Cloudflare Blames Outage on ‘Latent Bug’

Cloudflare blames massive internet outage on ‘latent bug’ affecting ChatGPT, Spotify, X, and more.
Matilda
Cloudflare Blames Outage on ‘Latent Bug’
What Happened During the Cloudflare Outage? Cloudflare blames massive internet outage on a “latent bug” that disrupted services like ChatGPT, Spotify, and X on November 18, 2025. Users reported widespread connection issues, with websites loading slowly or not at all. Cloudflare quickly confirmed the problem, stating a routine configuration change triggered a hidden bug, causing network degradation. Within two hours, engineers implemented a fix and monitored systems to restore stability. Image Credits:Smith Collection/Gado / Getty Images Why Did Cloudflare Call It a ‘Latent Bug’? According to Cloudflare CTO Dane Knecht, the outage was not caused by an attack. The “latent bug” existed in a service supporting the company’s bot mitigation tools. After a routine update, the bug triggered cascading failures across Cloudflare’s network. This explanation highlights how even minor, undetected software issues can ripple across the internet. How Is Cloudflare Preventing Future Outages? Cloudflare ackn…