Slack, the messaging service used by millions of people for work and school, suffered a global disruption on Monday, the first day of return for most people returning from the New Year holidays.
It is the latest technological error that demonstrates how disruptive technical difficulties can be when millions of people depend on few services to work and go to school from home during the pandemic.
The company stopped publishing its daily user count after surpassing 12 million last year.
“Our team is currently investigating and we are sorry for any issues this may cause,” Slack said in a prepared paper statement.
The outage began around 10 a.m., Eastern Time, and disrupted service in the U.S., Germany, India, the United Kingdom, Japan, and elsewhere. At 12:30 pm, service was still sporadic and Slack said the cut was underway, but that some users could start to improve. Slack said people should check out https://status.slack.com for updates.
Internet service interruptions are not uncommon, are usually resolved relatively quickly, and are rarely the result of hacking or other malicious intent. Google went down briefly in December, with people from various countries briefly unable to access their Gmail accounts, watch YouTube videos, or access their documents online during a cut-off Monday. In August, Zoom went down briefly just as many students began the school year at home. And in September, Microsoft services had a five-hour outage.
The cut comes when Slack is in the process of being acquired by Salesforce.com for $ 27.7 billion. The deal aims to give the two companies a better chance to compete against Microsoft, the industry’s long tradition.