Status: Degraded service in us-east-1 (N. Virginia). Mitigations in progress; recovery improving but not fully resolved across all services.
What happened
- AWS reported increased error rates and latencies for multiple services in us-east-1 starting around 12:11 AM PDT.
- Root causes identified in updates:
- DNS resolution issues affecting service endpoints (e.g., DynamoDB) earlier in the event.
- An internal subsystem responsible for Network Load Balancer (NLB) health checks impacting connectivity and Lambda environment creation.
- EC2: New instance launches were failing or throttled; AWS is deploying fixes across Availability Zones.
- Lambda: Invocation errors and delays, especially when creating new execution environments; improving as mitigations roll out.
- Broader impact: Downstream issues for services relying on EC2/Lambda/DynamoDB/SQS/Connect and others.
Current status (as of ~11:22 AM PDT)
- AWS reports:
- Increasing success for new EC2 launches and decreasing connectivity issues in us-east-1.
- Significant improvement in Lambda invocation errors (including Lambda@Edge) when creating new environments.
- Some services marked “Resolved,” others still “Impacted.” Backlogs (e.g., EventBridge/CloudTrail) may take time to clear.
Services impacted (examples)
- AWS: EC2, Lambda, DynamoDB, SQS, Amazon Connect, and many others in us-east-1.
- Third parties (varying impact): Snapchat, Pinterest, Venmo, Coinbase, Ring, Reddit, Xbox/PlayStation-related services, Starbucks app, etc. Many are recovering.
Major third-party websites impacted (selected)
- Amazon services: Amazon.com, Alexa, Prime Video — reported by Tom’s Guide live coverage.
- Social/messaging: Snapchat (Tom’s Guide), WhatsApp (NYTimes).
- Finance/crypto: Venmo (NYTimes), Coinbase (Syracuse.com; Coinbase Support), Robinhood (Hindustan Times).
- Smart home/security: Ring (NYTimes).
- Gaming: Roblox (NYTimes), Fortnite and Rainbow Six Siege (Hindustan Times).
- Media/streaming: Hulu (NYTimes), Apple TV (Hindustan Times).
- Retail/food: Starbucks app (Hindustan Times).
- News/Government: The New York Times website and the UK government website (NYTimes roundup via DownDetector).
Sources (news/roundups):
- Tom’s Guide live coverage
- The New York Times roundup
- Hindustan Times lists: List 1 and List 2
- Syracuse.com (citing NBC/Coinbase)
Recommended actions if you’re affected
- Use retry with exponential backoff and jitter.
- Avoid pinning to a single AZ for new capacity; enable multi-AZ placement.
- Delay deployments/scale-ups in us-east-1 that require new EC2 capacity if possible.
- Consider cross-Region failover if your architecture supports it.
- If you saw DynamoDB endpoint resolution issues, flush DNS caches on affected hosts/clients.
- Expect processing backlogs (Lambda event sources, EventBridge, CloudTrail) even after service health improves.
Official sources
Notes
- This file summarizes live updates from AWS and major coverage on Oct 20, 2025. Check the AWS Health Dashboard for the latest.