‘Even DownDetector is down’: Users vent after Cloudflare outage knocks popular websites offline

Zerodha, Discord, DoorDash and Canva are among the several websites facing an outage due to a Cloudflare issue which began about 20 minutes ago. Several internet users reported that a number of websites are returning an Nginx 500 Internal Server Error due to the Cloudflare outage.

Nginx (pronounced like “engine-ex”) is an open-source web server that can also be used as a reverse proxy. A web server is what delivers content for a website to a client that requests it, like a web browser. A web server like Nginx communicates with a web browser using HTTP, and an issue in this server has meant that large chunks of the internet are currently not accessible – something that internet users were obviously quick to notice.

“The Cloudflare team is aware of the current service issues and is working to resolve as quickly as possible. Updates can be followed here,” the firm announced on Twitter.

The Cloudflare team is aware of the current service issues and is working to resolve as quickly as possible. Updates can be followed here. https://t.co/22Yiyu3lKJ

— Cloudflare (@Cloudflare) June 21, 2022

On Twitter, the Cloudflare issue led to Zerodha and Discord trending high, and inspired a ton of memes as people refreshed their webpages again and again – only to face the same “500 Internal Server Error” message from Nginx.

Users of the online brokerage service Zerodha were among the worst affected. "We are getting reports of intermittent connectivity issues on Kite via the Cloudflare network for users on certain ISPs. We are taking this up with Cloudflare. In the meanwhile, please try using an alternate internet connection," Zerodha said in a tweet.

Take a look at some of the reactions:

Hey, @zerodhaonline please fix this issue ASAP. Unable to access anything. pic.twitter.com/IZuRvDywsP — Mohit Kale (@0xMohit) June 21, 2022

Options traders right now:#zerodhapic.twitter.com/nNS3CD2J6W

— Mujjamil (@Mujju1864) June 21, 2022

when you take trade and #zerodha ,#upstox went down pic.twitter.com/EbJ8jEyJny — YUVI (@yuvicasm__) June 21, 2022

Markets are but #zerodha is down.. Traders to #Zerodha team pic.twitter.com/wH63q66tbg — Gaurav Shrishrimal (Kaagaz) (@1992gaurav) June 21, 2022

Even DownDetector, a web monitoring tool that tracks outages, returned an error and could not be accessed, several Twitter users reported.

#Downdetector, the website that tells you if any sites have disrupted service, is also down because it runs on #Cloudflare. Yikes. pic.twitter.com/eAgjeiVtFi — Adam. We’re getting Dragon's Dogma 2, baby! (@ThatBeardoAdam) June 21, 2022

Major Internet outage, Internal Server Error Code 500 on multiple sites. Downdetector is down, Discord is down, League of Legends Servers are down, Valorant is down. Huge internet outage happening. — your average brit (@verrrrrrt) June 21, 2022

EVEN DOWNDETECTOR IS DOWN — ឵឵Razz (@Uniticyy6) June 21, 2022