MSN Messenger fails 10 million users
- Posted:
- 12:15 06 Jul 2001
- Topics:
- Instant Messaging
MSN Messenger is Microsoft's free instant messaging software and is used by almost 32 million people worldwide, according to research firm Jupiter Media Metrix. As early as Wednesday, some users reported being unable to log on to the system, or losing access to their personal contacts or "buddy lists". The service was still unavailable to many users as of Thursday afternoon.
"In this case, an extremely rare set of circumstances occurred when one of our database servers had a disc controller fail," Sarah Lefko, MSN Product Manager, said in a statement. "The backup for this controller also had an error occur which resulted in it not being able to fix this issue immediately, resulting in the current situation."
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The company refuted reports that the outage was related to its Passport authentication service, a service that its e-mail customers use to log on to Microsoft services and other Web sites. "The issue is hardware-related and MSN is now working closely with our vendors and taking appropriate steps on the back-end to resolve the issue and restore service to all MSN users worldwide," Lefko said.
Microsoft has said it will include a more advanced version of the Messenger product with its new operating system, Windows XP, which is due for release on 25 October. Called Windows Messenger, the application will come with text, video and audio messaging capabilities.
While many users have lost access to their buddy lists, Microsoft said the information has not been lost. "When the issue is resolved customers' personal buddy lists will be restored," Lefko said in the statement. "There is no need for users to take any action to restore their personal buddy lists."
Microsoft would not speculate on when the hardware problems would be fixed, noting only that it is "taking action to resolve the issue as soon as possible."
