Great Shutdown of 2021

On October 28, 2021, at 4:45 p.m. PST (12:45 AM UTC), the main Roblox servers began to experience major system outages across the country, causing

services like the Robloxian Avatars Free Edition System to not function properly. Problems with chat and experience performance were also reported. Later, many players suddenly began to be kicked out of the game. Roblox Studio also started to malfunction due to these issues.

18 hours after the outage began, The Robloxian Government put the site under Roblox maintenance for the first time since 2019. During the Roblox shutdown, there were protests and massive riots in the capital and other large cities in the country, also the news exploded across networks with the hashtag #Roblox. As Roblox gradually reopened access to the website, the first users were able to join experiences 63 hours after the start of the outage, while others took longer to gain access. The country fully reopened to everyone at 5:45 p.m. PST of October 31, 2021, resuming its activities.

The outage lasted 72 hours and 45 minutes, or just over 3 days, making it the longest outage in Roblox history.

The exact cause of the outage is unknown, but Roblox stated that it is an internal cause and not an external one. It was widely believed that it was caused by the Chipotle Boorito Maze event or other traffic congestion, but the Roblox Government denied this on their Twitter account saying it was not caused by any experience or association. President David Baszucki has since confirmed that the outage was due to an error somewhere in the code on the Roblox servers. The shutdown generated extensive Internet coverage from Roblox users and non-users on YouTube, Twitter, Discord, and other social media and news platforms as well as massive riots.

October 27, 2021

 * At 7pm. PST, the Avatar Store Community Creations tab is reported by a user on the Developers Forum as broken, and while the outage wouldn't start until nearly 21 hours after this post was made, this may have been the beginning. . to the interruption, causing the attention of very few users.

October 28, 2021

 * During the hours leading up to the event, users report minor issues with their avatar and some experiences are delayed longer than usual.
 * WINDOWSERROR.png hour before the interruption: around 4 p.m. PST, the error starts to hit most of the servers. These servers begin to crash and some users are unable to join experiences. Most of the people who are online on Roblox start to notice a lag. At the end of the hour, the servers quickly begin to crash, causing the networks to explode with new hashtags.
 * Hour 1
 * Roblox is reported to lose 99% of its users online.
 * status.roblox.com reports an "Active Incident" and "Service Disruption" on the website, mobile app, Xbox app, experiences, Roblox Studio, data stores, experience join, and avatar. They report that "many player experiences are affected."
 * Hour 2 (6 p.m. PST)
 * The Roblox Government asks its population for patience and that the problem is being checked.
 * The website is still accessible, but the pages are completely dysfunctional. Page assets such as avatars, thumbnails, and rating percentages are not uploaded.
 * Mobile app users report that they have logged out of Roblox, raising concerns about their accounts being compromised.
 * Chat filter is affected, causing chat messages to not load properly.
 * At the end of the hour, the last users are disconnected.
 * UNABLETOCONNECT.png 3
 * The first protests are reported in Robloxity and some in RoVille, the Robloxians begin to demand answers and some surround the town halls.
 * For the first time since 2016, active user count websites are reporting no Roblox users online, as is a huge economic downturn.
 * Some people report that they may load sporadically on the website.
 * Hour 5 (10 p.m. PST)
 * Roblox Studio becomes inaccessible to users, causing the game developers to lose money and some to quit.
 * Users report that the visit button is not visible on experience pages and that it is "impossible" to navigate the website.
 * status.roblox.com reports that they "identified the root cause as (an) internal system problem."
 * Mobile device users cannot register or log in, causing more panic in the population, starting massive looting in supermarkets, stores, warehouses, outlets and shopping centers around the country.



October 29, 2021

 * Hour 9 (2 AM PST)
 * Hour 12 (5 AM PST)
 * Hour 14 (7 AM PST)
 * Users report very limited access to Roblox and the ability to visit some experiences despite the fragile state of the platform.
 * status.roblox.com reports that "they are actively working on the incident" and that "some users began to have limited access."
 * Hour 15 - @Roblox tweets "We know you are having trouble using Roblox right now. Sorry and we are working hard to get things back to normal."
 * ROBLOXGAMESZERO.png 17 (10 AM PST) - Roblox website is closed "for maintenance." This is the first time since 2019 that the website has been completely blocked, the riots and looting do not stop, the state and federal authorities do everything possible to contain them.
 * LOGGEDOUTSCREEN.png 20 (1:00 PM PST): @Roblox tweets "We are still making progress with today's outage. We will continue to keep you posted. Once again, we apologize for the delay. We know this outage was not related to any experience specific or associations on the platform ", clarifying an initial rumor that an event sponsored by Chipotle contributed to the early stages of the disruption, in response citizens protest against the Chipotle company, accusing them of being the cause of the incident.
 * Hour 21: - status.roblox.com is updated to say that "the team continues to actively work on the full recovery of the site."
 * Hour 22: Roblox is ranked 38th on Twitter's global trending hashtags due to the outage.
 * Hour 24 (5 PM PST)
 * Hour 27 (8 PM PST)
 * Hour 30 (11 PM PST)



October 30, 2021

 * Hour 33 (2 AM PST)
 * Hour 36 (5 AM PST)
 * Hour 39 (8 AM PST)
 * Hour 42 (11 AM PST)
 * Hour 45 (2 PM PST)
 * Hour 46
 * @Roblox tweets "We believe we have identified an underlying internal cause for the outage. We are in the process of performing the necessary engineering and maintenance work to get Roblox back up and running as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience." The tweet was deleted shortly after.
 * status.roblox.com reports "We believe we have identified an underlying internal cause for the outage. We are in the process of performing the necessary engineering and maintenance work to get Roblox up and running again. Thank you for your patience."
 * Hour 48 (5 PM PST)
 * Hour 51 (8 PM PST)
 * Hour 54 (11 PM PST)

October 31, 2021

 * Hour 57 (2 AM PST)
 * Hour 60 (5AM PST): Roblox breaks its previous outage record of just under 60 hours (August 2016), marking the longest outage in its history.
 * Hour 62 (7 AM PST) -
 * status.roblox.com updates to say "We believe we have identified an underlying internal cause for the outage. We are in the process of performing the necessary engineering and maintenance work to get Roblox back up and running. Thank you for your patience."
 * First users report the ability to open the website.
 * Hour 64 - Tweets from @Roblox "We have identified the root cause and the solution. We are working to get everything back online and we will keep you posted throughout the day." status.roblox.com reports the same a minute later.
 * Hour 65 (10 AM PST): The ability to open the site began to spread around the world. For users who can access the website, a banner is placed to announce that "Roblox is gradually opening the website to user groups and will continue to open to more throughout the day."
 * Little by little the riots, protests and looting stopped.
 * Hour 68 (1 PM PST)
 * status.roblox.com advertises that "traffic is allowed incrementally. Some, but not all, players will have access."
 * 8 minutes later @Roblox tweets "Quick update as we work to get things back to normal. We are incrementally bringing regions back online."
 * Hour 71 (4 PM PST)
 * Hour 72 -
 * @Roblox tweets "Roblox is back online everywhere! Thank you for your continued patience as we get back to normal."
 * 15 minutes before the 73rd hour, status.roblox.com updates to report that "normal operations have been restored."
 * The country's economy is recovering by leaps and bounds and people are back to normal.

Aftermath
A few hours after the platform was brought back online and fully functional, Roblox President David Baszucki issued an apology on the National Roblox Blog about the events that occurred during the last 73 hours. At the end of this blog, Baszucki stated that Roblox would take steps to prevent another major site-wide glitch like this one in the future, as well as stating that they will post an autopsy with more details on the cause of the outage once their analysis was over. full. It was also stated on the Developer Forum that no player persistence data was lost and that it would issue refunds to developers for ads that failed to run due to the outage. The outage also caused Roblox to lose more than $ 1.5 billion in market capitalization on November 1, 2021, a period in which it would generate at least $ 15 million in revenue. Even 20 hours after the end of the outage, there were still some Catalog API bugs and they were currently close to zero visibility for newly released props in the Avatar Store. This only happened to a small part of the users. They did not affect development or gameplay.

On November 3, 2021, Roblox began offering refunds to developers after their ads were unable to run on the platform during the outage.

On November 8, 2021, Roblox announced that they would provide adequate compensation to developers for lost revenue due to outage by estimating "Robux earned from market and experience transactions, and also premium payments." A few hours later, Roblox started this process.

Criticisms and rumors
Many users have speculated that the outage was due to a recently launched Chipotle event where visitors could win coupons for free burritos. Multiple rumors spread across platforms such as Reddit and Twitter that Roblox was shutting down due to various reasons, including inappropriate content on its website and bankruptcy. During the early stages of the outage, people rumored that experience loading failures were due to experiences not being saved correctly and users should avoid joining any experiences.

As the outage extended beyond 24 hours, community members expressed frustration at losing their login streaks that experiences often use to reward visitors. Some people were very sad and angry that they had lost months or even years of streak. Developers and designers noted that they lost Robux from ads placed in the 24-hour period before the outage, due to decreased site traffic.

People have criticized the length of the outage and the inability of engineers to identify the problem for nearly 48 hours. Various influencers made mock videos on Roblox's official Twitter posts.

Protests and riots
Chaos from the massive shutdown occurred across the country, various property damage was reported due to riots and vandalism. The authorities contained the riots with tear gas and pressurized water hoses, which managed to disperse several rioters.

The protesters held signs and signs that read "Death to Chipotle" "Guilty Chipotle" or "NoMoreChipotle", all blaming the Chipotle Company for the incident.

All this occurred throughout the country, mainly in the capital, in its metropolitan area and in large and medium-sized cities such as Neighborhood of Robloxia, RoVille, Sunset City, Brookhaven or Bloxburg, there were also protests in cities of other countries such as Houston, New York, Calgary, Berlin, Mexico City, Sao Paulo and Tokyo

CREDITS TO THE WIKI PAGE 2021 Roblox outage, Link: https://roblox.fandom.com/wiki/2021_Roblox_outage