The video call service Zoom reported partial outages on Monday morning, causing problems on the first day of classes for many schools in the United States as the tech company rushed to resolve the issue. The company said it had “identified the issue” that was preventing users from starting and joining meetings, and was “working on a fix.” It said the problem caused users “to be unable to authenticate to the Zoom website.”As the coronavirus pandemic has kept students out of classrooms and office workers out of offices, Zoom has quickly become critical infrastructure for many school districts, companies and local governments. Zoom said it began receiving reports of users being unable to visit the website and start meetings at about 5:50 a.m. in California. The website DownDetector, which tracks outages at social media companies and tech companies, showed significant outages in major cities around the country, including New York, Washington, Atlanta, Chicago, St. Louis and San Francisco. The site reported more than 15,000 outages by about 7 a.m. Pacific time.

Source: New York Times August 24, 2020 14:41 UTC