Zoom down? Service restored after serious issues [UPDATE]

Zoom down
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Zoom has confirmed what many users are already reporting. That there are lots of people experiencing audio and video issues with the video conferencing service. And there are also thousands of users who cannot join Zoom meetings at all. 

As reported by Yahoo, thousands of people are complaining about the issues on social media. The site DownDetector has also reported a spike in Zoom problems within the last 24 hours, and there are close to 600 comments.

Update Ma 15 8:46 am ET: Zoom's own status site says that its Zoom meetings and Zoom Video Webinars are operational. However, the Zoom dashboard and reporting shows "degraded performance."

Zoom has issued the following statement on its status site: "Zoom users impacted by this issue should now be able to host, join, and participate in Zoom Meetings and Zoom Video Webinars if they restart their sessions. We will continue to assess this matter that impacted a subset of our users and monitor to ensure no further operational impact."

According to Downdetector, the most reported problems had to do with video conferencing at 72% while 26% are related to logging in. It looks as though the issues really started to spike around 9 am ET.

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Zoom previously issued an update on Twitter saying that its "team is investigating the root cause of issues joining Zoom Meetings." The company says that the issues "appear to be limited to a subset of users," but it looks like those on Twitter do not agree with that assessment. 

One Zoom user on Twitter said that "we are trying from multiple countries / devices / platforms within Zoom and all not working, so I don't think it's limited." 

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Another user said that he found a way to get his Zoom meeting to start by disabling the waiting room and selecting allowed to "join before host." One paid account Zoom user wrote she was able to get meetings to work when she switched to the company's free account. 

One of the benefits of Zoom is that it allows up to 100 participants by default in every meeting and up to 500 with the Large Meeting add-on option. But it looks like large meetings were a problem, too. 

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One user @HeatherDCook wrote that over 150 people are trying to connect to her meeting and all are having issues with visual and audio. She tried using her phone instead of her computer but no one could hear her anyway.

Zoom is encouraging users to visit status.zoom.us for updates. As of 11 am ET, that status site said that Zoom meetings have degraded performance, and Zoom video webinars have the same status. But they've since been upgraded to "Operational."

Let us know if you continue to have any issues with Zoom in the comments below.

Mark Spoonauer

Mark Spoonauer is the global editor in chief of Tom's Guide and has covered technology for over 20 years. In addition to overseeing the direction of Tom's Guide, Mark specializes in covering all things mobile, having reviewed dozens of smartphones and other gadgets. He has spoken at key industry events and appears regularly on TV to discuss the latest trends, including Cheddar, Fox Business and other outlets. Mark was previously editor in chief of Laptop Mag, and his work has appeared in Wired, Popular Science and Inc. Follow him on Twitter at @mspoonauer.