In a startling development for its users, Bluesky, the decentralized social media platform, encountered a substantial outage on Thursday evening that lasted approximately one hour. This incident raises ongoing concerns about the reliability of emerging social networks.

During the outage, users reported that their feeds would not load on both desktop browsers and mobile applications. The desktop interface displayed a persistent spinning loading circle, indicating that content was temporarily unreachable. Similar issues plagued the mobile app, where users could log in successfully but found their feeds completely blank upon accessing the platform. Many colleagues at The Verge also reported experiencing these connectivity issues, underscoring the widespread nature of the outage. Fortunately, as of now, it appears that Bluesky has fully recovered from the disruption.

Bluesky promptly addressed the situation through its status page, providing real-time updates to concerned users. At 6:55 PM ET, the platform announced that it was grappling with major PDS networking problems and confirmed that it was investigating the scope of the outage affecting its hosted PDS instances. Subsequently, at 7:38 PM ET, an update indicated that the team had identified a likely root cause of the problem and was in the process of rolling out a fix to stabilize the Bluesky PDS fleet.

By 7:54 PM ET, Bluesky's Chief Technology Officer, Paul Frazee, took to the platform to reassure users, stating, we are back and acknowledging that Bluesky was in the process of clearing up the situation. The status page also reflected this sentiment, reporting that all systems were once again operational, much to the relief of users who depend on the platform for communication and social interaction.

Despite the quick resolution, Bluesky did not respond immediately to requests for further comments regarding the incident, leaving some users wondering about the specifics of the outage and what measures are being put in place to prevent similar occurrences in the future.

This is not the first time Bluesky has faced technical difficulties. Back in November, the platform experienced slow-loading feeds and notification delays when one of its internet service providers suffered downtime due to a cut fiber cable. Ironically, that outage occurred during what Bluesky had previously indicated was its highest traffic day ever, highlighting the challenges the platform faces as it grows.