On Wednesday, April 16, 2025, a significant outage affected Zoom, the popular video conferencing platform, preventing users from accessing meetings and the website. Reports of issues began surfacing just after 11:25 a.m. PDT, and by noon, the number of complaints had surged past 44,000 according to Downdetector, a website that tracks service outages.
As of midday Pacific time, Zoom's official website, support page, and email client were all unavailable, leaving users from states including Michigan, California, Texas, Nevada, and New Jersey unable to connect to their virtual meetings. Many users expressed their frustrations on social media, sharing memes and comments about the disruption. "Zoom doing remote workers a solid by crashing today," one user quipped, while another joked, "Zoom's down. Let's pack it up everybody, work's over today!"
By 3 p.m. ET, Downdetector reported that over 60,000 users were experiencing outages, with some individuals receiving an "Unable to Connect" error message when trying to join meetings. The situation escalated further when Zoom's website displayed a "502 Bad Gateway" error, indicating that the server was temporarily overloaded or down.
In a statement provided to CNET, Lacretia Nichols, product communications and content lead at Zoom, acknowledged the outage, stating, "We are aware that some users are experiencing an outage. We are investigating and will provide updates." Zoom later confirmed on its service page that they were looking into "domain name resolution issues on the zoom.us domain that is affecting multiple services." Regular updates were promised as the situation unfolded.
This outage coincided with a similar disruption experienced by Spotify earlier that day. Around 8:45 a.m. ET, Spotify users reported issues accessing the platform, which affected approximately 49,000 users. Spotify resolved its issues by noon, while Zoom continued to grapple with its service disruptions.
The timing of the outages was particularly detrimental, happening during typical work hours when many users rely on these platforms for communication and collaboration. In March 2020, when the pandemic forced a massive shift to remote work, Zoom became a critical tool for businesses and educational institutions, hosting around 10 million daily meetings with 200 million participants. Although the need for Zoom has diminished somewhat as offices have reopened, it remains a vital resource for remote workers and companies conducting meetings with clients.
As users continued to report problems, Zoom's status page indicated partial outages for its web portal and degraded performance for Zoom phone calls. Some users were able to make phone calls through the platform, but could not modify their settings or access meetings. The company’s status page noted, "This incident affects: Zoom Meetings, Zoom Phone - Global, and Zoom Website."
Reports also emerged that the hacker group DarkStorm claimed responsibility for the outage, alleging they had launched a DDoS attack against Zoom. However, this claim could not be independently verified, and it was unclear whether the outage was related to external factors or internal technical issues.
Patrick Bet-David, minority owner of the New York Yankees, also took to social media to inquire about the situation, posting, "Is Zoom down? Anyone else experiencing issues?" This sentiment was echoed by countless others who found themselves unable to access the service.
As of the latest updates, Zoom was still investigating the root cause of the outages, and users remained in the dark about when services would be fully restored. The company had previously encountered issues with its platform, but this outage was particularly widespread, affecting users not just in the United States but also in the UK and other countries.
In the wake of the outage, many users turned to alternative platforms for their meetings, although transitioning to new software can be challenging for organizations accustomed to a specific tool. The reliance on Zoom for daily operations means that any significant outage can disrupt workflows and cause frustration among employees and clients alike.
Despite the challenges posed by the outage, users took to social media to share their experiences, with some turning the situation into lighthearted content. Memes and jokes about the outage flooded platforms like X, showcasing the humorous side of a frustrating situation.
As the investigation continues, Zoom is expected to provide further updates on the status of its services. For now, users are left to navigate the disruption, hoping for a swift resolution to the issues plaguing one of the most essential communication tools in today’s digital landscape.
