Bluesky
Bluesky

NEW YORK — Users of the social media platform Bluesky reported problems accessing the service Thursday morning, according to outage-tracking websites, though the company had not confirmed any disruption at the time of writing.

Outage tracker Downdetector flagged the issue in a post on X. "User reports indicate problems with Bluesky since 8:38 AM EDT," the site said, asking affected users to share their experiences using the hashtag #BlueskyDown.

Reports began rising earlier, at about 8:17 a.m. Eastern time, according to a community outage tracker that monitored Downdetector data. Hundreds of users reported problems, and some took to other social media platforms to complain about connectivity issues.

Outage not yet acknowledged

Third-party monitoring service StatusGator said it had detected a possible outage at Bluesky that had not yet been officially acknowledged by the company.

Bluesky's official status page had not posted an incident related to Thursday's reports at the time of publication. The company did not immediately respond publicly to user complaints.

It was not immediately clear how many users were affected, which features were impacted or whether the problems were limited to specific regions. Outage reports on tracking sites are based on user submissions and do not necessarily reflect the full scope of a disruption.

What users are seeing

User reports on outage trackers typically include problems loading the app or website, difficulties logging in and issues with feeds or posts not appearing. Some users posting on other platforms Thursday said they could not connect to Bluesky at all.

Problems can affect the mobile app and web version differently, and some users may experience issues while others are able to use the service normally.

Recent disruptions

Thursday's reports follow several service disruptions for Bluesky in recent weeks.

On Oct. 9, users experienced session issues lasting about 52 minutes, according to StatusGator. On Oct. 7, a site loading failure lasted nearly an hour.

In late September, Bluesky experienced one of its longer recent disruptions. On Sept. 28, the company reported slowness and occasional loading failures, which it described as a partial outage lasting about two hours and 27 minutes. The following day, users reported posts not loading for more than five hours, according to StatusGator.

Bluesky also carried out scheduled maintenance on Tuesday, Oct. 13, including internal work on a system used to deliver data to developers. The company said at the time that the work could cause event delivery to lag.

Bluesky's status page showed uptime of 99.52% for September and 99.95% so far in October before Thursday's reports.

A growing alternative platform

Bluesky has grown into one of the most prominent alternatives to X, formerly Twitter, attracting tens of millions of users. The platform saw major waves of sign-ups in recent years as some users left X following changes made after Elon Musk acquired the company.

Bluesky was originally developed as a project within Twitter before becoming an independent company. It is built on the AT Protocol, a decentralized technology that allows users more control over their data and the ability to move between services.

Despite its decentralized design, most users rely on servers operated by Bluesky itself, meaning problems with the company's infrastructure can affect large numbers of users at once.

Popular with journalists and public figures

The platform has become a popular destination for journalists, academics, politicians and public figures, making outages particularly noticeable when breaking news is unfolding.

Thursday's disruption came during a busy morning for news, including major market volatility in Asia and ongoing coverage of international developments.

What users can do

Users experiencing problems can check Bluesky's official status page for updates. Restarting the app, refreshing the website or switching between the app and the web version may help in some cases.

If the issue is caused by a broader outage, however, service will typically return once the company resolves the underlying problem. Users are generally advised not to repeatedly log out, which could make it harder to reconnect once service is restored.

Developing story

Bluesky has not commented on the cause of Thursday's reported problems. Many short-lived disruptions are resolved within an hour, though some recent incidents have lasted significantly longer.

This is a developing story and may be updated as more information becomes available.