Status Problems Break Skype For Many Users; Quick Fix Promised

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Status Problems Break Skype For Many Users; Quick Fix Promised

Posted by timothy on Monday September 21, 2015 @12:47AM from the by-the-time-you-read-this dept.

Many Skype users have been affected this morning by a glitch which has rendered the service unusable or only semi-usable. The BBC says that problems have been reported in Japan, the UK, and Australia, and that Skype support staff have promised a "quick fix." A message on the Skype page says "f you're signed in to Skype, you will not be able to change your status and your contacts will all show as offline even if they are online. As a result, you won't be able to start Skype calls to them.. A small number of messages to group chats are not being delivered, but in most cases you can still instant message your contacts.. If you aren't signed in to Skype, you may be experiencing difficulty when attempting to sign in. Any changes to your Skype account such as your Credit balance or your profile details might take a little while to be displayed."

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Yeah i already noticed by fisted · 2015-09-21 00:48 · Score: 0

that the internet was broken today.

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Broken since 09:00 UTC by Erik+Hensema · 2015-09-21 00:58 · Score: 3, Informative

Skype has been broken since 09:00 UTC. That's about 5 hours now. I think we can safely say that the quick fix didn't happen.

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1. Re:Broken since 09:00 UTC by NotInHere · 2015-09-21 01:13 · Score: 2
  
  Damn, their uptime this year will be less than 99,94%!
  http://www.wolframalpha.com/in...
  http://www.wolframalpha.com/in...
2. Re:Broken since 09:00 UTC by Dutcher · 2015-09-21 01:18 · Score: 1
  
  Skype has been broken since 09:00 UTC. That's about 5 hours now. I think we can safely say that the quick fix didn't happen.
  Its very, very annoying! It's the third time this month that I have problems with Skype.
3. Re:Broken since 09:00 UTC by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-21 01:44 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  5 hours is a long time to find, fix, test, and deploy a fix in your mind? Seriously?.
  If I recall correctly, Gmail once went down due to some kind of a severe bug. The fix took 5 minutes.
  No, fix to the main issue was not made in 5 minutes, but the service was back and operational in 5 minutes. Their automated malfunction detection reverted to a previous software version.
  The end result is still the same: only 5 minutes of downtime for users, which qualifies as "fixed".
  
  I think we can safely say that you don't develop software for a living, or at least that if you do then you are completely incompetent.
  Or perhaps he just is familiar with system administration.
4. Re:Broken since 09:00 UTC by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-21 01:51 · Score: 1
  
  Yes it is very long time and yes he might be developing for a living. You are probably not doing your job well if you think a service like this can be crippled for few hours and think its normal.
5. Re:Broken since 09:00 UTC by mrchaotica · 2015-09-21 02:32 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  5 hours is a long time to find, fix, test, and deploy a fix in your mind? Seriously?.
  No, but it is a long time to fail over to the redundant systems, roll back whatever configuration change you did last, or that kind of thing.
  
  I think we can safely say that you don't develop software for a living, or at least that if you do then you are completely incompetent.
  Everything about this is wrong.
  First of all, the issue is operations, not development. Even if development screwed up, it shouldn't matter because the deployment would be rolled back. (Actually, ideally the deployment wouldn't happen in the first place because QA would have found the issue first and told development to go back and fix their shit.)
  Second, if you're in operations and you don't think 5 hours is a long time to get the service back up then you are completely incompetent!
  
  --
  "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
6. Re:Broken since 09:00 UTC by Jawnn · 2015-09-21 02:35 · Score: 2
  
  Damn, their uptime this year will be less than 99,94%!
  Three nines. Whoop-de-doo. I'm just glad I was able to easily derail the suggestion that "We should just use Skype for all of the business phones..." If I hadn't, I'd still get to say, "I told you it was a bad idea", but there's always that look that says, "Well, you should have told us harder", when the IT prophecy cometh true. Ya know?
  Setting aside the mobile networks (who still do a pretty good job when it comes to availability), I'll wager that the PSTN has an uptime of 5 nines, at least.
7. Re:Broken since 09:00 UTC by Wowsers · 2015-09-21 02:42 · Score: 1
  
  No, Skype has been broken since Microsoft bought it and "improved" it.
  Small mercies the Linux version of Skype hasn't been "fixed" the same way the PC, Mac, Andorid versions have.
  
  --
  Take Nobody's Word For It.
8. Re:Broken since 09:00 UTC by Zero__Kelvin · 2015-09-21 02:49 · Score: 1
  
  The problem isn't that the service is down. Switching over to a redundant system with the same software bug won't fix anything. If it was an outage you would be correct. They didn't say skype will be back up, which is operations. They said "We have detected an issue that is affecting Skype in a number of ways." You made an argument against your reasonable 5 hour claim merely by pointing out that it could be an operations issue. They need to find out what the issue is first. If it was a simple operations issue then sure, but clearly it isn't. It might take 5 hours just to determine if it is an operations issue or a development issue alone.
  
  --
  Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
9. Re:Broken since 09:00 UTC by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-21 03:03 · Score: 0
  
  but it is a long time to fail over to the redundant systems, roll back whatever configuration change you did last, or that kind of thing.
  Not really. Common mode failures can survive rollback; not every bit of hardware or every network service can plausibly be "rolled back." Also, discovering what "last" configuration change has caused the problem can take many hours, and permanent changes to storage may preclude doing so.
10. Re:Broken since 09:00 UTC by mrchaotica · 2015-09-21 03:28 · Score: 1
  
  Switching over to a redundant system with the same software bug won't fix anything.
  In most cases*, the redundant system won't have the same software bug because the ops people weren't so stupid that they tried to upgrade it at the same time. That means any issue that causes downtime is almost always an operations issue, because if it were a development issue then the devs could fix it at their leisure while the old version of the service stayed up.
  (*the exception, of course, are preexisting bugs that are triggered by some external factor, like a DDOS attack or a time-related overflow.)
  
  --
  "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
11. Re:Broken since 09:00 UTC by vux984 · 2015-09-21 03:39 · Score: 1
  
  I'll wager that the PSTN has an uptime of 5 nines, at least.
  Sure. But at what cost. Check out what they bill you for even just a simple 8 lines into a small business office. That runs hundreds even thousands of dollars.
12. Re:Broken since 09:00 UTC by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-21 04:12 · Score: 0
  
  5 hours is a long time to find, fix, test, and deploy a fix in your mind? Seriously?.
  No, but it is a long time to fail over to the redundant systems, roll back whatever configuration change you did last, or that kind of thing.
  That depends. The last rollback my company had to make took 4 hours. It involved 4 servers. Skype's rollback will involve thousands. It depends on how many servers need to be rolled back, what that rollback entails, whether there needs to be co-ordination in the order in which you rollback components, whether any of it's a manual process, any testing you have to run after the rollback to verify it before making the systems live again... it's generally not a simple uninstall. Some changes are simple 1-liners, others are not.
13. Re:Broken since 09:00 UTC by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-21 04:44 · Score: 0
  
  If the software is architected poorly, it is not the operations people that are at fault.
  At my company the software is so bad that it cannot support mixed versions, an upgrade is an all or nothing thing, so while there is a rollback, there is not a redundant system that can run the older version that can just wait on standby.
14. Re:Broken since 09:00 UTC by Zero__Kelvin · 2015-09-21 05:29 · Score: 1
  
  "In most cases*, the redundant system won't have the same software bug because the ops people weren't so stupid that they tried to upgrade it at the same time. ... (*the exception, of course, are preexisting bugs that are triggered by some external factor, like a DDOS attack or a time-related overflow.)"
  Keep thinking. If you really have a clue what you are talking about you will realize that you have listed just two items on a very long list. Your assumption that most bugs are immediately evident and exposed at the time of deployment is absurdly false. If the bug didn't require a special condition to trigger it then it would have likely been caught at test time and the code would never have been deployed. Ergo, you need to invert your condition so that it says: "In most cases a bug that makes it to the deployment stage is non-trivial, and triggered by a special set of conditions such as [very_long_list]". Reverting to the previous version does absolutely nothing to ensure, or even assure, that the same bug is not lying dormant waiting to be re-triggered. Only by carefully evaluating and understanding the bug can one ever hope to be assured that it has been fixed. This doesn't happen in 5 hours, ever.
  
  --
  Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
15. Re:Broken since 09:00 UTC by gweihir · 2015-09-21 06:43 · Score: 1
  
  Classic phone reliability is deemed acceptable if the they have 5 nines. Less is seen as something that needs fixing.
  
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  Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Skype? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-21 01:02 · Score: 0

I stopped using Skype two years ago. For video calls I use Hangouts, and Skype is not at all missed.
1. Re:Skype? by pecosdave · 2015-09-21 01:23 · Score: 1
  
  Hangouts works great, I'm trying to break the iPhone / Facetime habit those locked ecosystem people seem to be suffering on.
  From what I can tell Hangouts works rather well on that ecosystem too.
  
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2. Re:Skype? by t0y · 2015-09-21 05:13 · Score: 1
  
  Hangouts is also a locked ecosystem.
3. Re:Skype? by pecosdave · 2015-09-21 10:06 · Score: 1
  
  Sure it's a bit locked, but it's at least cross-platform.
  
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  The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
4. Re:Skype? by t0y · 2015-09-21 10:16 · Score: 1
  
  So is skype, doesn't make it more open.
5. Re:Skype? by pecosdave · 2015-09-21 23:18 · Score: 1
  
  Either of them is more accessible than Facetime.
  I can SMS with Hangouts.
  
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  The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
The only reason Skype exists by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-21 01:03 · Score: 0

The only reason Skype exists is lack of IPv4 addresses.
1. Re:The only reason Skype exists by NotInHere · 2015-09-21 01:20 · Score: 1
  
  Its not just that. Of course, skype has developed one of the best NAT hole punching algorithms on this planet, but it provides more than just a "dumb wire", like providing friends lists for every user, general state of the user "online, not online, doesn't want to be disturbed, etc", and chat.
2. Re:The only reason Skype exists by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-21 06:06 · Score: 0
  
  Try https://appear.in/
Re:Skype Spyware by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-21 01:06 · Score: 0

Edgy.
Bullshit by joaommp · 2015-09-21 01:11 · Score: 1, Funny

Skype is not only preventing status updates and showing users offline.
Both me and my girlfriend, from different points in the country and different ISPs, are actually UNABLE TO CONNECT.

--
Onda Technology Institute
1. Re:Bullshit by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-21 01:21 · Score: 0
  
  >If you aren't signed in to Skype, you may be experiencing difficulty when attempting to sign in.
2. Re:Bullshit by pecosdave · 2015-09-21 01:25 · Score: 1
  
  Gosh, makes you wonder if changing it from encrypted peer to peer to unencrypted in the middle for NSA client-server was a good idea.
  
  --
  The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
3. Re:Bullshit by kav2k · 2015-09-21 01:26 · Score: 1
  
  It prevents your status update from "Offline" to "Online". That shows up as "connecting", but if you try it, it will pass IMs still.
4. Re:Bullshit by wonkey_monkey · 2015-09-21 01:28 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, just as it says in the summary.
  
  --
  systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
5. Re:Bullshit by joaommp · 2015-09-21 01:29 · Score: 1
  
  I went to bed with skype connected, woke up to it trying to connect, so, once again, bullshit. I was connected.
  
  --
  Onda Technology Institute
6. Re:Bullshit by joaommp · 2015-09-21 01:30 · Score: 1
  
  I went to bed with it connected, woke up to it trying to connect.
  I tried sending messages anyway, both before the news came out and after. No luck.
  
  --
  Onda Technology Institute
7. Re:Bullshit by fisted · 2015-09-21 01:55 · Score: 1
  
  You're repeating yourself, and yes, we get it, you're very excited about finally having found a girlfriend over the internet.
  FWIW, what you're complaining about is right in TFS. It says
  
  As a result, you won't be able to start Skype calls to them.
  Try reading more than what you want to read next time. You probably still get to point out that you have a girlfriend!! somewhere.
  
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8. Re:Bullshit by fisted · 2015-09-21 01:57 · Score: 1
  
  Correction: It appears you have only read the first two words of the headline. Sigh.
  
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9. Re:Bullshit by joaommp · 2015-09-21 02:13 · Score: 1
  
  My point was, it does not affect only those who are trying to connect. It affected those who were connected as well, as I leave my computer and skype always on. The summary says that if you were connected, you won't be able to see or change the status but that the messages to individual users would pass. Which is untrue/impossible to test, because every machine I had access to that had skype connected all night long lost connection to skype and any attempt to send messages directly user to user has failed.
  And your envy related jokes about the girlfriend were totally unnecessary. You probably still get to point out that you are a poor little thing do not have a girlfriend/boyfriend/dog/octopuss/whatever somewhere.
  
  --
  Onda Technology Institute
10. Re:Bullshit by fisted · 2015-09-21 02:57 · Score: 1
  
  Well, let's practice reading comprehension a bit, shall we?
  TFS says
  
  f(sic) you're signed in to Skype, you will not be able to change your status and your contacts will all show as offline even if they are online. As a result, you won't be able to start Skype calls to them
  And now you're complaining that you can't sign in in the first place. Well guess what, /if/ you managed to sign in, you'd in turn be ... signed in. Let's see what TFS has to say about that:
  
  f(sic) you're signed in to Skype, you will not be able to change your status and your contacts will all show as offline even if they are online. As a result, you won't be able to start Skype calls to them
  So your complaint is meaningless and obvious to people remotely computer-literate.
  (Also, note that the statement starts with "if". Do you understand that "if it is raining today, i'll visit the museum" does not imply that i wouldn't visit the museum were it a sunny day?)
  Or is your point that TFS didn't explicitly say "Signed-in users might lose their connection"? Well no shit.
  It figures you're a skype user.
  
  And your envy related jokes about the girlfriend were totally unnecessary. You probably still get to point out that you are a poor little thing do not have a girlfriend/boyfriend/dog/octopuss/whatever somewhere.
  Is a "no, you!"-kind of reply all you can come up with for a proper comeback? Good grief.
  FWIW I prefer to have my partners not "somewhere" but "around". This might seem unorthodox to someone used to hooking up with people over the internet, but maybe you'll find it enjoyable some time in the future, too. Best of luck!
  
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11. Re:Bullshit by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-21 05:44 · Score: 0
  
  I guess you'll have to sue them, then. Other than that, I don't really understand what the point of your retarded whining is supposed to be.
12. Re: Bullshit by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-21 08:59 · Score: 0
  
  Found the butthurt Microsoft/Skype developer.
13. Re:Bullshit by aybiss · 2015-09-21 14:54 · Score: 1
  
  "Is a "no, you!"-kind of reply all you can come up with for a proper comeback?"
  He/she probably decided a dick like you that lashes out at random and clearly has huge issues about relationships wouldn't be worth the effort.
  I've seen people be all sorts of idiots on here, this is about the most unjustified and personal attack ever.
  PS before you ask I'm married AND know where my wife is. Is that OK with you?
  
  --
  It's OK Bender, there's no such thing as 2.
14. Re:Bullshit by fisted · 2015-09-22 06:41 · Score: 1
  
  "Is a "no, you!"-kind of reply all you can come up with for a proper comeback?"
  He/she probably decided a dick like you that lashes out at random and clearly has huge issues about relationships wouldn't be worth the effort.
  Odd that it was worth the effort to reply at all then, wouldn't you think?
  
  I've seen people be all sorts of idiots on here, this is about the most unjustified and personal attack ever.
  It was justified by the stupidity of the initial post, which starts boldly with "Bullshit" and then goes on to
  
  Skype is not only preventing status updates and showing users offline...Both me and my girlfriend, from different points in the country and different ISPs, are actually UNABLE TO CONNECT.
  
  If you don't see the stupidity of this, let me rephrase it for you:
  
  Skype is not only preventing status updates [...] [b]oth me and my girlfriend [...] are actually UNABLE TO [change our status from offline to online].
  Well duh. Heck, it is currently mismodded at +2, Funny; Maybe people are granting him the benefit of the doubt, I don't know.
  
  PS before you ask I'm married AND know where my wife is. Is that OK with you?
  Why would you believe i would have asked that? It seems you require some practice in reading comprehension as well, given that you apparently weren't able to follow the conversation at all...
  
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Distributed realtime chat .. by nickweller · 2015-09-21 01:27 · Score: 1

How can a distributed peer-to-peer chat system suffer such an outage, unless it isn't really distributed peer-to-peer anymore. Makes me question the reliability of these all-eggs-in-one-basket cloud services.
1. Re:Distributed realtime chat .. by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-21 01:37 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  It has not been distributed peer-to-peer for a while.
  Microsoft turned it into a easy backdoor for NSA years ago.
2. Re:Distributed realtime chat .. by joaommp · 2015-09-21 01:54 · Score: 2
  
  The login and status change part needs always some central components. The comunication between two users, however, needs not.
  
  --
  Onda Technology Institute
3. Re:Distributed realtime chat .. by Dunbal · 2015-09-21 03:37 · Score: 1
  
  "Distributed" is marketing bullshit anyway. When you start your computer your program has to look somewhere for an entry point into the network, be it one of many nodes to a database, the last good node, a root node, a hard-coded node etc. No program can just pull a successful lookup to the "distributed" database out of its digital ass. So if you take out that or those nodes, it really doesn't matter what kind of voodoo code you write. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.
  
  --
  Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
4. Re:Distributed realtime chat .. by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-21 09:02 · Score: 0
  
  Skype gave itself up to the BND, the German version of the NSA, even before they were bought by NSA/Microsoft.
A small number by ITRambo · 2015-09-21 01:41 · Score: 1

A small number of users to Microsoft is, more often than not, millions of affected users. Not a small number. But, it makes good PR.
Not happy by CharmaineVictoriaMor · 2015-09-21 02:22 · Score: 1

Skype's still not working, won't let me log on the app but is working on the internet, do we know when its going too be fixed???
Affected in the USA by laie_techie · 2015-09-21 02:24 · Score: 1

The company I work at uses Skype for internal communications for when email is considered too slow. I'm unable to connect this morning, and I'm in the USA - not one of the countries listed as being affected by the BBC.
1. Re:Affected in the USA by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-21 02:44 · Score: 0
  
  The company I work at uses Skype for internal communications for when email is considered too slow. I'm unable to connect this morning, and I'm in the USA - not one of the countries listed as being affected by the BBC.
  The news report was probably written before anyone was awake in the USA.
  It's also down in Germany and Denmark.
2. Re:Affected in the USA by dafradu · 2015-09-21 06:15 · Score: 1
  
  Its still down for me in Brazil. So yeah, its global...
Why are people using this already? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-21 02:39 · Score: 1

Skype isn't an open protocol, so there's zero competition for implementations and The One implementation is impossible to audit for security. Given that, it's not a good idea to be using it, except perhaps as a curiosity.
Maybe Skype will come out of beta some day, but if you're using it in 2015: too soon!
1. Re:Why are people using this already? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-21 03:23 · Score: 0
  
  Skype is fully compromised by US intelligence, this much is known as fact. I don't understand why anyone would use it, but certainly not a business with trade secrets, private strategy, etc. You're just begging to be the victim of industrial espionage.
2. Re:Why are people using this already? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-21 04:00 · Score: 0
  
  I doubt even the NSA can successfully snoop 2 billion minutes of audio comms per day, so unless you think you're on their watchlists you can probably take the tinfoil hat off.
3. Re:Why are people using this already? by NotInHere · 2015-09-21 04:23 · Score: 1
  
  Of course, they TTS the communications, its not storage which is the problem.
Confirm broken in Norway by Esteanil · 2015-09-21 03:04 · Score: 1

Tested on two computers + 1 android phone (on a separate connection). Unable to see anyone online (Even Echo / Sound Test Service is offline). A few users appeared online until attempting to call them (including Echo).
Tried signing out on one of the computers, and signing back in appears broken. (takes forever and fails with wrong credentials error. I *might* be misremembering my password, but I doubt it.)

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Re:Skype Spyware by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-21 03:12 · Score: 0

But true.
A glitch?!!? by vikingpower · 2015-09-21 04:28 · Score: 1

That is not a bloody glitch. That's a fucking critical bug, close to being a showstopper.

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SSL Added and removed here :-) by nickweller · 2015-09-21 09:34 · Score: 1

NSA infiltrates links to Yahoo, Google data centers worldwide, Snowden documents say