Tech Talk News: Netflix, Instagram, & Pinterest Services Restored After Storm

As reported yesterday Netflix, Instagram and Pinterest were all down and were expected to be down for several days, but in a turn of events all services were restored before the day was over.

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Just how many people are streaming movies, posting galleries of their interests, and taking hipster pictures in the wee hours of the morning?

Apparently, quite a number.

Electrical storms blasting the east coast last night took pulled the plug on some of Amazon’s servers in Northern Virginia, leading to issues with what Amazon refers to as its Elastic Compute Cloud, Relational Database Service, and Elastic Beanstalk.

And, for those beans connected to the stalk – Instagram, Pinterest, and Netflix, to name three of the larger Web companies affected – their services went kaput as well.

“Due to severe electrical storms, our host had a power outage, no data is lost – we’ve been working through the night to restore service,” reported Instagram on its official twitter feed around 9 a.m. PT.

According to Forbes’ Anthony Wing Kosner, Amazon initially reported issues with its services around 8:21 PT last night. Netflix was able to restore its services approximately two hours later or so, but that hasn’t stopped some from taking to the airwaves to complain – or snark – about the downtime.

“Now that pinterest, instagram and netflix are down, I think I’m just going to spend the weekend learning the names of my children,” wrote Twitter user Michael Pierce.

Netflix suggests that users still having issues with streaming should try disconnecting their accounts from their devices (or removing the app) and reconnecting or reinstalling.

Both Pinterest and Instagram appear to be back up with no unresolved issues at this point, though Instagram was still having some difficulties with its service all the way into this morning – the last of the three major services to get up and running following Amazon’s outages. According to Instagram, no data was lost as a result of the outrage. And while Pinterest is back up, the company is still working to address any issues that might impact site performance as a result of the brief outage.

That said, the Associated Press reports that more than three million people on the eastern U.S. have no power as a result of last night’s storms – a far more significant issue than the loss of one’s ability to stream movies or take clever, filter-laden pictures. Worse, it’s expected to be a hot weekend in some of the exact areas with power issues: Washington D.C. is expected to reach (or top) 100 degrees.

A total of six people have died as a result of the storms: Two in Virginia, two in New Jersey, one in Ohio, and one in Maryland.

[pcmag]