AOL Services Down

[DerVVulfman]

    Urp.   This affects me too, guys.  I lost AOL as of Midnight last night while chatting with kyonides.

Below are exerpts from an article from mediapost.com that are reporting a series of outages.

One reporter stated that AOL email is down today, affecting hundreds of users in New York, Chicago and other parts of the U.S., according to reports in Express and Down Detector. And Yahoo Mail is still out for many users.

The AOL problems began at 8:23 a.m. EST, according to Down Detector.

One AOL user complains: "My AOL has been down in Los Angeles County since yesterday. First I get AOL’s 'blerk' screen after which a Google Chrome screen pops up saying that my connection is not private due to possible hackers (or other issues)." 

Another writes: "For 2 days I have not been able to (get) on AOL. I keep getting that picture of the silly can."

In a message posted ten hours ago, an AOL user writes: "I believe we are being sent to a phony website, where it asks only for our username or e-mail address. It will reject that and tell you to use another one."

Of the AOL complaints received by Down Detector, 80% were for email, and 16% for dial-up internet. They mostly are originating from New York, Brooklyn, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Washington, Phoenix, Denver, Tamper and Minneapolis.

Of the gripes, 49% have to do with log-in and 32% with reading mail. And 17% cite "receiving email (send email to Yahoo)."

Down Detector warns that "scammers are attempting to rip off consumers by offering fake support for Yahoo Mail. Yahoo will never charge for support."

And yeah, I'm one of the guys now unable to connect at home.  And calling AOL, the hold message says there are a larger than expected number of calls, and the call wait time exceeds 30 minutes.

[Bounty Hunter Lani]

My mom had problems getting on yesterday, and I had trouble getting on two days ago for a few hours.
It kinda went away on its own, but to hear it's happening on a widespread basis is worrying, to say the least.   

[DerVVulfman]

Yep Yep. This past Sunday, I had returned home and intended to get online at 9pm EST so I could secretly snag any content for the Weekly Gazette before I made my presense known at 10. I do that by using a separate browser not logged in. Little did I know at the time that AOL was having more problems.

The new software which they sent out works with the newer operating systems as no modern PC, to their knowledge, would be logging in with Windows 3.1 or even Windows 98. The earlier internet provider software catered to an older architecture which was no longer used, hence the new system they began working with this January. And up until recently, there have been no problems at all.

This past Wednesday, my issue with AOL was that every line I attempted to connect claimed to be 'busy' like any other phone line. While it was still giving me that same 'busy' message through to 8am the next morning, it did correct itself by Thursday night. Unfortunately, AOL appeared to continue having problems.

Sunday night, I clicked on the AOL software entitled AOL Dialer. It started up asking for which AOL username I wished to use and what form of connection, all of this already using my default settings. Clicking the Sign On button, the screen began the dialing phase which proceeded quickly and normally. After that, the screen then went to phase two, saying I was connected and running at a fairly decent rate for a dialup modem (no laughs from the audience). However, it was here that the system delayed and ushered a message claiming that I could not connect to AOL and offered the Error Code encountered.

Now I'm a persistent werewolf. Besides my desktop system, I still have an older Windows 7 laptop with which I installed the new AOL software. Couple that with having two USB modems with which I can swap out, I already knew it was not a hardware issue, neither the PC nor USB modem. So at half past nine, I called AOL's help line and was put on hold for about thirty minutes.

What the heck... I was typing the Gazette during this time.

Eventually, I was greeted by... I hate to say this, but it sounded like 'Sam' from the Petty Pranks video "Windows Spamemr Calls a Thief". I described the issue, reporting the error message and how I tested my system, the modems, and informed him that there was no issue with the phone line as I was talking to him on the same said line. With all the knowledge at his fingertips, he suggested I uninstall the AOL software and re-install it to see if it eliminated the issue.

Yeah, that means he has no clue and I just had to try this, hang up, and hope I can connect after the reinstall. Of course, I had to aquiesse to his request. The issue was being recorded by AOL for quality assurances, and I was NOT going to let them forget.

After the doomed attempt at reconnecting with AOL using the reinstalled software, I was on hold with AOL yet again. And again, working on the gazette. However, I was on hold for only fifteen minutes this time. When the newer representative greeted me, I immediately informed him that I had been dealing with support not long before and the suggestion that he offered. I also supplied him with the details of my system and informed him of the error code, 718.

"Are you sure it isn't 618".

He sounded a bit flummoxed when I informed him I took a screenshot of the message and error code just so I could be as detailed as I was, and the error code was none that the phone support staff was familiar. Apparently, the process to uninstall and reinstall AOL is their 'Hail Mary' attempt.

The representative asked me for some details, including my secret 'hint' (which I hadn't changed in twenty years... oh, gawd. I got it right?), my username, and a telephone number in which to call me for an update. The representative had to contact his higher ups in Technical Support as the error code was an unknown. As to when they were to contact me, I knew that it was not going to be any time soon, so I suggested that they could give me an upate at 9:30am Monday morning.

So this morning, 9:30 had come and gone. I attempted to connect, and still had the error message I so loathed to see. Having things to do, I left for some time. When I returned, no message was on my phone, no display on the caller ID indicating if anyone wished to contact but left no message. At this point, I received nothing from AOL about the status of my connection.

But less than an hour ago, I tried to connect... and got online!

YAY! AOL got it up and running!!!

You coulda called....

[MetalRenard]

Makes for a fun read. You could have spiced it up with a glass of wine or maybe gone off the deep end and turned it into a spy novel but I guess I'll settle for this.

[DerVVulfman]

It gets better.

The time is now 11:07am this Wednesday... roughly one week since the problems began.

Monday night, after I left the IRC room (or make that Tuesday Morning as it was past Midnight), I ventured into another forum. I was making a post to tell someone that he needed to be more specific when giving an error report (sigh... noobs). It was right then (1:15am) that I was disconnected and the same error message popped up.

Stubborn as I was, I tried reconnecting and got a NEW error message. So, I decided to call AOL once again.

Oh, my gawd. I got the same ORIGINAL phone support rep thatI talked to the night before last.... the guy who sounded like Petty Prank's 'SAM'

He informed me that the servers were still being worked on... *Yikes?* I told him of the new error code, and he appreciated the new information and was going to relay that information immediately to the tech guys.

Now let's see how long it stays up this time.

[MetalRenard]

Well it's good to have you back, even if it is intermittently!

[lestat3179]

Good to know that AOL is still keeping up their reputation. Lol

[DerVVulfman]

Well, only one Spammer tried to take advantage of my downtime... and it was here in Save-Point (not the Asylum). Morons. We have a Bounty Hunter on the case.