Ícono del sitio LQS

Cloudflare Back Online: What Happened and What the AI Outage Teaches Us

Staff
cloudfare
Contenido:

In short: the global Cloudflare outage on November 18, 2025, disrupted a massive portion of the internet—including key platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, X (formerly Twitter), Canva, and others. Our site was affected too, but thanks to solid preparation, we were among the first to recover.

In this post, we explain what happened, how we fixed it, and reflect on a deeper issue that became clear: what happens when an entire generation depends on artificial intelligence—and suddenly, the AI goes dark?

🚨 What Happened to Cloudflare?

On November 18, Cloudflare suffered a global service disruption due to an unusual spike in internal traffic. This impacted its content delivery network (CDN), API services, and security layers that protect millions of websites.

The outage blocked access to thousands of pages across the world, especially for users on web browsers. Mobile apps, in many cases, continued to function partially.

✅ How We Solved It

Here’s what we did:

  • Temporarily disabled WordPress plugins known to cause load issues.
  • Checked server logs and configuration for bottlenecks.
  • Verified proxy and fallback routes.
  • Proactively communicated with our audience across channels.

Thanks to these steps, we were ready when Cloudflare began restoring service. Our site went live again before most, and we resumed full operations quickly.

🬺 A Wake-Up Call: When AI Is Your Only Tool

One of the most telling effects of this outage wasn’t just that websites were down—it was that people lost access to their AI tools: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Copilot-like assistants.

This raises serious questions:

  • AI is powerful—but it’s still just software that depends on vulnerable infrastructure.
  • When that infrastructure breaks, even the smartest AI is unreachable.
  • Many people had no backup. Students, writers, coders and support agents relying on AI assistants were left without tools.
  • Overdependence on a single AI platform or cloud service can become a single point of failure.

As more of our lives shift toward AI-assisted workflows, this event reminded us that AI is not invincible. We must treat it as a helpful tool—not a guaranteed constant.

📉 Lessons Learned

  1. Always have contingency plans—backups, mirrors, and alternative access methods.
  2. Monitor dependencies like CDN providers, DNS, and third-party APIs.
  3. Keep your services modular so they can degrade gracefully—not collapse completely.
  4. Encourage teams and users to diversify tools, store local copies, and avoid full reliance on cloud AI.
  5. Invest in user communication—inform your community fast during outages.

📅 Current Status

As of the afternoon of November 18, Cloudflare reports that services have been fully restored, and most sites affected during the outage are now operational again. Our platform is online, stable, and serving users globally.

📄 Conclusion

We were among the first to report the issue—and among the first to be back online. That wasn’t luck. It was preparedness.

But more importantly, this event offers a broader lesson: the tools we depend on most, including AI, are only as strong as the systems behind them.

The cloud is not magic. Infrastructure can fail. And when it does, the best thing we can have is resilience—not just intelligence.

References (APA Format)

Salir de la versión móvil