Cloudflare, a major internet infrastructure provider, is currently experiencing a global outage affecting its network services. Users have reported encountering “internal server error” messages while accessing websites and online platforms connected to Cloudflare. The company is actively investigating the situation and working to restore normal operations.
Scope of Cloudflare’s Global Network
Cloudflare operates a distributed network infrastructure across more than 330 cities in over 120 countries, delivering content delivery, security, and performance optimization services. Its global network edge capacity stands at 449 Tbps and connects to over 13,000 networks, including leading ISPs, cloud providers, and enterprises worldwide.
Incident Acknowledgement and Initial Reports
Cloudflare first confirmed the outage roughly 40 minutes after users began reporting issues. The support portal itself experienced limited availability. Later, at 11:48 UTC, the company issued a further incident report indicating problems across the Cloudflare Global Network.
“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. More updates to follow shortly.”
Impact Across Europe
Testing by BleepingComputer revealed that several Cloudflare nodes across Europe were offline, including locations in Bucharest, Zurich, Warsaw, Oslo, Amsterdam, Berlin, Frankfurt, Vienna, Stockholm, and Hamburg.
Monitoring service Downdetector received tens of thousands of outage reports, with affected users reporting problems connecting to servers, websites, and hosting services. Though not necessarily related, other users reported connectivity issues with Spotify, Twitter, OpenAI, League of Legends, Valorant, AWS, and Google.
Historical Context
This is not the first major Cloudflare outage. In June, the company addressed widespread Zero Trust WARP connectivity problems and Access authentication failures, which impacted multiple regions and Google Cloud infrastructure. Earlier in October, Cloudflare mitigated a DNS failure that disrupted access to millions of websites on its AWS platform.
Recovery Updates
- November 18, 07:29 EST: Cloudflare reported initial signs of recovery, though users might still experience elevated error rates.
- November 18, 08:47 EST: Partial recovery was achieved for Cloudflare Access and WARP. Error levels for these services returned to pre-incident levels, and WARP access was re-enabled in London. The company continues remediation for application service customers.
