AT&T still dealing with U-verse server outage problem
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(Updated 2:35 p.m.) AT&T says it continues to work around the clock to fix a server problem that it says has left less than 1 percent of its U-verse phone, Internet and TV customers without service, but that hasn’t quelled the anger of customers who say they’ve been without service for as many as three days.
U-verse customers continue to take to Twitter and Facebook to vent about the outage, which the company says affects fewer than 6,000, although there are reports of an outage as far away as Texas, Oklahoma, North Carolina and Florida.
“#uverse is STILL out … A little complicated to run my online store without Internet. Why is Internet not working in SC @ATTCustomerCare ,” asked Samantha Elder @YelloHypeInvite
“Two days now and all we get is “problem with a server”? You can rebuild a server in a few hours. Wonder what’s really going on? #uverse,” asked Jason @maynard001 on Twitter
In an update Wednesday afternoon, an AT&T spokesman said the problem is not widespread. “This issue currently affects less than one percent of our U-verse subscribers, but that is too many and we are working hard to fix this,” spokesman Lance Skelly said in a statement to the AJC. “We are making progress in resolving the issue, which is related to servers supporting U-verse, and are working to determine when service will be completely restored. We apologize for this inconvenience.”
Some customers reported that problems with U-verse began Monday, although AT&T said it was difficult to say exactly when the problems began. Staffers are occasionally responding to individual complaints on its Facebook page.
Sarah Castle posted on Facebook: “way to go AT&T i have been without internet for 30 hours now. I only have 3 grad school papers due this week.”
In response to Castle and others, AT&T has posted the following statement with recipients’ names changed: “We’re so sorry about the frustration, Sarah. We have identified an issue with a server that supports U-Verse and are working around the clock to resolve the issue. Please know that we appreciate your feedback. Some impacted customers may be able to reboot their residential gateway to restore service. Thank you so much for your patience.”
And Bounty Blake Moia on Facebook still wants to know: “Do we get any sort of rebate on our bill for this atrocious and appalling service?” So far, AT&T hasn’t addressed that issue.
What do you think AT&T, or any other service provider in a similar situation, should do to “make it right” with its customers?
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160 comments Add your comment
Diana
January 23rd, 2013
8:04 pm
AT&T delivers quality service to millions of people all over the world. Very ocassionally something goes wrong. UVerse is a fabulous product that works well. If this weren’t true you people wouldn’t be so upset to lose it. Rest assured that intense effort is being made to rectify the issues.
KHammond
January 23rd, 2013
8:05 pm
read your article online through my other service since att uverse is down. I am in Raleigh, NC & have been without service since at least 4 am tuesday morning. don’t care much about the tv part, but without phone service?? can’t call 911 if needed. Sure hope no one out there gets into an emergency situation & cannot call for help because AT&T can’t get service back up & running. I see lawsuits in the future.
kmcg
January 23rd, 2013
8:19 pm
I just lost it at about 7:15 pm 1/23. Had no original outage. I just have internet through them. Seems like they’re making it worse as they try to fix.
kmcg
January 23rd, 2013
8:20 pm
I just lost it at about 7:15 pm 1/23. Had no original outage. I just have internet through them. Seems like they’re making it worse as they try to fix. In Atlanta.
Where is ATT
January 23rd, 2013
8:21 pm
I called Monday nite to the 800.288.2020. The service was setup to automatically send me NOWHERE. I called Tuesday and the same thing happened. I was able to talk to a local ATT repair person on Wednesday morning. He said the ETA is unknown. I called tonight was put on hold for 40 minutes. The office in California answered. She said “I can’t help you since you are in Texas. Let me transfer you to the Texas office. Guess what, the Texas office closed 3 minutes earlier. If ATT is doing everything they can, why haven’t I seen an email or text message to my accounts. They have no problem saying your bill is due on MM/DD. Where is ATT when there are so many dissatisfied customers. Where you @ ATT?
C'mon Now
January 23rd, 2013
8:31 pm
Finally part of the 1%!!! Whoo Hoo. 48 hrs without Internet is making us grumpy.
DawgNole
January 23rd, 2013
8:43 pm
scd7
January 23rd, 2013
7:27 pm
A several hour outage is understood from time to time. But a several day outage with no commitment of when it’ll be up again is beyond unacceptable in today’s IT world. Especially from a “major” internet provider.
_____________________
You’re exactly right, and the answer to this unacceptable AT&T failure is for YOU AND EVERYONE ELSE facing your dilemma to hammer AT&T over the head by DROPPING them ASAP and turning to another internet, phone, and/or TV provider. That–and ONLY that–will get their attention.
Cliff
January 23rd, 2013
8:44 pm
This is infuriating. What do they expect us to do? Read books or talk to each other? Play parcheesie?
chante ray
January 23rd, 2013
8:44 pm
this is what happened in multiple states and cities vho’s went down on the uverse network causing wide spread outage in se and sw region places like tx,la,ga,fl,ten,ok,ky,sc,nc donot reboot rg it will not resolve issue just delay you from getting back on the network when the issue is resolved keep rgs powered up and wait for the service light to become lit solid green then your back up and running its a waiting game at this point for those who dont know vho’s are like large satelites here on earth that communicate with another one yes you guest it in space so the issue may not even be here on land but they will never tell you so you will have to wait it out or switch providers and they only offer $5 aday for when your down ..
DawgNole
January 23rd, 2013
8:44 pm
Diana
January 23rd, 2013
8:04 pm
AT&T delivers quality service to millions of people all over the world. Very ocassionally something goes wrong. UVerse is a fabulous product that works well. If this weren’t true you people wouldn’t be so upset to lose it. Rest assured that intense effort is being made to rectify the issues.
____________________
How much is your kickback for posting such nonsense?
Nan
January 23rd, 2013
8:47 pm
That sort of outage would be more than enough for me to cancel the service. I saw a friend post that they told her it may be 2 weeks to resolve. A shame. When it works, it works great. But as a remote worker constantly dropped from conference calls, unable to run WebEx meetings, it severely impacts me. As in my ability to pay my Uverse bill. If I had 2 days of no service, they’d be out the door.
Cat
January 23rd, 2013
8:54 pm
My U-Verse phone service has been out since Monday in the middle of the night. How do I know? Thats when my security system gave me an alarm that the phone service had been cut. Now still no phone service or security coverage. Getting a wireless security provider and canceling my phone service.
chante ray
January 23rd, 2013
9:10 pm
@CAT SMART
GAresident
January 23rd, 2013
9:14 pm
I live in Georgia, and I just lost service this morning, I hope I don’t have to go three days without service like some of you.
Frodo
January 23rd, 2013
9:23 pm
Why is ajc deleting our posts about DoS attack? My earlier post is gone.
Cathy C
January 23rd, 2013
9:23 pm
I came home to outage today (Wednesday) – seems like the problem is spreading as opposed to being fixed…
Miss Dallas
January 23rd, 2013
9:39 pm
Do yourselves a favor, people. Ask your co-workers and friends (who still have internet and phone service) who their provider is. My guess is probably Comcast. We are paying $99 for a year of internet, phone and cable COMBINED! Business rates are higher but it doesn’t hurt to call for a quote. 610-234-3728 is the number for sales.
Joe
January 23rd, 2013
9:42 pm
All the leadership in the company is in Dallas this week slapping themselves on the back talking about what great innovative thought leaders they are. Nobody is minding the shop this week. Sorry gang call 1-800-whateva
DanO
January 23rd, 2013
9:48 pm
You think ATT is bad just wait until a ice storm knocks out comcast. The 24/7 365 folk at ATT will have you up in 48 hours. Comcast will take weeks cause they are only willing to pay 2 hours a day of overtime pay and definitely no sundays or holidays will be spent restoring service. It already happened in Georgia. I was a comcast tech sitting at home and my ATT tech buddy was working unlimited overtime to get the network up. ATT are seasoned pros with natural disasters.
Pone acre
January 23rd, 2013
9:53 pm
I left Comcast cause of terrible cust service. Found AT&T a better product but terrible phone cust service vs all of Comcast cust service bad in most instances. Need to make good to customers & credit.
dave
January 23rd, 2013
10:23 pm
now is the time to spend a little quality time with your kids instead of sitting in front of the tv or computer!!!!!!!!
mosi b.
January 23rd, 2013
10:32 pm
Absolutely. ATT needs to make it right. You can merge, change your name, but you’re still Ma Bell. Slow to respond and indifferent.
NC ATT Customer
January 23rd, 2013
10:40 pm
ATT Uverse phone out here now on 3rd day and after repairman visit – both internet and TV are working sometimes (out 8 hours today) phone now 24 hours +outage. Over two years with Uverse and about to replace – 24 hours of good use is a really exceptional day.
Angela
January 23rd, 2013
10:43 pm
It is nation wide…..I live in New Orleans….I was told by a representative that 75% of customers have been affected….I asked him if he was talking just the New Orleans area and he said no….nationwide. The problem is much worse than the posts says here…….my service has been down since Sunday night….and still I have no service…..No server should ever take this long to repair….I think they have much bigger issues than this…..worm maybe or a virus…..whatever it is, it is not going to be fixed any time soon. My friend was told today that they would have service in 5 hours….welll ……no service yet…….trust me…..they are having serious problems.
same ol AT&T
January 23rd, 2013
10:57 pm
In the Atl. Ga area here and service is out, spent hours on the phone with the wonderful outsourced customer service. I already hate att with a passion this further proves my point to who ever supports them… Ive prayed for another service to be available in my area, sadly no cable, no anything.. when can we expect our crap service back?
JMG
January 23rd, 2013
10:58 pm
service blows. had it for 5 months… every 30 days all my services went out.. phone internet and cable. quit and will never try again.
Brent
January 23rd, 2013
11:00 pm
We’ve had uverse since they came to atlanta. Are they perfect? No, but comcast sucks so bad, they are stellar in comparison. I just wish we had ala carte cable options. I’m sick of paying for channels we’ll never watch.
moralynn
January 23rd, 2013
11:11 pm
Everyone i have spoken to with U-Verse is dead in the water except for two with the newer routers. This has cost me lost wages and ultimately another $90 to run a line from a neighbor’s house so i can do basic work. If AT&T had been upfront about the severity of the problem, i would have run a cable yesterday. My confidence has be totally shaken with the company. I could have handled an honest answer and made arrangements. As it was, i spent the first two hours just discovering there was a wider problem. Should have been an alert across their webpage so i could have stopped wasting my time.
solome
January 23rd, 2013
11:54 pm
I dumped the bad uverse last year and went with satellite—more expensive, but much better! att “service” –worthless
grayceworks
January 24th, 2013
12:43 am
I thought I had escaped… WRONG! First my phone went out, and I got online with chat to troubleshoot that, as I thought surely it couldn’t be part of the outage, as it was only the phone part of my uverse. Hmm. As we went through all the basic troubleshooting steps, noted the router was failing to get an IP for the phone. They said they’d refer me to Tier2. As the chat ended, guess what went out? TV and Internet. I called Tier2 on my cell phone, and spent over an hour troubleshooting to verify whether or not it was part of the outage. Apparently I was the first in my neighborhood to notice, as when we were almost done troubleshooting, she started getting reports of others in my neighborhood as well. The router trains just fine on the broadbank line, but fails to get an IP for the router. They are unable to force the router to pick up an IP from their end. So we end up with a solid green broadband light, and a blinking or red system light. Intermittently, the internet and TV come back, but not the phone. Very frustrating.
grayceworks
January 24th, 2013
12:50 am
I agree with the poster who mentioned it seems like either a virus or a DOS attack. I mentioned this to the Tier2 support person, and they said no…. but they admitted they still don’t know the cause, since the lines are fine, and their servers are pretending to hand out IP addresses, they even told me what they’re showing mine should be. But their servers are not actually linking the IP addresses to our residential gateways. Which if it was a bunch of workstations trying to connect to a server, and not getting any IP addys, I’d say there was something wrong with the server software. Especially if it started spreading to servers in other locations.
Elyse
January 24th, 2013
1:24 am
I live near Atlanta. My phone hasn’t been working for two days; internet and TV are fine though. I hope it’s fixed soon as my mother is handicapped and doesn’t have a cell phone to call for help if there is an emergency.
oldfart
January 24th, 2013
2:48 am
Call them and you get an automated attendant that you eventually drill down to the “all not working” selection (phone, tv, & internet). Hold for the human. Hold music is interrupted every 30 seconds to give you variations on a theme that paraphrases as “almost all problems can be resolved by going to att.com/uverse”. This absurd Catch-22 is repeated every 30 seconds by a voice similar to HAL in 2001. Tell me that you wouldn’t be a bit infuriated when you finally get a human on the line, especially when you determine that human is in the Philippines and reading from a script.
If I have made the selection that my internet connection is down then don’t tell me to use the internet to resolve my problem.
Bell Carbery
January 24th, 2013
3:02 am
I’m impressed by this blog.
herb
January 24th, 2013
3:35 am
Here’s the real story, my sevice was interepted tuesday 1-22-13morning, went off came back on a couple of times. everything except the xbox connection. i went to xbox and they said it was my isp. called at&t, on hold 20min before a lady answered, told her my problem, she went through the routine restarting router, checked computer access, and tv acess and said everything was working fine. glad she could help. What! its the Xbox not connecting, well i cant help you with that, i will have to send you to service center that handles 3rd party devices. time elasped 1 hr. support answers, I tell him the problem, he tells me that it will be a one time fee of $49 to fix my connection with xbox, or a extended plan with a monthly fee of $15, one year commitment. I refuse to pay when it is there server that is the problem. I am very irritated at this point. I want to speak to a supervisor or manager. he starts mumbling about he could have a tier 2 tech help me. For how much? it’s part of at&t service. time elasped 1hr 20min. wait time 5 min. tier 2 tech listens about my problem and the events leading up to him. we go thru all the checks and resets. yea! one more time. he has no answer, why its not working, puts me on hold to do some research. he comes back few minutes later. He found that something happened to there system, and the enginers are letting only enough data to go through to give access to the t.v. and computer. but not the xbox because its minum MTU is 1365 and only half of that speed is avaliable. he apologizes about all the confusion. asked estimated time xbox will be back up and running. does not know, best guess check back tomorrow. time elasped 2hr 20min. problem not resolved. called back 1-23-13 on hold 20 min. problem NOT resolved. the tier 2 tech told me it was the southeast all the way to maine that has this problem.
My theroy: At&t is ripping people off by selling them a service they dont need. because, the special services guy told me my xbox would be up and running by the time we were finished.
Also, I think a problem between xbox and at&t about money At&T is losing to the services xbox gives. Example: my daughters wii can connect to the internet, but not xbox.
At&t did give me a $20 credit today after spending over 3hr on the phone with them. Really covers the cost of xbox gold, netflix, ect:
herb
January 24th, 2013
4:04 am
Here’s the real story, my sevice was interepted tuesday 1-22-13morning, went off came back on a couple of times. everything except the xbox connection. i went to xbox and they said it was my isp. called at&t, on hold 20min before a lady answered, told her my problem, she went through the routine restarting router, checked computer access, and tv acess and said everything was working fine. glad she could help. What! its the Xbox not connecting, well i cant help you with that, i will have to send you to service center that handles 3rd party devices. time elasped 1 hr. support answers, I tell him the problem, he tells me that it will be a one time fee of $49 to fix my connection with xbox, or a extended plan with a monthly fee of $15, one year commitment. I refuse to pay when it is there server that is the problem. I am very irritated at this point. I want to speak to a supervisor or manager. he starts mumbling about he could have a tier 2 tech help me. For how much? it’s part of at&t service. time elasped 1hr 20min. wait time 5 min. tier 2 tech listens about my problem and the events leading up to him. we go thru all the checks and resets. yea! one more time. he has no answer, why its not working, puts me on hold to do some research. he comes back few minutes later. He found that something happened to there system, and the enginers are letting only enough data to go through to give access to the t.v. and computer. but not the xbox because its minum MTU is 1365 and only half of that speed is avaliable. he apologizes about all the confusion. asked estimated time xbox will be back up and running. does not know, best guess check back tomorrow. time elasped 2hr 20min. problem not resolved. called back 1-23-13 on hold 20 min. problem NOT resolved. the tier 2 tech told me it was the southeast all the way to maine that has this problem.
My theroy: At&t is ripping people off by selling them a service they dont need. because, the special services guy told me my xbox would be up and running by the time we were finished.
Also, I think a problem between xbox and at&t about money At&T is losing to the services xbox gives. Example: my daughters wii can connect to the internet, but not xbox.
At&t did give me a $20 credit today after spending over 3hr on the phone with them. Really covers the cost of xbox gold, netflix, ect:
you let your At&t bill get behind one month and they will drop your service and make you pay a reconect fee.
AD
January 24th, 2013
5:32 am
My t.v. and internet went down for a combined 2 hours but the problem for me is the MTU issue…I can’t connect to XBOX Live even after they claim everything is up and fine…I haven’t had any issues in 2+ years besides a modem issue which att fixed promptly…I think they were hit with some type of hack or virus and not telling the truth…they report revenue either today or tomorrow for 2012 so there is not telling whats going on with a publicly traded company..maybe some more ENRON stuff eh?
Festering
January 24th, 2013
6:03 am
AT&T really sucks! The bad part, Comcast is just as bad. I pay AT&T >200.00 per month for crappy service. I pay for 24 mb service….I get 9 or 10, I pay for phone service that doesn’t work and I pay for TV service that looses signal, frozen screen, voice and picture sync issues….
I think there’s major issues at AT&T. They are covering it up because of PR….someone should be fired!! Customers deserve to know….especially when our phones are involved. AND especially when 911 service is disrupted!!
jim
January 24th, 2013
7:29 am
If ya’ll don’t have Internet how are you posting?
I’m on uVerse 32 meg dedicated line and have had zero trouble in 7 years. They also answer the phone if you have trouble.
Waaaaay better than ConTrash
although the TV remote kind of sucks
GaTech computer programmer
January 24th, 2013
7:35 am
Believe me it is not a virus or DOS attack. Sounds like an IP server just went down. That is all. Probably running Windows, since UNIX would not break, and hardware is redundant.
ben
January 24th, 2013
7:38 am
I hate AT&T anything.
Cindy
January 24th, 2013
7:39 am
I live in S.FL on the Treasure Coast and we have been with out service (TV, Internet, etc..) since Monday evening, however At&T U-verse says otherwise, since Tuesday. I’ve been on the phone with them several times (waiting for at least 2-3 hours) and they still can’t tell me when my service will be restored. I don’t understand were not living in the dark ages anymore it’s 2013, come on REALLY!!! Large companies like this should always have a backup plan when something like this happens. Good Luck everyone, who knows when they will get this resolved, they defiantly need to make this right with all there customers!
JB
January 24th, 2013
7:42 am
Has anybody here ever tried to repair a server? LOl at people saying it shouldn’t take that long. It’s not like you have to just fix a part- the coding is a serious pain, especially on ATT’s scale!!!
Try looking at a flashing cursor on a screen in a data center with loud fans blowing at you and wires everywhere- while thousands of people wait for you to figure out the magic commands to type.
There’s also a guy who his whole job is to follow you around everywhere you go
Also no Internet to help you and no phones allowed either
Try it sometime!
Mike Goodwin
January 24th, 2013
8:17 am
It was not only U-Verse..but more of ATT as I also keep losing cell service. I came back sometime last night but still cannot get voice mail from my landline…the app keeps saying server sync issues.
Dcw
January 24th, 2013
8:52 am
I’ve had no phone, TV or Internet since Monday! After multiple calls to CS, I have TV & Internet as of Wednesday evening! Home phone still out!!
gj2001
January 24th, 2013
9:59 am
I’m in the Atlanta metro area. I called at&t to tell the my wi-fi key is not working. It had not worked since the install in Sept. I recently attempted to switch some workstations to the wireless. Although I ensured at&t there was no problem with U-verse TV or wired internet they offered to compensate for the inconvenience. In the 15+ years with Comcast, many, many unexplained outages of various durations, not once did comcast offer anything other than, ‘technicians are working to resolve the issue’.
Frodo
January 24th, 2013
10:02 am
LOL. JB! Great post. Calm down everyone. Go read “Superfudge”.
O-Bama
January 24th, 2013
10:04 am
Switch to Comcast?????????? Not no but HELL NO. I would go without TV rather than pay Comcast.
Shon
January 24th, 2013
10:13 am
JB – I work in the IT industry and I manage servers. If my production server goes down I have a backup server I switch to. We only lose service for a few minutes until the backup server is fully operational. And we don’t have millions of customers depending on us.
If my backup server fails for some reason I could completely rebuild the server in a few hours. It doesn’t take three days to resolve a server problem.
You would think a company as large as AT&T is would have taken the same precautions that I have.
RGB
January 24th, 2013
10:16 am
So JB,
How long should it take to fix a server?
AT&T’s outage is in its fourth day.
Should it take a week? A month? Three years?
Should a service provider be transparent with its customers and communicate with them regularly when an outage occurs–or should they state that almost nobody is experiencing the outage and have employees post blog entries about how great their service is?
Further, should a service provider as large as AT&T have failover and redundancy capabilities built into their network design? If these features were incorporated into the design in a proper fashion, would you expect AT&T’s outage to last four days and counting?
Finally, for people whose livelihood and safety are tied to certain of AT&T’s services, what would you say to them? Buy an enterprise-level service that costs thousands per month? Should an individual have to go to that level to get even two-nines reliability?
Oh, and I’ll add “LOL” since that seemingly provides you comfort….