AIM crashes again
- Thread starter meezercat
- Start date
April 6 — Millions of AOL Instant Messenger users had their service interrupted for an hour or more on Thursday, the second time in two days the service has been inoperative.
AOL BLAMED THE Thursday problem on a widespread power outage in parts of Northern Virginia that include the company’s data centers. That in turn caused a problem with AOL being able to provide customers access to applications that include the “buddy list.” That is the database of user names that customer use to send and receive instant messages, and to be able to see which users are online at a given time.
“This was a direct result of a major regional power outage” by Dominion Virginia Power, said AOL spokesman Nicholas J. Graham. The company’s data centers are equipped with back up power systems, which is “the reason we were able to recover quickly” from the outage.
But by late afternoon EDT on Thursday, some buddy lists were still unavailable, and Graham couldn’t give more details on their status. Without the buddy list, many users were unable to send or receive messages, although other functions like the news and stock tickers were functioning.
A spokesman for Dominion Virginia Power said the company had an outage beginning at about 2:30 PM EDT and lasting about 45 minutes. The spokesman said the outage affected the area that includes AOL’s data centers.
Tuesday, AOL had another failure of the Instant Messenger service for about an hour. The company blamed that on an “equipment glitch” and said it was quickly fixed. Users had some difficulty logging back into the service for some time afterward simply because so many people were trying to access the system at once, according to AOL spokesman Andrew Weinstein.
Graham said the two incidents were unrelated and it was mere coincidence they happened so closely together.
Analysts said they did not expect the outages to create any long-term problems for the company, noting that many of the users of IM don’t even pay for the service.
“If the outages occur on just one or two days the effect will be negligible,” said Daryl Schooler of Cahners Instat. “It’s like cable TV. Sometimes the channels go out when you don’t expect them to, but people keep lining up to subscribe.”
Want to learn more? http://www.msnbc.com/news/555778.asp
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"I occasionally think how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world. And yet, I ask, is not an alien force ALREADY among us?" - Ronald Reagan
"...is there anyway that I could get some sort of higher limit for my box?" - KNS
AOL BLAMED THE Thursday problem on a widespread power outage in parts of Northern Virginia that include the company’s data centers. That in turn caused a problem with AOL being able to provide customers access to applications that include the “buddy list.” That is the database of user names that customer use to send and receive instant messages, and to be able to see which users are online at a given time.
“This was a direct result of a major regional power outage” by Dominion Virginia Power, said AOL spokesman Nicholas J. Graham. The company’s data centers are equipped with back up power systems, which is “the reason we were able to recover quickly” from the outage.
But by late afternoon EDT on Thursday, some buddy lists were still unavailable, and Graham couldn’t give more details on their status. Without the buddy list, many users were unable to send or receive messages, although other functions like the news and stock tickers were functioning.
A spokesman for Dominion Virginia Power said the company had an outage beginning at about 2:30 PM EDT and lasting about 45 minutes. The spokesman said the outage affected the area that includes AOL’s data centers.
Tuesday, AOL had another failure of the Instant Messenger service for about an hour. The company blamed that on an “equipment glitch” and said it was quickly fixed. Users had some difficulty logging back into the service for some time afterward simply because so many people were trying to access the system at once, according to AOL spokesman Andrew Weinstein.
Graham said the two incidents were unrelated and it was mere coincidence they happened so closely together.
Analysts said they did not expect the outages to create any long-term problems for the company, noting that many of the users of IM don’t even pay for the service.
“If the outages occur on just one or two days the effect will be negligible,” said Daryl Schooler of Cahners Instat. “It’s like cable TV. Sometimes the channels go out when you don’t expect them to, but people keep lining up to subscribe.”
Want to learn more? http://www.msnbc.com/news/555778.asp
------------------
"I occasionally think how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world. And yet, I ask, is not an alien force ALREADY among us?" - Ronald Reagan
"...is there anyway that I could get some sort of higher limit for my box?" - KNS
