Cloudflare Network Failure Knocks Major Websites Offline; AWS Also Sees Spike in Issues
Moneylife Digital Team 18 November 2025
Major internet infrastructure providers Cloudflare and Amazon Web Services (AWS) suffered outages on Tuesday, disrupting access to hundreds of websites and services worldwide, according to real-time data from Downdetector. The incident marks the second AWS-related disruption in a month and triggered widespread service instability across social media platforms, gaming services and web tools dependent on Cloudflare’s network.
 
Users attempting to access platforms such as X (formerly Twitter), Letterboxd, Canva, OpenAI services including ChatGPT and several online games such as League of Legends reported error messages linked to Cloudflare’s systems. Many were greeted with 'internal server error' notices or prompts asking them to 'please try again in a few minutes', indicating failures across Cloudflare’s global content delivery and security infrastructure.
 
 
Cloudflare confirmed the issue on its official system-status page, stating: “Cloudflare is aware of, and investigating an issue which impacts multiple customers: widespread 500 errors, Cloudflare Dashboard and API also failing. We are working to understand the full impact and mitigate this problem.” The company added separately that more details would be shared as the situation developed.
 
 
The outage appeared to have begun around 6am ET (eastern time), when Cloudflare’s support portal provider first experienced issues. As the failure cascaded, access to X degraded globally, making posts, timelines and media unable to load for many users. Graphic tools such as Canva and gaming services also saw widespread disruption.
 
Some websites displayed messages such as 'Please unblock challenges.cloudflare.com to proceed', a standard prompt generated when Cloudflare’s protective systems malfunction. While the affected platforms themselves remained operational in the background, Cloudflare’s protective and routing layers were unable to complete requests, preventing users from loading pages.
 
Downdetector, the outage-tracking service, also faced intermittent downtime due to the same infrastructure failure. When accessible, it showed a dramatic spike in user complaints across multiple regions, affecting both consumer and enterprise services.
 
AWS, one of the world’s largest cloud-computing providers, also appeared to face issues simultaneously. Though the scope of the AWS disruption was not immediately clear, Downdetector recorded a surge in reports from users unable to access hosted applications and services. AWS had faced a similar outage just last month.
 
 
The cause of the wider outage remains under investigation, though early indications point to a major failure within Cloudflare’s global network that subsequently affected dependent services. Both AWS and Cloudflare underpin large segments of the modern internet and simultaneous disruptions to both providers can result in multi-platform outages on a global scale.
 
Cloudflare says its engineers are working to identify the root cause and restore normal functionality as quickly as possible. As of publication, services were still experiencing instability, and users are advised to retry access periodically.
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