Unexpected crashes and downtime hit multiple servers
by Daniel Whitcomb 
May 18th 2009 at 8:55PM
A sudden wave of crashes has hit the North American WoW servers, with the Emberstorm and Whirlwind Battlegroups especially hard hit. As of this writing, most of the affected servers are still down. Blizzard is aware of the issue and is looking into it, but has no further information to give at this time. We'll update this post when we hear more.
UPDATE: According to Crygil, tonight's issue was out of Blizzard's control, but luckily things have resolved themselves. All realms should be up within the next half hour.
[Thanks to everyone who gave us a heads up!]
UPDATE: The 8 PM Pacific ETA has been removed from the original notice. This could be a long night.
UPDATE: 8 PM Pacific time is the current ETA for the return of the affected servers.
Filed under: Realm Status, News items
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Keyra May 18th 2009 8:56PM
Hmm...no problems on my ---
DISCONNECTED FROM SERVER
Euripides May 18th 2009 8:57PM
Arg, right after our first trash pull!
duece 2 duece May 18th 2009 8:57PM
Couldn't they have held it in till the morning?
Mattimus May 18th 2009 9:00PM
They must've been prairie-dogging it.
FifthDream May 18th 2009 9:01PM
Is crashing ever expected?
Arivia May 18th 2009 9:04PM
When I'm singing "Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm," you bet it is.
Graham May 18th 2009 9:45PM
Yes, on patch Tuesdays.
doh May 18th 2009 9:05PM
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=17222903994&sid=1
Sara May 18th 2009 9:30PM
server went down 3 mins before we had a chance to kill yogg saron 25 man
Stomy May 18th 2009 9:06PM
Blade's edge went down for like a min at 8:00pm central time
jsz May 18th 2009 9:07PM
Magtheridon-US crashed (or at least Northrend) as I was headed into EoE. Was down for 2min at most.
Joetheserviceman May 18th 2009 9:07PM
Grrr. At least I got some dailies out of the way before the crash. I do wish Blizzard would share a little more about crashes - it's infuriating to only be told that the realms are down... they're still down... they'll be up "soon..." etc.
Belkar May 18th 2009 9:09PM
Here's the fix to almost all server problems:
Please wait while we reboot every server in this cluster.
Fixt.
Avan May 18th 2009 9:07PM
The datacenter hosting both of the battlegroups is based in Seattle.
ladygamertn May 18th 2009 9:08PM
Another good reason to have alts on other realms in different battlegroups...
Tom May 18th 2009 9:16PM
We had a fairly long AV game going on (well by today's standards, had this been years ago...) Neck and neck, towers demolished, reinforcements under 50 on both sides, both teams on each others doorstep...
*Disconnected from Server.
y2fatboy May 18th 2009 9:27PM
From what one of the GMs on the Customer Service Forums is saying, it looks like the Seattle datacenter was taken down by a power outage in the local area...
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=17223173938&sid=1&pageNo=28#550
Rizuli May 18th 2009 9:32PM
oh my god! terrorists must have taken out the Blizzard place in Seattle! EVERYONE! RUN TO THE STREETS! PANIC!!!!!!!
oh, wait, just a power outage.
Kylenne May 18th 2009 9:34PM
Seattle was just a setback!
Allen Ibrahim May 18th 2009 9:39PM
Darn me for being on Emberstorm BG. Rivendare US isn't even on the server list as of typing this. No levelling I guess. For a minute I thought we were getting free transfers. Hey, a druid can dream.