A major internet outage is unfolding right now. Many global services including Shopify, Zoom, Notion, Medium, and other SaaS platforms are returning 500 Internal Server Errors for users.
Early signs indicate this disruption is linked to a Cloudflare issue. Cloudflare powers DNS, CDN, and security features for millions of websites. Any malfunction in its network quickly impacts businesses worldwide.
Source: Shopify Status Page
What Users Are Seeing
Thousands of users are reporting the same pattern. Websites that typically load instantly are now failing with 500 errors. Apps relying on real-time APIs like Zoom and Notion are timing out or crashing. Shopify storefronts and checkout pages are especially affected during this outage.
A 500 Internal Server Error indicates the server is unable to handle the request due to a temporary fault. When a provider like Cloudflare experiences a disruption, these kinds of errors appear across multiple unrelated platforms that all depend on the same underlying network.
 
Why This Is Happening
Cloudflare sits in the critical path between websites and their visitors. Its systems handle routing, caching, DNS resolution, and traffic filtering. If any of these layers fail. the servers behind them may become overloaded or unreachable. This leads to the widespread 500 errors visible right now.
The current outage appears to be affecting:
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DNS resolution. Sites not resolving or resolving intermittently
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Traffic routing. Causing timeouts that lead to 500 responses
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CDN delivery. Resulting in broken pages or assets
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API-heavy apps. Zoom, Notion, and others unable to connect reliably
Because so many services depend on Cloudflare simultaneously, the impact becomes global within minutes.
How This Impacts Businesses
For e-commerce stores, especially Shopify merchants, this outage is happening at a critical time. Customers trying to browse or check out are being met with 500 errors. Businesses relying on Zoom for meetings or Notion for workflow management are facing interruptions. Even content platforms like Medium are showing error pages on load.
This downtime can cause lost revenue, missed meetings, and stalled productivity across industries.
Current Cloudflare Status
Cloudflare has not yet released full details, but global uptime monitors are showing significant traffic failures pointing back to Cloudflare’s infrastructure. Historically, Cloudflare has resolved such incidents quickly. We expect more information from their status page soon.
Cloudflare have now acknowledged and resolved the issue, more details awaited:
What You Should Do for Now
During an outage of this scale, the best actions are:
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Do not make major website or DNS changes
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Notify customers or team members if your service is affected
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Keep an eye on Cloudflare’s official status updates
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Retry essential actions after a few minutes since services may recover gradually
Final Update for Now
This outage highlights how central Cloudflare is to the modern internet. A single issue can lead to widespread 500 internal errors across unrelated platforms. Teams and businesses should monitor the situation closely as Cloudflare works on restoring full functionality.
More updates will follow as information becomes available.