LinkedIn is one of the most popular professional social networking platforms, with over 800 million users worldwide. Like any online service, LinkedIn occasionally experiences outages and downtime that prevent users from accessing the platform. In this article, we’ll look at whether LinkedIn is experiencing any server issues or outages today.
Is LinkedIn down right now?
To check if LinkedIn is down currently, there are a few helpful websites you can use:
- Downdetector – This site tracks user reports of issues across popular websites and services. Their LinkedIn status page shows recent user reports and any known issues.
- Is It Down Right Now? – This website checks the status of various sites and services. Their LinkedIn page shows whether the site is up or down right now.
- Outage.Report – Another useful site that lets you see real-time outage reports across sites like LinkedIn. Check their LinkedIn outage page for current status.
Checking these sites will give you a sense of whether LinkedIn is down or experiencing issues at the current moment. User reports of problems on these sites likely indicate an outage or disruption of some kind.
LinkedIn system status page
In addition to third-party sites, LinkedIn provides its own system status page that displays issues and outages:
- LinkedIn Help – LinkedIn Status – This page shares details on any active issues impacting LinkedIn. If the platform is down or having problems, they will post updates here.
Checking LinkedIn’s status page is always a good idea if you encounter errors or cannot access your account. They will post notices for ongoing outages and maintenance windows that may disrupt service.
Is LinkedIn down for maintenance?
In some cases, LinkedIn may purposefully take services offline or disable certain features to perform system maintenance. These scheduled maintenance windows help keep LinkedIn running smoothly and allow them to release new features.
Maintenance times are typically announced in advance on LinkedIn’s status page. They often occur overnight or during low traffic periods to minimize disruption to users. Some things to know about LinkedIn’s maintenance windows:
- Frequency: Maintenance happens roughly monthly, sometimes more often.
- Timing: Most maintenance occurs between 11pm – 3am PT during the week. Weekends may also see maintenance periods.
- Impact: Users may experience slow performance or inability to access certain features under maintenance.
- Notifications: LinkedIn posts notices several days in advance on their status page.
So before assuming an outage, check to see if planned maintenance could be the issue preventing you from accessing parts of LinkedIn. These maintenance periods are necessary to keep LinkedIn operational and add new features, even if they can temporarily disrupt usage.
LinkedIn outage history
While today appears to be a typical day without any major service issues, LinkedIn has experienced significant outages in the past that have prevented users from accessing the platform entirely. Some notable LinkedIn outages over the years have included:
July 2021 outage
On July 29, 2021, LinkedIn experienced a major global outage that lasted around 30 minutes. During this timeframe, users were unable to access LinkedIn on desktop and mobile apps due to server errors. LinkedIn engineering traced the issue back to a database query failure that impacted services. After rolling back the faulty change, service was soon restored worldwide.
API and feed issues in 2020
In early 2020, LinkedIn saw multiple incidents that caused problems interacting with LinkedIn’s APIs and feeds:
- February 2020 – Users experienced slow performance or inability to post feed updates for several hours.
- March 2020 – An API issue prevented some apps and integrations from accessing LinkedIn services for part of a day.
- April 2020 – Feed and API reliability issues popped up again near month end, lasting a few hours.
Though each incident was relatively brief, the clusters of API and feed problems frustrated users and developers relying on stable access.
General performance problems in 2019
Sporadic performance issues plagued LinkedIn at various points in 2019. Some examples:
- August 2019 – Users saw slow load times, error messages, and inability to post or interact with the LinkedIn feed.
- September 2019 – Ongoing performance issues and downtime impacted users in the Americas throughout the workday.
- November 2019 – Platform slowness and disrupted feed functionality frustrated users near the end of the month.
Despite LinkedIn’s efforts, 2019 saw above average instances of regional and global disruptions. Load balancing challenges as membership grew likely contributed to these outages.
What causes LinkedIn outages?
When major outages strike platforms like LinkedIn, there are usually a few common culprits to blame:
Traffic spikes
As one of the largest professional networks, LinkedIn traffic can surge during busy periods, overwhelming servers. Things like new feature launches, high-profile news events, or the start of the business week can flood LinkedIn with more users than their infrastructure can handle, causing downtime.
Software bugs
Bugs in LinkedIn’s software code can sometimes cause catastrophic failure. The 2021 outage stemmed from engineers introducing a bad database query during routine maintenance. These “bug” outages illustrate how even minor software defects can ripple into major availability issues.
System upgrades gone awry
Pushing out new code and architecture upgrades can enable exciting features, but also introduces risk. If things don’t deploy smoothly or the changes contain bugs, it can crash LinkedIn servers entirely until engineers rollback changes. Maintenance windows help minimize upgrade mishaps, but don’t prevent them entirely.
Dependency failures
LinkedIn relies on many downstream services and vendors to function: DNS, hosting, databases, payment processors, etc. If any of these downstream systems fail, it cuts LinkedIn off at the knees until that dependency is restored. Since LinkedIn doesn’t fully control these third-parties, it can cause unpredictable downtime.
Targeted attacks
Though rare, deliberate denial-of-service (DoS) attacks can overwhelm LinkedIn’s servers and infrastructure. By flooding servers with junk traffic, attackers can make LinkedIn inaccessible. The only recourse is to filter out and block the malicious traffic.
Understanding these common outage causes helps explain why even robust platforms like LinkedIn periodically struggle with uptime. The site’s complexity and many dependencies introduce potential points of failure.
How long do LinkedIn outages last?
When outages strike LinkedIn, their duration can range from a few minutes to several hours depending on severity. Some general observations:
- Minor outages are often fixed within 30-60 minutes.
- Significant outages resulting from failed upgrades or software bugs can last 2-4 hours.
- Major outage events may exceed 4+ hours of total downtime.
- Localized outages generally resolve faster than region-wide or global issues.
The July 2021 outage stemming from a botched database query impacted LinkedIn users worldwide for around 30 minutes before being addressed. Smaller functional outages (like feed posting problems) can persist for a couple hours until engineers deploy fixes.
Outages blocking access to LinkedIn’s core services tend to be more urgent priorities for their technical teams. Problems may linger longer for peripheral features or non-critical services.
How to check if LinkedIn is down?
If you’re having trouble accessing LinkedIn, there are a few quick ways to check the current status:
- Try refreshing your browser – this fixes connection blips or stale pages.
- Check LinkedIn’s status page for notices of known issues.
- Search for “is LinkedIn down” on Google to see reports of any widespread problems.
- Visit down detector sites like Downdetector to check for outage spikes.
- Check Twitter for posts about LinkedIn outages – these will spike during real downtime.
If these sources confirm major outages, then the problem is likely on LinkedIn’s end. Smaller functional issues may be specific just to you – trying an alternate device or reinstalling the app can help in those cases.
But if lots of users are reporting being unable to access LinkedIn on every device, that points to a broader server failure or outage within LinkedIn’s infrastructure.
How to troubleshoot and fix LinkedIn outages
Report issues on LinkedIn’s status page
If you run into problems with LinkedIn, reporting your specific issues on their status page helps their team diagnose the root cause. Describing your error messages, affected devices, and steps to reproduce the problem aids troubleshooting. The more accurately LinkedIn engineers understand an outage’s impact and origin, the faster they can restore service.
Try an alternate internet connection or mobile data
If LinkedIn is down on your home Wi-Fi, trying your cellular data or a different Wi-Fi network can reveal if the issue is isolated or widespread. A problem only on one internet line may indicate a localized ISP or DNS issue versus a global LinkedIn failure.
Reset your router and renew IP address
For connectivity issues, restarting your router and renewing your computer’s IP address refreshes DNS settings and clears any stale configurations or sockets that may prevent accessing LinkedIn.
Clear browser cookies and cache
Cookies and cached files accumulating over time can sometimes disrupt access or cause interface issues. Clearing your browser data forces LinkedIn to re-download fresh assets and resets your session.
Check third-party sites for updates
Outage reporting sites like Downdetector provide real-time updates on ongoing issues. The comment sections are helpful to see if others are experiencing the same problem as you.
Follow LinkedIn’s Twitter account
LinkedIn’s @LinkedInHelp Twitter account posts updates about known issues and outages. Following them provides visibility into current disruptions.
How to prepare for a LinkedIn outage
While we can’t avoid LinkedIn downtime entirely, some proactive steps can minimize the disruption:
Bookmark LinkedIn’s status page
Knowing where to quickly check for service updates is invaluable. Bookmarking their status page prepares you to stay up to date.
Set up outage alerts
Sites like DownNotifier can notify you via email, SMS, or push notifications when LinkedIn or other services you use have problems. Getting real-time alerts keeps you in the know.
Have backup connection options
If your primary internet service is down, having secondary access via a mobile hotspot or alternate provider ensures connectivity during an outage.
Follow LinkedIn’s Twitter support
LinkedIn’s @LinkedInHelp Twitter feed provides outage updates and ETA’s for fixes. Staying looped in helps manage expectations.
Keep usage flexible across devices
Accessing LinkedIn across both desktop and mobile allows shifting usage during partial outages. If desktop is down, mobile apps may still work and vice versa.
Export and backup critical data
Maintaining exports of key information, contacts, messages, and data provides insurance during extended downtime. Backups ensure important assets remain accessible.
Have alternate professional network options
While LinkedIn is the dominant player, exploring alternatives like XING or Google Currents gives you options if outages are frequent or prolonged.
LinkedIn outage FAQs
Why is LinkedIn always down?
LinkedIn isn’t down all the time. The platform has over 800 million users, so small subsets of users frequently encountering issues can make it seem like constant downtime. Most outages are partial and temporary vs. affecting all users continuously. LinkedIn’s overall uptime is typically over 99% per month.
Does LinkedIn go down every Tuesday?
No, LinkedIn doesn’t have scheduled downtime every Tuesday. Occasional maintenance on Tuesday overnight may give this impression, but most Tuesdays see no disruption. Their regular maintenance windows apply to all days of the week vs. a Tuesday-specific schedule.
Why does LinkedIn keep logging me out?
Frequent logouts often stem from browser cookie conflicts rather than big LinkedIn outages. Try clearing cookies and cache to resolve constant logout issues. Stale cookies can incorrectly invalidate your active session.
Is LinkedIn down due to Microsoft outage?
LinkedIn outages aren’t directly caused by Microsoft service issues. While Microsoft now owns LinkedIn, the two services operate independently. However, Microsoft Azure does host some LinkedIn infrastructure. So an Azure outage could potentially impact LinkedIn uptime.
Does LinkedIn maintenance affect Word or Outlook?
No, LinkedIn disruptions don’t impact access to other Microsoft services like Word, Outlook, or Office. As LinkedIn’s parent company, Microsoft services may reference LinkedIn data. But their availability isn’t tied to or affected by LinkedIn’s system status.
Conclusion
LinkedIn delivers immense value in connecting professionals around the world. But like any service at its massive scale, downtime is inevitable despite the best efforts of its engineering teams. Knowing what causes LinkedIn outages, how to check current status, and steps to minimize disruption can help manage these situations smoothly when they occur. While 100% uptime is impossible for a network LinkedIn’s size, they continue making improvements to maximize service reliability.