The massive chat platform Slack experienced an outage today that last nearly 10 hours with companies and remote workers unable to communicate as normal during the work day.
The outage wasn't total as some people and companies were able to use the service without issue, but for those affected the chat platform was blocked out.
Tom's Guide was one company that was affected as many of our colleagues couldn't login or send messages.
The outage started around 7 AM Pacific with some users slowly gaining back access around 10 AM mostly in the mobile app.
The desktop app started recover more functionality closer to noon Pacific.
Despite more people gaining access, service seemed to still be affected well into the afternoon with Slack finally using its status page to say that data shards in its system were causing the problem.
Tom's Guide reached out to Slack for comment or more information on the outage. A spokesperson directed us to the status page.
Around 4:45 PM Pacific, the company posted an updated saying that the issue was resolved and that everything should be back to working order.
The post did note, "If you're still encountering any trouble, please reload Slack using Command + Shift + R (Mac) or Ctrl + Shift + R (Windows/Linux)."
Outage reports rolling in
Users first reported a Slack outage at around 11 a.m. ET, with Downdetector reports climbing to over 3,000 by 11:24 a.m. When a popular service sees a sudden explosion in reports like that, you can expect to have issues, too.
I started seeing the outage at about 11:15 a.m., and some of my colleagues kept using Slack until about 11:35 a.m. before going offline.
Slack is aware of the issue
The issue appears to be getting worse as time passes, and Slack has posted everything wrong with the service on its status page. Most people seem to find logging into their workspaces to be impossible, thus preventing them from using any of the other features.
"We're still working to restore functionality"
As of 11:30 a.m., Slack said it's still working on the issue. Here's the official word from the company's status page:
"We're still working to restore functionality to affected Slack features such as sending messages, workflows, threads and other API-related features. Users may also experience issues when attempting to log-in. Thank you for your continued patience as we continue investigating. We'll be following up with further updates as they become available."
When did Slack acknowledge the outage?
On the status page, Slack first posted that it was investigating the issue at 10:27 a.m. The company said, "We're investigating reports of trouble connecting or loading Slack, we'll provide another update once we have news to share."
That's almost an hour and a half of downtime, which I can tell you from personal experience is affecting our ability to communicate at Tom's Guide. We're relying on a mix of email and Google Meet to coordinate this live blog and the Amazon Alexa content flowing. It's not easy, but we (and tons of other companies) are making it work.
Unable to load on web browser
The current incident is seemingly affecting every part of the platform, from messages and workflows to APIs. While the Slack mobile and desktop apps both worked fine for me, the service won't load via the browser.
Slack still working on the issue
Slack most recent update on its Status page says the company is still working on it. This update came around 9 AM Pacific. No timeline from the company yet.
"We're continuing our efforts to restore functionality to affected features such as workflows, sending messages, threads and API-related features. Users may also experience issues when attempting to log-in. We appreciate your continued patience. More updates will be shared as soon as possible."
Slacking off
Many users across Twitter and other social media sites are sarcastically celebrating Slack being down asking if they can have a day off.
Of course, others are being reminded that email still exists with one user saying they hadn't sent an internal email in over two years thanks to Slack.
First outage in a couple years
Slack is no stranger to outages and there's been several over the last few years. The last one occurred in July 2023 and, before that, it went down three times in 2022: July, March and February. Then there was also an outage in January 2021. Looks like we can now add February 2025 to the list.
Back...ish?
Several of our colleagues have been able to log back into their Slack profiles and respond in channels. However, a number of us are still locked out.
We're seeing similar reports from other companies. In some cases Slack never went down at all.
As of this post, Slack's status page says the company is still investigating the issue.
"Our investigation is still in progress with regard to deprecated functionality for Slack features such as workflows, threads, sending messages and API-related features. We'll be back with more updates as soon as they're available."
That said, Down Detector (hit or miss on actual length of outages) is showing a steady decline in reports.
Slack's current response
Tom's Guide reached out to Slack for any information on the ongoing outage.
We were directed to the Slack status page which still says the company is investigating the issue.
"We're still working to restore functionality to affected Slack features such as sending messages, workflows, threads and other API-related features. We'll be back with more updates as soon as they're available."
That said, the mobile Slack app seems to be working intermittently though on our end we've found that the Slack desktop and browser versions are still down.
Down Detector shows decline in reports
Down Detector is great for tracking if an outage is happening but the return can get a bit finicky.
Right now, the reports have declined but are holding steady around 1200 according to their graphs.
We've found some success on the mobile app but not everyone on the Tom's Guide team is getting through there. The Desktop app still appears down.
Slack alternatives
Slack is nearly ubiquitous when it comes to work messing platforms used from non-profits and friend groups on up to corporate environments.
There are alternatives though they don't all offer the same level of experience.
Microsoft Teams and Google Chat, for example, are more for meetings. Teams is far more finicky to set up, though it does integrate with the Office 365 platform.
Google Chat is part of the Google Workspace but uses threads over channels. Both seem to be paid as well.
The one app that I think is most similar to Slack and is free is Discord, originally meant for gaming. That service offers channels, DMs, and Zoom-esque meetings.
What do you like to use?
Maybe it's back?
The Slack status page remains the same.
Here at Tom's Guide we've been able to access our Slack channels, though some features still seem a bit down.
Slack's most recent message indicates there still might be problems.
"We’re still looking into the cause of the issue and working on restoring functionality to affected features such as workflows, sending messages, threads and API-related features. Users may also continue to experience issues when attempting to log-in. We’ll provide new information as soon as it’s available."
Slack appears to back up
As far as we can tell, Slack is back up.
Down Detector is finally under 500 reports.
The Slack Status page recently updated to read that the company is working to get back to normal.
"No additional news to share just yet, but we’re focused on getting things back to normal as quickly as we can. We apologize for the continued trouble."
We have seen some issues with people not receiving notifications but the general chat and channels are back up.
Let us know if its still down for you.
No official news
Slack updated its status page, and despite most of Tom's Guide being back on Slack (and others I've talked to from other companies seemingly having no more problems) the official line from Slack is that things are still down. There's no official word on when everything will return to normal.
"No additional news to share just yet, but we’re focused on getting things back to normal as quickly as we can. We apologize for the continued trouble," reads the update posted at 2:35 p.m. ET.
As mentioned, Slack appears to be working fine for Tom's Guide staff, with @here messages going through and most of the team receiving notifications like normal. It's possible Slack is trying to be conservative with its reports in case something goes wrong. On our end, it seems like things are mostly back in working order for a good chunk of users.
Downdetector reports are getting low
At its peak, this Slack outage generated 3,131 reports on Downdetector, and as of this post, it's sitting at 439. That's a massive dip in overall user reports but still not a low enough number that we can declare the outage completely over.
When we start seeing outages in the 100s, we can feel a little more confident that straggler reports are coming in and that the user base as a whole is back online.
At this number, and based on a couple of members of the Tom's Guide staff saying they aren't getting notifications, the outage is definitely still a problem for enough users to be a problem.
How did your company communicate?
While Slack was down, how did your team function? Did you pivot to email? Have you tried different communication methods like Microsoft Teams or Google Meet? We covered other options in a previous post, but getting a whole team to switch to a different app at the last minute isn't always easy.
Did you call it a day and take the day off when you couldn't use your favorite work app? While that's not always an option if you have to get a day off because of Slack's outage, congratulations!
Slack issue identified
Slack has updated its status page with some news regarding the ongoing outage. The company has some good news this time, claiming the issue has been identified.
"We identified the cause of the issue and are continuing to monitor our health metrics, but we are still not fully resolved. Some users may still reproduce symptoms such as issues loading their workspaces.
Our work is still ongoing to restore affected backend services to returning functionality to impacted features," reads the status page.
We'll continue to monitor the situation, and mentioning that "Some users may still reproduce symptoms such as issues loading their workspaces" concerns us. However, as long as Slack has identified the issue and is getting things under control, that's a positive.
A possible cause finally revealed
In the latest update from Slack, it sounds like some people may still experience issues but that people might see improvements.
According to the update, database shards in the Slack system are causing "feature degradation issues." Shards are portions of a system that usually help spread the load of the work filtering through the system.
"This has become a diligent process to ensure we're prioritizing the database replicas with the most impact."
The status page still lists the same sectors of Slack as being comrpomised.
Nearly six hours of down time
While Slack appears to be mostly back up for most users, based on Down Detector and social posting, it's not totally back to 100%.
Slack posted a new updated saying that it is working on database shard repair, noting that "users may still be experiencing impact."
As of this posting, the outage, which began around 7:30 AM, has been ongoing for over six hours.
Some services temporarily disabled
Slack is still working on restoring services and part of that includes temporarily disabling some services.
Here's the latest update from the Status page.
"Slash commands will be temporarily disrupted for a few minutes as we work on restoring service. Users who boot during this time may experience issues.
Thank you for your patience."
The outage is over
The outage appears to finally be fully over. While the mobile and desktop apps have been working for a few hours, the Slack Status page was still showing problems with the company posting regular updates on attempting to resolve the issues.
As of 5 PM Pacific, the Status page was updated to read:
"We've restored full functionality to all affected Slack features such as sending messages, workflows, threads and other API-related features.
If you're still encountering any trouble, please reload Slack using Command + Shift + R (Mac) or Ctrl + Shift + R (Windows/Linux)."
