Uber Worldwide Outage Hampers US Halloween Guarantee
This weekend is Halloween and there was an hourly guarantee for drivers on both Uber and Lyft
Uber started their guarantee at 8pm in Boston. Some drivers quickly noted around 8:30pm EST Friday that the app started the freeze up, either not able to end their ride or accepting ride requests. Passengers alike noted that they couldn’t request a ride. One passenger told a driver that he was forced to sign off and when he tried to sign back in, there was a server error.
This outage lasted for about 20-30 minutes. Below is the tweet that was sent out acknowledging the outage at 8:57pm. They sent out another tweet when it was fixed, which was around 9:20. Drivers on the Uber Facebook group noted issues with logging in all over the US. I found a few Uber drivers in London that noted the same issue. The system itself was working for some around 8:50pm but full functionality didn’t return until about 9:30pm, a few minutes after the tweet was sent out. Drivers complained about having server issues during accepting, starting, and ending trips for the next few hours after the outage.
None of us was really sure what happened. Hopefully Uber will post the details of the outage, which was much more widespread than previous outages. There was an outage in Boston for most of the day last month.
[Update:] Lyft also had their nationwide outage around midnight EST-2am, which was caused by excessive demand. Read here for more.
This was bad timing for the East coast as it was the start to the guarantee for many cities. This shouldn’t affect the west coast very much as the app seemed to be working for the rest of the day/night, but this brings into question the reliability of such services. What actually happened? Is it safe to depend on these fragile system for our main source of income. What happens if they don’t work for a few hours or an entire day? How can you overcome that hurdle when your main income depends on the availability of such services?
Where you affected by Uber? Are you worried about your eligibility for the hourly guarantee?
Below are the tweets with as many replies as I can find/show.
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