Messaging problems reported across country

AIM system crashes again

In this story: Electrical outage cited Scope not yet known RELATED STORIES, SITES

By Richard Stenger
CNN

(CNN) -- Computer users accustomed to typing instant responses to friends and colleagues found themselves reaching for phones Thursday as the popular America Online Instant Message service went down across the country.

It was the second time in two days that the service failed, and the third time in little more than a week that it had left users stranded.

All Instant Messenger primary and backup servers failed, leading to a "system-wide problem with instant messaging," an AOL technician said. AOL Time Warner is the parent company of CNN. Company officials suspect a power outage caused the snafu.

The system, called AIM, stopped working for many users early Thursday afternoon EDT. Within an hour, some versions of the service came back to life while others remained dead. Some users also reported the disappearance of their buddy lists, or personal AIM address books.

Electrical outage cited

Frustrated users resorted to substitutes like AIM Express and AIM Quick Buddy, stripped-down versions of the service that work directly on the Internet and do not require software downloads like AIM.

An electrical system outage was the likely cause of the disruption, said a spokesman at AOL headquarters in Dulles, Virginia.

"I think we were affected by a major regional power failure across the northern Virginia area," the spokesman said late Thursday. "There may have been some members who could not access information for a specific amount of time."

Scope not yet known

By Thursday afternoon, AOL did not know the scope of the problem, but users across the country reported technical woes. AOL claims its 25 million AIM instant messengers send 656 million messages each day.

Thursday's problems highlight other recent troubles with AIM.

An "equipment glitch" temporarily knocked out the messaging service on Tuesday, the company said. Some suspect that intense solar flares may have caused the disruption, though space weather forecasters said the sun likely was not the culprit.

On March 27, a switch failure knocked out AOL Instant Messenger, too. Service quickly resumed but some users reported problems for days.

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