Archive · 20 Nov 2025
Cloudflare Outage: Internal Error, Not Cyberattack
Cloudflare, a company that helps make websites work, had a big mistake that caused many websites and apps to stop working for a few hours.
This was not because of a bad guy trying to break things, but because of a mistake they made while trying to make things better.
They're sorry and will try to prevent this from happening again.
Global internet outage caused by Cloudflare's internal configuration mistake
Disrupted major platforms like X, ChatGPT, Canva, and Discord
Error due to faulty query causing a key 'feature file' to grow too large
Issue lasted about three hours, causing unpredictable service interruptions
Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince confirms no cyberattack involved
- Who
- Cloudflare
- What
- Experienced a global outage due to an internal configuration mistake
- When
- Around 11:20 UTC to 17:06 UTC
- Where
- Worldwide, affecting many major platforms and websites
- Why
- Due to a faulty query causing a key 'feature file' to grow too large
Cloudflare's Stance
Initial Misinterpretation
Cause of Outage
Cloudflare's Stance
Internal configuration mistake
Initial Misinterpretation
Initially misread as a massive DDoS attack
- Duration
- About three hours
- Affected Platforms
- X, ChatGPT, Canva, Discord, and many others
- Cause
- Internal configuration mistake, not a cyberattack
- Resolution
- Stopped faulty file, replaced with correct version, restarted systems