Amazon.com Taking The Day Off?

from the taking-a-breather dept

Fri, Jun 6th 2008 11:29am — Mike Masnick

Around 10:30 am this morning, Amazon.com seemed to have disappeared from the internet, popping up a "Http/1.1 Service Unavailable" message, which suggests a rather catastrophic failure. The fact that it's been doing that for about an hour now, and there still hasn't even been a "sorry we're down" type message to replace it certainly can't be a good sign. Other parts of Amazon's business do appear to be working (I was able to login to my Amazon s3 account, for example), but still, this doesn't seem like the type of Friday that Amazon was probably expecting. Update: Amusingly, Amazon is referring to this as an "unplanned event." Why, that makes it sound fun!

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Filed Under: downtime
Companies: amazon

28 Comments

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Ima Fish, 6 Jun 2008 @ 11:43am

It's back up for me as of 2:45 pm EST.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Jun 2008 @ 11:46am

It's very on and off... sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I mistyped the address as aamazon.com and it worked, then tried amazon.com and it failed.

amazon.ca has no trouble however.
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Chronno S. Trigger, 6 Jun 2008 @ 11:50am

Web server?
It looks like whatever is hosting their web page, IIS, Apache or whatever, is broken. That may be why they haven't put up a "we are down" page yet.
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WarOtter (profile), 6 Jun 2008 @ 11:54am

Pepsistuff kinda workin
Pepsi stuff is up and down too.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Brad, 6 Jun 2008 @ 11:55am

Still Down
Just an update: still down. It looks to me like whatever they're doing for load balancing is what's getting messed up. I never stopped to wonder if Amazon maybe just had a really massive mod-proxy. I suppose it would work...
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George Bush, 6 Jun 2008 @ 12:23pm

I have it under control
I have Searched on The Google and discovered the problem. The Internets are plugged up. I feel it is my duty to get it working!
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Anon, 6 Jun 2008 @ 12:30pm

Domain Redirect?
Maybe their domain was redirected like comcast.com's was the other day.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Evilned, 6 Jun 2008 @ 12:31pm

Hmm, I wonder...
Did another data center blow up somewhere?
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Jed, 6 Jun 2008 @ 12:31pm

I hope they were hacked.
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This, 6 Jun 2008 @ 12:40pm

I got
We're sorry!
An error occurred when we tried to process your request. Rest assured, we're already working on the problem and expect to resolve it shortly.

If you were trying to make a purchase, please check Your Account to confirm that the order was placed.

We apologize for the inconvenience.

on the Amazon.com home page
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Anonymous does not Forgive, 6 Jun 2008 @ 12:49pm

Still down
appears to be still down, Amazon.ca does indeed work tho, try it with firefox. My coworker was able to get there with firefox... but I cannot in IE7.
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Dislo, 6 Jun 2008 @ 12:53pm

It is up!
The main page (http://www.amazon.com/gp/homepage.html) appears to be up the redirect from amazon.com seems to be what is down. So here is the link http://www.amazon.com/gp/homepage.html.
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Al Gore, 6 Jun 2008 @ 12:55pm

Inconceivable!
How could this happen? I designed the Internet to be fault-tolerant and redundant!
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Not a Robot, 6 Jun 2008 @ 12:58pm

Now Amazon Thinks...
Now Amazon Thinks I'm a robot!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 6 Jun 2008 @ 1:08pm

Re: Now Amazon Thinks...
Same here...

The humans are dead
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OzoneTX, 6 Jun 2008 @ 1:20pm

Was up, now appears down again...
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WarOtter (profile), 6 Jun 2008 @ 1:23pm

This tubes needs an enema!

Gentlemen, let's broaden our minds. Lawrence...!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 6 Jun 2008 @ 1:35pm

Re: Hmm, I wonder...
hehe.. it's amazing .. both The Planet(Texas) and Hostway(Ft Lauderdale) had power failures. The Planet's mess is still on going(6 days now) and Hostway's only lasting for 24 hours or so.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Paul, 6 Jun 2008 @ 1:37pm

Is anyone else getting this weird error? It seems that its detecting that I am a robot? How absurd is that.

We're sorry!

You have been denied access to this feature because we believe you violated the terms, conditions, rules, guidelines or policies of our site in the past. If you believe we have taken this action in error, you may contact us at ad-help-us@amazon.com.

We apologize for the inconvenience.
Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Why am I seeing this page?
A: This page is usually shown when we believe that the request is coming from a robot or other automated source of requests. If you are not a robot please contact us immediately by emailing ad-help-us@amazon.com and we will reinstate your access to our website.

Q: How can I operate a robot and not get this page?
A: We understand that there are many legitimate reasons for robots to access our website. We are happy to work with people trying to create robots so that they may do so safely and efficiently. If you are operating a robot and you are seeing this page we'd love to hear from you so that we may better understand your use case and help you to achieve your goals. Please email ad-help-us@amazon.com and we'll help you out - seriously, we aren't mad at you.

Q: What are some general tips for people writing robots?
A: First, you should see if there is a better method to get the information you need. For example, Amazon Web Services provides a rich set of APIs to retrieve the information displayed on many of Amazon's web pages (prices, reviews, sales rank, etc). Because Amazon Web Services exposes a stable set of APIs that provide structured data it is often much easier to retrieve information via this method. You'll be able to find out more about Amazon Web Services at http://aws.amazon.com. Second, you should identify your robot using a unique user agent string that provdes a way we can get in touch with you if necessary. For example, here is Google's user agent string Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.googlebot.com/bot.html).
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Jun 2008 @ 1:56pm

Surprise! You are all cylons programmed to think you are human.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 6 Jun 2008 @ 1:58pm

Does this mean my Delicious Library won't be able to download DVD info? No!
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JohnA, 6 Jun 2008 @ 2:33pm

PS3
Today at 1PM EST (10AM PST) PS3 80 GB preorders went up. I'm sure this has something to do with it.
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Jameth, 6 Jun 2008 @ 4:06pm

The reason
The 80GB Limited edition Metal Gear Solid 4 PS3 Bundle pack went up for sale this morning, sold out completely in 7 mins, and amazon.com crashed shortly after that!

Just in case you were wondering what the most likely cause is!
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CVPunk, 6 Jun 2008 @ 4:42pm

Re: The reason
I don't know about that... from what Paul (#19) posted it appears there is a significant amount of robots trying to access amazon and they don't approve.
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another mike, 6 Jun 2008 @ 5:29pm

unplanned event?
Doesn't their IT office know to schedule those in advance?!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
George Washington, 6 Jun 2008 @ 7:24pm

Up again
I got it working again at 10:23 PM Eastern Daylight Time.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 7 Jun 2008 @ 4:17am

In addition to the PS3, 6th of June was also launch day for DnD 4th edition. I know a _lot_ of people who tried to go to amazon.com to look at their orders for that.
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matt, 9 Jun 2008 @ 9:08am

The Scientologists Were Right
Xenu, the World Destroyer, has implanted a cyborg mind-control device deep into your brain.

You are really a robot, and Amazon knows it.

You now owe me $375,000 for the enlightenment which I have just delivered to your consciousness. I accept cash, securities, and cash.
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