HN Explorer

Ask HN: Is Apple down?

253 points by crgt ↗ HN
https://developer.apple.com doesn't work App Store doesn't work iMessage doesn't work. Not just me - coworkers also struggling.

Any idea what's going on?

117 comments

[ 6.2 ms ] story [ 182 ms ] thread
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SlimyHog
Yeah, I'm seeing anecdotal reports of a bunch of services out
novateg
Down for me via CloudFlare WARP
hit8run
For me in Germany: iMessage up App Store up Developer site down
rateofclimb
App Store Connect was down for me but appears to be up again now.
chewmieser
Definitely. Downdetector shows a bunch of reports too (e.g. https://downdetector.com/status/apple-music/). I noticed issues with Music and News, seems like a ton of their services are down
callalex
Downdetector has predicted about 50 of the last 3 outages, and linking to them here just makes the self-fueling cycle even worse.
chewmieser
I think they’re about as useful as any anecdotal data out there. Unusually high numbers of reports when you’re seeing issues yourself is about as good as it gets until a status page is updated (which it thankfully has been finally).
cmg
They're fine for knowing that something is going on, but not great for knowing exactly what the cause is.

For example, when Facebook's services went down in October, people were reporting that AT&T and other cell carriers were down because they couldn't open the apps. As far as I know there wasn't an outage with any of the carriers that day.

samwillis
I chose the perfect time to restore a repaired iPhone, don’t seem to be able to fully login to iCloud, it’s hanging on the login screen…

Edit: It’s also refusing to download any apps, doesn’t even show the progress circle. Just a download icon next to the app name on the Home Screen and errors out when you click it.

Edit: Login and app downloads now working as of 6.00GMT

spike021
iMessage texts are working fine for me but an image I sent to a friend is stuck. Music is also down for me.
synaesthesisx
Yes. Even developer.apple.com won't load at all for me. Who wants to take bets on DNS as the culprit?
tshaddox
Yep.

Wife: My Apple Maps isn't working.

Me: Hmm, it's not working for me either. They must be having server problems. You should use Google Maps for now.

Wife: I can't download Google Maps either, the App Store doesn't seem to be working.

moepstar
Maps, App Store, iMessage on macOS works

They work on iOS as well - so it seems to be a regional thing?

(Location: Germany)

traceroute66
I agree. Regional.

Guessing the issues are centered on North America.

hamaluik
Maps and iMessage are working for me in Canada, but not music.
Twisell
On my side in France apple Map only partially work. Basemap are displaying correctly but query and routing function are unreachables. "Domain name not found" (translated from french). So it could be a DNS meltdown?

Usually basemap because they are heavy are served through a separate CDN.

RandallBrown
Everything in the App Store was working for me except actually downloading apps. Seems to be (mostly) resolved now.
FinnKuhn
for me the search function also refused to work, but the start page loaded without a problem... downloading an app still seems to not work though...
zionic
Yeah I posted about that here (this just bit me) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30757193 and I was flagged to oblivion.

Looks like I really need to keep a 3rd party nav app installed just in case!

8ytecoder
Always. Here maps is a good backup solution. It allows you to download pretty much the entire world - if you have the space in your phone.
savoytruffle
I always use Apple Maps, but once in a while if I'm in an unfamiliar city and the Apple Maps directions seem suspiciously weird, it is useful to have Google Maps app for a sanity check. (directions to a particular pier at the Seattle waterfront were insanely incorrect via Apple)
BrightOne
Try Organic Maps - offline-first OpenStreetMap app. It's really good!
donarb
Both Apple Maps and Google Maps work in the browser, no need for an app.
rileymat2
I would not say need, but the connection from the device to carplay is really nice.
tshaddox
Probably true, but we wanted it for driving directions via CarPlay and were in a bit of a rush. The car's built-in navigation (which we otherwise never use) ended up working fine, but the browser versions probably would have been my next attempt.
[dead] tormock
danaris
Can Android read a .ipa? Or is it illiterate?

Can Linux (natively) read a .exe? Or is it illiterate?

Can Windows read a .app bundle? Or is it illiterate?

tormock
yes yes and yes (to the second questions)

But Linux is not illiterate if you have common sense

rzzzt
Objdump can read .exe files:

  $ objdump -f rufus.exe

  rufus.exe:     file format pei-i386
  architecture: i386, flags 0x00000103:
  HAS_RELOC, EXEC_P, D_PAGED
  start address 0x007cfe70
Edit: Windows can list the contents of a macOS .app as a directory, as they are little more than that
pram
Fun fact: Windows executables have a COFF header which is straight from ancient versions of UNIX.
asvitkine
Can you use the web version of Google maps?
jandorn
Yes. I have been doing that for quite some time.
divbzero
Same with my Apple Maps over the course of an hour this morning.

Rough order of events:

1. Not working (could not find server)

2. Not working (request timeout)

3. Restart app

4. Working

Perhaps DNS was broken for awhile and restarting the app cleared the DNS cache and forced a fresh IP lookup?

donohoe
You wouldn't think it if you went by this:

https://www.apple.com/support/systemstatus/

ransom1538
That is just a static github page with html. These are just green dots on a screen.
Twisell
Well make sense to me to host your status page outside your main infrastructure.
oxplot
A lot of system status pages are updated by humans who will verify issues before reporting them. Main reason is to avoid overly surface every minor and transitory issue to public view.
_joel
Quite easy to verify if the entire developer site is down though, non?
brianpan
It's very easy, except when it's hard. Also, it's never easy.

Joking, but only somewhat. That's because the easy cases are handled by automation, etc. If you knew it could happen, you probably planned for it. Figuring out what the issue is, if there really is an issue, and the scope of the issue can take some time.

Someone
No. “Doesn’t respond for me” doesn’t imply “down for lots of people”. If you discover that foo.com doesn’t respond, it takes a while to figure out whether that’s on your system, in your network, in the city, etc.

Yes, you would set up multiple hosts across the world polling that server, but that adds complexity. Maybe, those pollers decide the site is down because of a bug in your network setup, while the rest of the world happily uses your services.

_joel
Pingdom seem to manage it. Pretty sure one of the FAANGS could to. I appreciate an obscure managed service might be a bit diffcult, but main developer site?
Someone
My response was to “Quite easy to verify if the entire developer site is down though, non?”

I never claimed it’s impossible, just that it isn’t “quite easy”, especially to check that the “entire developer site is down”. The home page may be down, with the rest being up, the home page may be up, with the rest being down, etc.

adwi
I’m sure it wasn’t when you posted 10 minutes prior, but FWIW currently listing 11 outages:

> App Store - Outage Today, 12:32 PM - ongoing Some users are affected Users may be experiencing intermittent issues with this service.

Apple Arcade - Outage Today, 12:32 PM - ongoing Some users are affected This service may be slow or unavailable.

Apple Music - Outage Today, 12:32 PM - ongoing Some users are affected This service may be slow or unavailable.

Apple TV+ - Outage Today, 12:32 PM - ongoing Some users are affected Users may be experiencing a problem with Apple TV+. We are investigating this issue.

iTunes Store - Outage Today, 12:32 PM - ongoing Some users are affected This service may be slow or unavailable.

Podcasts - Outage Today, 12:32 PM - ongoing Some users are affected Users are experiencing a problem with this service. We are investigating and will update the status as more information becomes available.

Radio - Outage Today, 12:32 PM - ongoing Some users are affected This service may be slow or unavailable.

Apple Business Manager - Outage Today, 1:14 PM - ongoing Some users are affected Users may be unable to sign in.

Apple School Manager - Outage Today, 1:14 PM - ongoing Some users are affected Users may be unable to sign in.

Device Enrollment Program - Outage Today, 1:14 PM - ongoing Some users are affected Users are experiencing a problem with this service. We are investigating this issue.

Schoolwork - Outage Today, 1:14 PM - ongoing Some users are affected This service may be slow or unavailable.

nneonneo
Looks like it’s been updated. Currently showing 11 services down, some of which have been down for over an hour.
brown9-2
the domain name developer.apple.com resolves through a series of CNAMEs to Apple's CDN (applimg.com), which if it was down would explain other things like iMessage also being unavailable.
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1023bytes
Yeah, for me the CNAME chain ends with apple-lr.g.aaplimg.com, which doesn't resolve to anything
variant
Some reports that there were DNSSEC validation issues w/ proxy.safebrowsing.apple which CNAMEs to aaplimg.com.
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ComputerGuru
It’s coinciding with an AWS outage. Probably not unrelated.
donatj
My Apple Music stopped working mid song and is being weird now. Everything seems to be working fine for my wife. Weirdly spotty.
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