on
strangely easy API requests ( like user presence detection ) on an increasing
number of endpoint hits, more and more frequently.

~~~
tcarn
Agreed. Also issues with the sidebar loading and the mentions bar loading.

------
oppositelock
Slack going down really did something strange at my workplace. My cube-
neighbors started talking to me using their mouths, instead of sending Slack
messages. It was very disconcerting.

------
dabber
Bitbucket is also having issues since at least 13:47 UTC.

[https://status.bitbucket.org/](https://status.bitbucket.org/)

~~~
penetrarthur
Yeah, had problems all day today!

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amelius
The silly thing is that Slack is perfectly shardable, as teams cannot
communicate with other teams, so a global failure like this isn't necessary.

~~~
vhost-
Slack has shared channels: [https://get.slack.help/hc/en-
us/articles/115004151203-Create...](https://get.slack.help/hc/en-
us/articles/115004151203-Create-shared-channels-on-a-workspace-beta-)

------
Sir_Cmpwn
No problem, I'll just switch to a different server on this IRC network... oh.

------
sitkack
Maybe someone ran the client on the server.

------
closed
first thought after closing: peace at long last

~~~
tcarn
Shudder at the thought of sending an email lol

~~~
sprkyco
Someone replied to our internal outage notification and replied to everyone@
with a gif. The chaos has begun.

------
jtrujillo
Now time to go to twitter and read all of the tweets about slack being down.

~~~
JdeBP
Why, when you can come to Hacker News and read all of the duplicate postings?
(-:

* [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16109335](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16109335)

* [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16109132](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16109132)

* [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16109140](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16109140)

* [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16109194](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16109194)

* [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16108912](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16108912)

------
oplav
Update on status page:
[https://status.slack.com/2018-01/d8cf1517de9ecfa8](https://status.slack.com/2018-01/d8cf1517de9ecfa8)

------
patrickg_zill
Mattermost is a self hosted alternative to Slack. Very happy with it.

------
DonHopkins
There was a Glitch in the Matrix!

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glitch_(video_game)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glitch_\(video_game\))

------
sethlesky
Is Slack's status page down as well? I can't reach
[https://status.slack.com/](https://status.slack.com/)

~~~
mesofile
same here (mid-Atlantic, Verizon) edit: although I am now able to chat on
Slack with some colleagues, the status page is still down for me

------
anonu
What's the problem here? This is the 2nd time I recall a major outage in the
last few months. How can they get something so wrong? Where's the resiliency
and failover? What could possibly happen that causes such a system-wide
failure?

Granted - I've never built or run any system on such a scale as Slack - but I
think that I would have either 1. learned from past experience 2. built some
anti-fragility into the thing...

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Everybody _thinks_ they have resiliency and failover. But like any software,
until you try it, it doesn't work. It has to be debugged. And nobody is
willing to put up entire data centers to try recovery from a system-wide
failure. Especially not a startup company.

~~~
QasimK
I think Netflix struck a good balance with their Chaos Monkey tool.

------
empath75
Guys can someone check all my jenkins builds for me and tell me what's going
on, i'm flying blind here.

~~~
forgot-my-pw
It's ok, bitbucket is down too. Let's take a break!

------
ryanbertrand
Even the status page is down for me.

------
decentrality
Back online //

------
coldcode
It says to clear cache and restart. Now its sitting there...

~~~
decentrality
That was a notice posted for yesterday.

------
triangleman
Lastpass is also down.

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derptacos
Ah, good someone else! Thought it was the coffee shop internet.

------
teddyc
same

