August 2007

Four years ago today, the first public beta version of a little piece of software was released upon an unsuspecting world. The screenshots above help beam us back to the late summer of 2003. (The same day the Inuit of Labrador signed a deal with the Canadian government to self-govern Nunatsiavut. Good to know Skype isn’t alone in the Department of Nice Things to Happen That Day.) Skype today looks quite a bit different from what you see above. But don’t be fooled. Inside, its soul is still the same.

This afternoon, Skype employees around the globe will raise a glass to the four-year-old. But here are a few oven-fresh words penned by the man without whom there would be little to celebrate, Skype’s co-founder and CEO Niklas Zennström:

Today, Skype turned four. I can hardly believe it’s been that long. It only seems like yesterday when Janus and I were talking about people being able to use the computer like a phone. But without a phone. And without a phone bill.

Niklas

Hello all,

Yesterday, we posted an explanation of what happened to Skype on August 16. Some reactions to the explanation, however, have reminded us of one of the basic tenets of communication: It’s not what you say. It’s what they hear. We’d therefore like to clear a few misunderstandings that emerged in yesterday’s reactions to our explanation of what transpired last week.

1. Are we blaming Microsoft for what happened?

We don’t blame anyone but ourselves. The Microsoft Update patches were merely a catalyst — a trigger — for a series of events that led to the disruption of Skype, not the root cause of it. And Microsoft has been very helpful and supportive throughout.

The high number of post-update reboots affected Skype’s network resources. This caused a flood of log-in requests, which, combined with the lack of peer-to-peer network resources at the time, prompted a chain reaction that had a critical impact. The self-healing mechanisms of the P2P network upon which Skype’s software runs have worked well in the past. Simply put, every single time Skype has needed to recover from reboots that naturally accompany a routine Windows Update, there hasn’t been a problem.

Unfortunately, this time, for the first time, Skype was unable to rise to the challenge and the reasons for this were exceptional. In this instance, the day’s Skype traffic patterns, combined with the large number of reboots, revealed a previously unseen fault in the P2P network resource allocation algorithm Skype used. Consequently, the P2P network’s self-healing function didn’t work quickly enough. Skype’s peer-to-peer core was not properly tuned to cope with the load and core size changes that occurred on August 16. The reboots resulting from software patching merely served as a catalyst. This combination of factors created a situation where the self-healing needed outside intervention and assistance by our engineers.

2. What was different about this set of Microsoft update patches?

In short – there was nothing different about this set of Microsoft patches. During a joint call soon after problems were detected, Skype and Microsoft engineers went through the list of patches that had been pushed out. We ruled each one out as a possible cause for Skype’s problems. We also walked through the standard Windows Update process to understand it better and to ensure that nothing in the process had changed from the past (and nothing had). The Microsoft team was fantastic to work with, and after going through the potential causes, it appeared clearer than ever to us that our software’s P2P network management algorithm was not tuned to take into account a combination of high load and supernode rebooting.

3. How come previous Microsoft update patches didn’t cause disruption?

That’s because the update patches were not the cause of the disruption. In previous instances where a large number of supernodes in the P2P network were rebooted, other factors of a “perfect storm” had not been present. That is, there had not been such a combination of high usage load during supernode rebooting. As a result, P2P network resources were allocated efficiently and self-healing worked fast enough to overcome the challenge.

4. Has the bug been fixed? Should Skype users worry about future Microsoft Update patches and reboots?

Yes, the bug has been squashed. The parameters of the P2P network have been tuned to be smarter about how similar situations should be handled. Once we found the algorithmic fix to ensure continued operation in the face of high numbers of client reboots, the efforts focused squarely on stabilising the P2P core. The fix means that we’ve tuned Skype’s P2P core so that it can cope with simultaneous P2P network load and core size changes similar to those that occurred on August 16. We’d like to reassure our users across the globe that we’ve done everything we need to do to make sure this doesn’t happen again. We’ve already introduced a number of improvements to our software to ensure our users will not be similarly affected – in the unlikely possibility of this combination of events recurring.

(Posted at 5:35 AM GMT, updated first two paragraphs at 11:45 AM GMT)

On Thursday, 16th August 2007, the Skype peer-to-peer network became unstable and suffered a critical disruption. The disruption was triggered by a massive restart of our users’ computers across the globe within a very short timeframe as they re-booted after receiving a routine set of patches through Windows Update.

The high number of restarts affected Skype’s network resources. This caused a flood of log-in requests, which, combined with the lack of peer-to-peer network resources, prompted a chain reaction that had a critical impact.

Normally Skype’s peer-to-peer network has an inbuilt ability to self-heal, however, this event revealed a previously unseen software bug within the network resource allocation algorithm which prevented the self-healing function from working quickly. Regrettably, as a result of this disruption, Skype was unavailable to the majority of its users for approximately two days.

The issue has now been identified explicitly within Skype. We can confirm categorically that no malicious activities were attributed or that our users’ security was not, at any point, at risk.

This disruption was unprecedented in terms of its impact and scope. We would like to point out that very few technologies or communications networks today are guaranteed to operate without interruptions.

We are very proud that over the four years of its operation, Skype has provided a technically resilient communications tool to millions of people worldwide. Skype has now identified and already introduced a number of improvements to its software to ensure that our users will not be similarly affected in the unlikely possibility of this combination of events recurring.

The Skype community of users has been incredibly supportive and we are very grateful for all their good wishes.

Hello friends,

Take a deep breath. Skype is back to normal.

On Monday, we’ll provide a more detailed explanation of what happened. Until then, we’d like to apologize and thank you. Precisely in that order. We know how difficult and frustrating the past two days have been. And still, your good wishes kept flowing in. Thank you for the amazing patience, trust and support!

(Posted at 11am GMT)

Hello again,

We are pleased to announce that the situation continues to improve. The sign-on problems have been resolved. Skype presence and chat may still take a few more hours to be fully operational. We know what our faithful users have been going through and we thank you for your patience and kind support.

If you are one of the minority who may still be experiencing problems, please be patient. You do not need to adjust or restart your computer. Skype will start working for you very soon.

We will issue a further update when we know that Skype is functioning normally, or if there is further material news.

We’ve commandeered extra supplies of pizza and coffee, and we can promise that the Skype people aren’t going anywhere until they’re happy that everything is back to normal.

(Posted at 00.30 AM GMT)

Hello all,

As Europe has woken up to a new day and Asia is entering the evening hours, here’s the latest on the sign-on problem.

We’re on the road to recovery. Skype is stabilizing, but this process may continue throughout the day.

An encouraging number of users can now use Skype once again. We know we’re not out of the woods yet, but we are in better shape now than we were yesterday.

Finally, we’d like to dispel a couple of theories that we are still hearing. Neither Wednesday’s planned maintenance of our web-based payment services nor any form of attack was related to the current sign-on issues in any way.

We’ll update you again as soon as we can. Thanks for hanging tight.

Hey,

even though it is too early to call out anything definite yet we are now seeing signs of improvement in our sign-on performance. We continue to monitor the situation through Europe waking up this morning and have more for you in approximately 4 hours.

My client is now occasionally bringing in stacks of unread multichats. Hope yours too.

Hello,

just wanted to drop a line that everyone at Skype working on resolving the sign-on issue is still up. We’re fixing issues in our networking software and monitoring the clients getting online with increased success.

It’s been a loooong day (and night) for many and we are gradually moving to new shifts of fresh brains to help out those getting to well deserved few hours of sleep. Be sure that the Skype family as a whole will not retire before you can get back to all the Skype conversations you want, need or just feel like having. Sorry for keeping you split that long.

(Updated at 5:00GMT)

Hello again,

Everyone at Skype continues to work hard at resolving the current software issue. We are making good progress. We feel that we are on the right track to bring back services to normal.

We thank you for your continued support and are thinking of you every step of the way.

(Updated at 2:15am GMT)

Hello everyone,

Apologies for the delay, but we can now update you on the Skype sign-on issue. As we continue to work hard at resolving the problem, we wanted to dispel some of the concerns that you may have. The Skype system has not crashed or been victim of a cyber attack. We love our customers too much to let that happen. This problem occurred because of a deficiency in an algorithm within Skype networking software. This controls the interaction between the user’s own Skype client and the rest of the Skype network.

Rest assured that everyone at Skype is working around the clock — from Tallinn to Luxembourg to San Jose — to resume normal service as quickly as possible.

(Updated at 10pm GMT)

Some of you may be having problems logging into Skype.  Our engineering team has determined that it’s a software issue.  We expect this to be resolved within 12 to 24 hours.  Meanwhile, you can simply leave your Skype client running and as soon as the issue is resolved, you will be logged in. We apologise for the inconvenience.

A note at 20:06 GMT: We’d like to thank everyone who has taken the time to send us their thoughts, concerns and good wishes. It means the world to those working so hard to resolve this thing.

We’ve now released Skype 2.7 for Mac beta. With “beta” on the label, there may be some wrinkles, kinks and unsprayed bugs which we’ll remove in time for a public release. With that in mind, feel free to download and play with it.

Here’s what’s new:

• Group contacts – organize your contacts into as many groups as you need. While there are some pre-defined groups (like Online, Waiting Authorization, Recently Contacted), you’re free to add new ones that suit your life. This should be a godsend to those whose contact list has ballooned to hundreds of Skype users. Explore this nifty feature under the cogwheel icon on the main screen.

• See your Apple Address Book contacts in Skype - easily call or SMS anyone who has a phone number in their address-book profile. When texting, just make sure the number is one that belongs to a mobile phone.

• Create and manage public chats by clicking on Chats in the menu bar and choosing Start Public Chat. A public-chat assistant will walk you through the necessary steps.

• Auto Redial for busy or unconnected calls. When your call hits the busy signal, Skype will give you the option of automatic redial every two minutes until the call goes through. This setting can also be adjusted in Skype > Preferences > Calls.

• Easy sound-level controls – when you need to tweak the sound level during a call, use a simple slider in the call window

• Overhauled file transfer – wearing a more fashionable jacket, file-transfer now looks elegant and acts even nicer, especially when receiving many files at once

Download Skype 2.7 for Mac beta at skype.com/go/getskype-macosx-beta

Oh, and one last thing: if the default language on your Mac is Czech or Norwegian, Skype 2.7 Mac beta will automatically follow suit.

Good things often come in threes. Godfather, anyone? The blue three-wheeled car in Mr. Bean’s parking-lot revenge episode? Here is the third installment in a series of blog posts about cheaper SkypeOut calls to India: The “Talk more to Bangalore” campaign has been extended until the end of August.

Campaign pages are there for your perusal and consumption in the UK, US and the rest of the world.

It’s worth remembering that it doesn’t matter whether you call Indian landlines or mobiles. The price will be the same.

Skype conversations have had visual flavor ever since video was introduced in Skype 2.0 for Windows. Now, video makes a somewhat different appearance in version 3.5 which went public today. It lets you download videos from top independent video-sharing sites Dailymotion and Metacafe and add them to your Skype ‘mood’.

Skype moods are a simple and personal way to share all sorts of things with other Skype users. Since we believe that sharing is good, and that video is good, the conclusion is simple: video sharing is also good. User-generated and licensed video is incredibly popular these days and video moods on Skype should be a great conversation starter.

But new visual features in the latest version of Skype go beyond video mood messages. People can now also include video content in Skype text chats. Skype also lets you take still photos during a video call.

Last but not least, there are a couple of other things in the goodie bag:

Skype 3.5 for Windows lets users transfer their incoming calls to another person or a group of people on Skype (or, for Skype Pro subscribers, to a landline or mobile phone number).

We’ve also introduced auto redial. If the number being called is busy, Skype can automatically redial it every two minutes, until the call is answered.

Access to a broadband Internet connection is required for Skype and all Skype Certified devices and accessories. Skype is not a replacement for your traditional telephone service and cannot be used for emergency calling.

Jingle Networks, operator of the 1-800-FREE411 directory assistance service has partnered with Skype to make their free directory service easily accessible to Skype users in the United States. The 1-800-FREE411 service will now give U.S. Skype users (using Skype 3.5 for Windows ) a free directory assistance service without the $2 to $3 fees typically charged by telephone carriers for regular 411 calls.

This is a great example of a partner who has integrated Skype in to their online service. Here is how it works:

1. U.S. Skype users can now add the business contact ‘Free411usa’ to their Skype contacts.

2. Users can then click on the contact to call 1-800-FREE411 from Skype and request a business, government, or residential listing in the U.S.

3. Upon receiving the phone number, users can select to receive a text message (a Skype Alert) with the phone number, which they can click-to-dial from Skype, and / or click to add to their contacts list.

4. They have also added a ‘click to call with Skype’ link to each of the listings on their website. So if a user searches for Pizza Hut in San Jose, they are presented with the number and a link that says call with Skype.

More information

• Read the Press Release
• Find out more about becoming an online partner with Skype