As school districts across the country began their first semester of virtual learning using the digital conferencing platform Zoom, users experienced widespread technical difficulties.
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According to CNBC, the company first reported the “partial outages” around 9 a.m. ET on Monday. Although Zoom itself did not initially share the technical difficulties on social media, users took to Twitter to share their confusion when the app did not function properly.
Downdetector, a platform that reports service outages, confirmed the issues on Twitter. On its official website, the tech-tracker details a peek of user-reported issues at 10:00 a.m. ET.
Since the outbreak of COVID-19 many once in-person occasions turned to the platform for digital events. Education is one of the many industries which shifted to include more virtual engagement as opposed to face-to-face classrooms. The temporary Zoom outage hindered the first day of school for students across the country.
WFAA ABC8 reports at least four districts across Northern-Texas were impacted. In Atlanta, Superintendent Lisa Herring said that the outage created “an interesting start” according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
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By 9:50 a.m. ET, Zoom announced that the problem was identified and a solution was in progress.
“We have identified the issue causing users to be unable to authenticate to the Zoom website (zoom.us) and unable to start and join Zoom Meetings and Webinars, and we are working on a fix for this issue,” the company said on its website.
By 1:00 p.m. ET, Zoom assured users the disruptions were resolved.
“Everything should be working properly now!’ the company shared on Twitter.
Eric S. Yuan, CEO and founder of Zoom, issued a personal apology from his own Twitter account.
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