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Comcast and Xfinity Facing a Nationwide Outage [Update: Company Confirms] 246

Posted by msmash from the outage-reports dept.
Thousands of people from across the country are reporting that they are facing connectivity issues with Comcast and its service Xfinity on Friday. Comcast is yet to acknowledge and address the outage, hence it is unclear how long the widespread outage may last. According to DownDetector, a service that tracks outages, the majority of the northeast United States and areas in Colorado, California, the midwest and southeast were affected. Some users reported issues watching TV as well.

Veteran reporter Ed Oswald said, "Nearly an hour into what is clearly a massive nationwide outage for #Comcast/#Xfinity and nary a peep out of the company across any of its public facing channels. I can understand not bringing attention to local outages, but this.."

Update: Comcast says it is aware of a "nationwide outage impacting some of our internet, video and voice customers." In a statement, Comcast shared some background on the outage: One of Comcast's large backbone network partners had a fiber cut that we believe is also impacting other providers. It is currently affecting our business and residential internet, video and voice customers. We apologize & are working to get services restored as soon as possible.
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Comcast and Xfinity Facing a Nationwide Outage [Update: Company Confirms] More

Comcast and Xfinity Facing a Nationwide Outage [Update: Company Confirms]

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  • Obviously the world cup crashed the system.

    World Cup is like a DDOS, but more so.

  • Which is sort like being pay-walled. So nothing to see. No Xfinity 4 U.

  • I'm in Colorado on Comcast, and so far it's mostly working - but there are a handful of sites I cannot reach. Maybe they are behind Comcast in an area with a full outage and I'm not really affected at all.

    • Re:Strange partial outage in Colorado (Score:5, Funny)

      by Pascoea ( 968200 ) on Friday June 29, 2018 @12:49PM (#56866540)

      but there are a handful of sites I cannot reach

      This is just testing there testing phase.

      Step 2 is the letter you're going to get in the mail next week suggesting you to upgrade to the Xfinity Everything internet package that includes access to premium websites. But it will be OK because there will be a promotion for $5* per month for 12 months with 2 months free. *plus associated fees, surcharges, and taxes. Limited time offer, see terms and conditions for details.

    • Same here. Had difficulties getting to Slashdot and Blizzard, and some other sites were loading oddly, but that's all gone away now.

  • There are several messages on the Comcast twitter account that is linked regarding the issue yet msmash states that Comcast has not acknowledged it.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by msmash ( 4491995 ) Works for Slashdot
      That's general tech support. You can go a week back and see similar tweets from them to some users. They are now acknowledging that it's a widespread issue. A tweet directed at all their followers saying something is wrong with their connection today would quality as an acknowledgement. You have a nice day, too.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by msmash ( 4491995 ) Works for Slashdot
        Meant to say, "They are *not acknowledging [...]"

        • Do you honestly expect anything for the corporate overlords within an hour? The sysadmins and network engineers, sure, it's literally their job and some of them are bound to believe in keeping customers informed. But corporate? And I think it's the sort of thing that takes someone with authority to fess up to. I'd throw that upstairs. Maybe it's different in an ISP company, but getting ANY sort of reply from management isn't exactly a quick process. Certainly not within an hour. If it's embarrassing to

          • It's the lawyers. I hate every process at work that involves them since it will absolutely take twenty times as long as it needs to while they argue over minutiae.

    • There are several messages on the Comcast twitter account that is linked regarding the issue yet msmash states that Comcast has not acknowledged it.

      Well, Newsweek is reporting it:

      http://www.newsweek.com/comcas... [newsweek.com]

      Comcast will probably never acknowledged it anyway, as it would be an admission of fault on their part.

      They will probably blame it on "User Errors":

      "USER ERROR: Please replace user, and try again."

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by AvitarX ( 172628 )

        The rumor is they're reporting "external network issues" if you make it through the call center.

        It is not DNS (I don't know why people say that would be reported on, but not explained in even a garbage written in the future Newsweek article), I timeout, not host not found.

        It appears to not be just Comcast (this map is pretty similar to Comcast's http://downdetector.com/status... [downdetector.com]).

        No incoming phone, people are claiming TV out, outgoing phone is fine, and internet is hit or miss.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by msauve ( 701917 )
      msmash stated no such thing. They quoted someone who did, and who also qualified it by saying "Nearly an hour into..."

      You're the idiot who should work on their reading skills before commenting.

  • Looks more serious.... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Level3, AT&T, and Verizon seem to be having issues as well....

  • On Comcast in Atlanta...most sites working fine. Some, however, have been unreachable for the past hour or so. Traceroutes to affected sites all crap out at Level 3 servers.

  • Mergers are gr8! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by SeaFox ( 739806 ) on Friday June 29, 2018 @12:47PM (#56866528)

    Isn't it awesome that we keep allowing these large internet providers to buy up more and more smaller ISPs and merge with other large companies.

    Imagine a day when all of America can stand in solidarity, regardless of age, gender, skin color, or religious viewpoint -- and commiserate the lack of internet service we all share because "the Internet company" (which will likely be AT&T at that point), is having a nationwide outage.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Train0987 ( 1059246 )

      Or we could imagine a day where people's lives aren't dictated by whether they have a f'ing internet connection or not. Somehow humans have managed just fine for the past 10,000 years without Facebook.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by AvitarX ( 172628 )

        Believe it or not, customers not being able to call in is going to have an effect on my life.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • We also survived 10,000 years without indoor plumbing. Doesn't mean I want to go back to that.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mysidia ( 191772 )

          We also survived 10,000 years without indoor plumbing. Doesn't mean I want to go back to that.

          Thankfully there is little chance that some national company is going to snatch up your local water utility company and Integrate your water grid into the same system as their "national water grid" in order to realize reduced cost and synergies with the downside that it would now be possible to have a "National water outage"

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by SeaFox ( 739806 )

        Or we could imagine a day where people's lives aren't dictated by whether they have a f'ing internet connection or not. Somehow humans have managed just fine for the past 10,000 years without Facebook.

        I suppose you don't notice the irony in bringing up Facebook, another large corporation whose goal is to "own all the communications" and does so by buying up other companies that bring alternate means to the table?

        A more resilient system of sharing information exists through use of Instant messenger/VoIP, email transmitted between servers owned by several companies, and personal space on the web defined by thousands of blogs hosted on providers stretching the globe. Not a cookie-cutter profile in a single

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sjames ( 1099 )

        They also managed without clothes, the wheel, stone tools, or fire at one point. You first.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        Or we could imagine a day where people's lives aren't dictated by whether they have a f'ing internet connection or not. Somehow humans have managed just fine for the past 10,000 years without Facebook.

        Except the Interinet, like cellphones, have transformed our lives enough that it's impossible to go back. Life without a cellphone is tough - sure you have landlines still, but you don't have payphones. If you're in the middle of nowhere, you now have to rely on the kindness of strangers to let you use their p

    • Isn't it awesome that we keep allowing these large internet providers to buy up more and more smaller ISPs and merge with other large companies.

      Nice rant, but it's unrelated to the problem at hand. Even smaller ISPs are vulnerable to problems at the backbone level.

    • Even better, this outage highlights the very technical problem that routing was meant to prevent. It literally defeats the point of the Internet.

      And the Lord said, go forth and consolidate!

  • Clearly this is Comcast/Xfinitys' new business strategy in the post-post-net neutrality era: You have to pay by the IP address for access. They just haven't got around to sending out the email with the new Terms of Service for you to not read and click 'Agree' on.

    • just wait for the upsells with our gaming plan* no caps on steam, gog, uplay, blizzard and more.

      *gameing plan requires entertainment TV or higher broadcast and rsn fees may apply

      • Nah they'll probably insert ads into all your games unless you buy the Premium Gamer Package, some robot NPC will follow you around and keep trying to sell you shit based on all the data they collect from scraping your emails and tracking your browsing habits.

  • Try switching your DNS to Google or OpenDNS

    For IPv4: 8.8.8.8 and/or 8.8.4.4.
    For IPv6: 2001:4860:4860::8888 and/or 2001:4860:4860::8844.

    OpenDNS server addresses, 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220; Pv6 2620:0:ccc::2 and 2620:0:ccd::2

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by cj9er ( 1618279 )
      Doesn't matter, tried that and the 1.1.1.1 service. None help, must be having issues either with that port on their network or something along those lines. I wonder if they are under DDOS.

    • Try switching your DNS to Google or OpenDNS

      For IPv4: 8.8.8.8 and/or 8.8.4.4.
      For IPv6: 2001:4860:4860::8888 and/or 2001:4860:4860::8844.

      OpenDNS server addresses, 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220; Pv6 2620:0:ccc::2 and 2620:0:ccd::2

      My service was funky, but setting these DNS values sorted it out.

      Rally weird how some sites were working but others not.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by AvitarX ( 172628 )

      Why would I do that when I'm not getting DNS errors?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Zorro ( 15797 )

        Comcast DNS is Historically Funky.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by AvitarX ( 172628 )

          I don't actually use their DNS (the NXDOMAIN interception made it pretty unusable), but it was pretty obviously not a DNS issue, and yet dozens of people keep suggesting it was.

          Like that wouldn't be the first thing noticed, or the headline, if it was the case.

  • Some websites work, generally big providers (Google/FB/Twitter/etc).
    IRC works.
    Interestingly, Discord works.

    But my IP phone is hosed.
    Craigslist doesn't come up.
    And most of my other IM services don't work right now.

    I can't even log into my damn Xfinity account.

  • My home internet from Spectrum is out and looking at https://istheservicedown.com/p... [istheservicedown.com] it seems Spectrum is having massive outages too. Coordinated attack on cable companies?

    • St. Louis area had a major wind/rain/lightning/tornado storm last night (down here for 15 hours). Are you in a Charter region or TWC?

  • I bet they just can't be bothered to provide the service anymore. if it sort of works, that's OK. If it goes down for a bit, so what? It's not like you can switch to a competitor's service or anything. They can get their PR department to spin the executives' attitude into something that sounds concerned and caring.

    • If it goes down for a bit, so what?

      And it's pure profit for service calls. Tech comes out, Internet is working - full service charge for the tech visit on the customer. Try and prove your Internet was down prior. A lot of modems don't even show the customer-facing side logs older than 30 minutes with the cable company provided FW.

  • Something just happened at the White House (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I work near the White House and it looks like they just scrambled a whole shit-ton of people out in helicopters.

  • l3 (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Its not just comcast, its a transport issue on the east coast between DCs

  • Things are looking better now in Indiana.

  • DDOS? (Score:2)

    by wbr1 ( 2538558 )
    I think this may have been a more general DDOS (seemingly on DNS infrstructure). I use comcast at work with google DNS and major sites were down all over. downdetector and digital attack map showed evidence of a massive DDOS too.

    I hate comcast but maybe this one is not on them (or just them).

  • It's hit or miss in the Chicago area [suburb] today.
    Business Comcast line -- internal DNS used.

    First noticed when Liveleak wouldn't load.
    Slashdot was kind of loading, kind of not at that point.
    Most sites were up and working it appeared at that point.

    Then I started to get worried. I can't get to:
    American Express, Citibank, Bank of America, Chase, Discover, Barclays, CapitalOne, Amazon Credit (amazon.com proper is up).

    From my perspective most sites work (not all) if non-financial based. ALL financial sites ar

  • Two fiber optic cables were cut (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Comcast has acknowledged that two of their fiber lines were cut. Comcast does not have an ETA on repairs nor is providing any information on how the lines were cut.

  • Fiber cuts, other additional causes (Score:4, Insightful)

    by theurge14 ( 820596 ) on Friday June 29, 2018 @03:05PM (#56867460)

    Apparently Comcast backbone providers suffered at least two fiber cuts, specifically Level3 and Zayo.

    There's an interesting thread on Reddit with ongoing detail:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/sysad... [reddit.com]

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by dgatwood ( 11270 )

      How does two fiber cuts take down something the size of Comcast? Two fiber cuts shouldn't even be enough to bring down your average college network, much less something that big. There should be hundreds of paths through their network, and the whole point of BGP is that single-digit numbers of failures shouldn't matter.

      My guess is one of two things is the case:

      • Comcast, in an effort to cut costs, is deliberately throttling some of their more expensive backup links, so that when one main link fails, the o

  • All it takes is one yahoo with a backhoe who decided to get an early start on his Fourth of July party.

    I feel so vulnerable. Hold me. Please.

  • I was watching news at the time and they were covering a Trump speech live, and it froze for a few seconds and went to loud snow for a couple seconds, then it came back on but with groups of lines shifted out of place frozen and silent. Then I scanned channels and everything but locals were either the same way or just frozen. A couple channels were all-black but they might have just been frozen while such a frame was on.
  • Call before you dig. See subject. There need to be (my opinion, of course) exponentially escalating penalties for companies (and probably individuals) that fail to do so. Some grace is needed, because accidents do happen... but jeebus crisco, think about the economic impact of this sort of ineptitude.

  • I'm posting this now from my Comcast connection.

  • Locally, we got sick enough of Comcast and Centurylink's shit to build our own fiber network "With Blackjack and Hookers".

    250/250 for $65 a month. 1000/1000 for $20 more.

    Comcast doorknockers come around and get laughed at. Fairplay after those assholes locked people in on shitty 2 year contracts just before entire neighborhoods lit their fibers. Cords got cut and the natives rejoiced.

    "Here! We'll give you 300/12 Internet and a shitty TV package for $150 and include free lube*!"

    * We reserve the right to swit

  • This is a nationwide outage.
    How can a single cable failure cause this?
    I thought the Internet was supposed to route around damage.
    Something more seriously screwed up is going on.

  • I am near St. Louis and Charter/Spectrum started having problems sometime last night.

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