Cloudflare outage disrupts major websites including X and ChatGPT

Cloudflare restored its services after a significant outage on 18 November 2025 that disrupted access to multiple high-profile websites.

The company reported that the outage began at about 6.30am ET, equivalent to 7.30pm in Singapore.

According to Cloudflare, the issue was triggered by an automatically generated configuration file designed to manage potential security threats.

The file expanded beyond expected limits and crashed the software system responsible for handling traffic across several Cloudflare services.

Cloudflare said its network manages around one-fifth of global web traffic, meaning the resulting disruption was widespread.

The company confirmed it had deployed a fix shortly after identifying the root cause.

It cautioned, however, that some customers might continue to experience intermittent issues as service recovery progressed globally.

Cloudflare added that it had found no evidence of an attack or any malicious activity linked to the outage.

It noted that its network helps websites and apps stay online by mitigating traffic surges and cyber threats.

The scale of the disruption became clear as thousands of users reported problems to outage-monitoring site Downdetector.

According to Downdetector reports, access issues affected platforms including Canva, X, Grindr and ChatGPT.

Reports logged with the service reached a peak of more than 11,000 before declining to about 2,800 by 10.20am ET.

Downdetector stated that it compiles outage information from various sources, but figures may not reflect total affected users because reports are user-submitted.

The outage also affected Downdetector itself, briefly preventing some users from accessing the platform during peak reporting.

Cloudflare said earlier in the day that it had detected a spike in unusual traffic to one of its services at 11.20 UTC.

It added that the surge caused some traffic passing through Cloudflare’s network to encounter errors.

Cloudflare is known for providing a broad suite of internet security and performance tools, including identifying whether site visitors are humans or automated bots.

The company estimates that about 20 percent of websites worldwide rely on its services.

The incident followed another period of instability in the wider cloud services sector.

Last month, an outage affecting Amazon Web Services disrupted more than 1,000 sites and apps, including Snapchat and Reddit.

Shortly afterwards, Microsoft Azure also experienced a service disruption.

These consecutive outages highlight the scale of global dependence on major cloud-infrastructure providers.

They also underscore the challenges these firms face in managing increasingly complex systems built to handle high-volume and high-security demands.

Cloudflare reiterated that it has initiated a full investigation into the incident.

It said the findings will guide further improvements to prevent similar disruptions.