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Skype Crashes and Burns In Worldwide Outage
Stoobalou writes "VoIP and instant messaging service Skype has disappeared from the Internet, nary a fortnight after Microsoft snaffled up the outfit in a $8.5 billion deal."
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Microsoft is not running Skype yet. It takes months for these deals to go through. And TFA suggests that Skype has never gone down before, which is BS. 'Disappeared from the Internet'? Seriously?
The only useful thing in this submission is that I learned the word 'snaffled.'
I confess to having run Internet publications using Skype as an instant messaging service for over seven years now.
In all that time the service has never once failed - until today.
So you don't remember December's outage, do you? Haters gonna hate.
maybe this is a european thing?
I call bullshit. From the article - "In all that time the service has never once failed - until today." Perhaps it never failed for the author previously, but Skype has had several notable outages in its history. I'm not huge fan of M$, but the article shows nothing to justify blaming this on M$.
So Skype is already adopting MS's reliability
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
Or, you know, it could just be a server issue. If you look, and ask Skype users, the outage is already over.
I know, not as fun as MS-bashing, but the best bashing is based on fact.
If you're lucky enough to live in North America that is. Google Voice isn't internationally available as far as I know.
Been connected to Skype, and chatting, all day. No issues. www.skype.com working just fine.
With statements like "has disappeared from the Internet" and "worldwide outage", I would expect to have... you know.. have noticed something?
So, let's rephrase TFS to something more like: "Some users/areas experiencing issues reaching Skype servers and services"
Step 1: Uninstall Skype
Step 2: Go to %AppData%\Skype\YourUsername rename config.xml to config.bak
Step 3: Go to %AppData%\Skype rename shared.xml to shared.bak
Step 4: Reinstall Skype
Step 5: Profit!
right...
there was a huge outage a couple months ago...
And I'm certain I've seen a skype outage story at slashdot in the past.
It's supposed to be "News For Nerds", just report actual fucking facts related to science or tech, and not anti-MS bullshit or what color muffin Steve Jobs had for breakfast!
Yeah but now all skype calls start with the windows 95 startup sound.....
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Anyone remember when Microsoft back in 2007 released an update to Windows that took out Skype's servers? Flooded Skype's servers for several days.
Skype was down for a while last December for millions of users
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/12/22/skype-down-for-millions-of-users
1) Poorly researched, out of date information.
2) Inaccurate, inflammatory headline.
3) Short, information-free stub.
Sure seems like him.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
I have an Ooma phone. Actually it's a device that plugs into my internet router, and into which you can plug regular landline phones.
It's like 15 bucks a *year* for taxes, and you get free calling in the US. No other charges. And you don't need to own a computer to use it. It's not like magic-jack where you need to have your computer running.
I also put 50 bucks in my pre-pay account, so I can use 411, and make international calls. The rates are competitive to skype rates for international calls. AND, you get a real landline phone number and can make calls to landline phone numbers. So instead of messing with a computer, when I want to make an international call, I just pick up the phone and dial. If someone calls me from another country, I tell them I'll call them back since it's cheaper for me than it would be for them.
Now the device is 200 bucks, but it's already paid for itself since I don't pay a telephone bill for a landline. And the call quality = that of any landline I've ever had.
No monthly fee. In a year, it pays for itself, and that's it. What a great deal! If you move, take your Ooma with you, and you KEEP THE SAME PHONE NUMBER no matter where you live, ( unless you want to change it ). Cell phones are nice, but they can be expensive. And if you are required to keep one for work, then having 2 in your pocket is annoying. Ooma is a way to have your OWN phone number forever for minimal money.
Why am I shilling? Because I want others to get a great deal. I don't want Ooma to go out of business because it gives customers such a good deal. ( I have no reason to suppose that it would.... ) For being such a good deal, I'll plug them once in a while.
...
Mod parent up.
For what? Being completely wrong? Skype is peer-to-peer.
Unlike other VoIP services, Skype is a peer-to-peer system rather than a client–server system, and makes use of background processing on computers running Skype software; the original name proposed – Sky peer-to-peer – reflects this.
The only central servers are for authentication. All the communication traffic is peer-to-peer, though sometimes it will go through a third peer to overcome networking issues.
There are also supernodes (sometimes skype owned) where many users connect to send and retrieve connection data (who's on, search, etc). A simple network traffic analyzer can confirm much of this.
If we both have a presence on the internet, there's no reason to involve a third party for us to communicate.
If you have medium term stable IPs and your own domain (though you could argue that relying on DNS is relying on a third party) then I would agree with you.
Most client machines don't have that. Many are behind NATs and even those that aren't may not have stable IPs. P2P should be used for the actual call data where possible but servers are needed to keep track of users locations and (if you want to provide a reliable service to those behind NAT*) to provide a fallback path for call data in the event that P2P transmission is not acheivable.
What we should really be doing is a system similar to email. With email you can either rely on a third party or host it yourself if you have an appropriate connection and there is no reason the same can't be done for VOIP.
* SIP doesn't really get on very well with NAT and worse the provider I used liked to pin the blame on NAT for half-calls despite the fact they had worked fine in the past with the same NAT.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
The evidence for it being p2p is:
The evidence against it being p2p is:
(All being things which don't happen in a p2p system, unless at least some vital part of it isn't p2p.)
Look at the evidence and decide. I'd say look at the source, but Skype doesn't give you that. That's right folks, they don't allow security auditing for -- no, not a game .. no, not a 3d driver -- a communications tool. I am struggling to think of a class of applications (which aren't specialized for certain industries, like nuclear, medical, aviation, etc -- I mean stuff used by "regular people") where that's more necessary.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
and they've not planted any of their executives on the board or in high places within Skype like the Nokia deal neither. Unless we see there's cause or reason for the Microsoft-ification of Skype should start before the ink is dry, we'll have to accept that it's only fun blaming Microsoft for stuff like this.
And here's another theory based on nothing, a mass exodus of geeks from Skype who don't want to work for Microsoft either left or decided key parts of an update weren't in their best interest in bothering with. ala "oops, just kidding" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBkf0nAGqi0
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
They explained this after the last outage if you read their blog. Basically they have a defensive measure in their P2P system to prevent client machines from getting overworked and burning through bandwidth, so after a supernode hits a certain level of use, it shuts down for a period. This increases the load on other super nodes which then shut down, etc, etc until it results in a waterfall collapse of the network because there are too many clients and not enough coordinators. Since new clients can't reach a supernode (coordinator in my terms), they can not connect to the network and once enough super nodes go down, the network fractures and collapses. That's always been the problem with decentralized systems, they can only deal with so much change before they break. Some break more gracefully in to sub-networks to isolate themselves, but in the case of Skype, that doesn't really make sense. Instead they designed it to all work or all break. To some extent it will break gracefully by not allowing new connections, but some situations still will break it regardless.
AJ Henderson
"lucky enough to live in North America" ... how we laughed :)
Even if we accept that Microsoft is exercising some level of control over Skype (an event I'd consider highly unlikely this early into the process, but believe what you want), there's still no way they'd be performing a major infrastructure change like a full OS changeover this quickly. I doubt you could get the code ported this quickly, let alone get it tested, a deployment plan written, everyone read into the plan, etc, etc. This isn't like replacing the OS on your home PC. We're talking hundreds or thousands of servers, running custom code, deployed internationally. If Microsoft decides to switch them over to Windows (and they may), it won't be a rush job done a few weeks after the announcement of intent to purchase. It'll happen after months of work and planning, and after the sale is final.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.