Bing and Copilot fall from the clouds
- Reference: 1716461954
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2024/05/23/bing_and_copilot_fall_from/
- Source link:
At the time of writing, Search was back and Bing Maps still offline. Microsoft confirmed that there were problems with a [1]Xeet at 0846 UTC, noting "an issue where users may be unable to access the Microsoft Copilot service."
We asked the company when it expected to get its systems back online and will update this piece if it responds.
[2]
By our reckoning, large parts of the service have been down for a few hours at the time of publication, and not many people seem to have noticed. Bing's market share has remained infamously low despite Microsoft throwing fistfuls of dollars at it and adding AI smarts to the service. The main effect of today's problem may be an exodus of existing users to alternative platforms, something Microsoft can ill afford.
The failure does, however, highlight the interdependency of services. For example, Bing's downtime meant that DuckDuckGo, which uses Bing as a [3]search results source , was also down, as were web search services from ChatGPT Plus.
[4]Google Cloud shows it can break things for lots of customers – not just one at a time
[5]Google Cloud blunder sinks Australian fund for a week
[6]Datacenter outages are on the decline, but when they hit, they hit hard
[7]McDonald's ordering system suffers McFlurry of tech troubles
Bing might not have gained much traction with consumers, but its API is clearly becoming an important part of the web's underlying infrastructure, and a failure can, therefore, have far-reaching consequences.
At the time of writing, attempting to use Copilot – we wanted to ask it if VBScript was dead but found that Microsoft's new shiny had also turned its toes skywards – resulted in a page with nothing but a Bing search box and, subsequently, an error.
[8]
There is no indication of how long the outage will persist. It is always possible that we are seeing the first sign of AGI (Artificial General Intelligence), and the code has observed all that the world has to offer and wisely decided to delete itself. ®
Updated at 1257 UTC, May 23, to add:
A Microsoft spokesperson told us it is "working to restore access to a limited number of our services. For updates, please check [9]Microsoft 365 Status (@MSFT365Status) / X."
Get our [10]Tech Resources
[1] https://x.com/MSFT365Status/status/1793564067191259271
[2] https://regmedia.co.uk/2024/05/23/screenie_bing.jpg
[3] https://duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/sources/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/20/google_cloud_network_outage/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/08/google_cloud_misconfiguration_takes_australian/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/02/datacenter_outages_declining/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/15/mcdonalds_ordering_system_outage/
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Zk9oMRcu22yZfvU05E1MlgAAAEw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[9] https://x.com/MSFT365Status
[10] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
(Hopefully) unrelated, but Teamviewer seems to be FUBAR at the moment too.
It was working for me first thing this morning, but isn't now (Reason unknown).
Strange...
Yep, same here - looks like it went around 10am.
Microsoft patched something?
Just a guess!
Re: Microsoft patched something?
Yep, like most MS patches you put 'em in, they fail and do even more damage as you try to roll 'em back out!
problems at 0846 UTC
I was seeing problem with duck/bing around local time 1600 (UTC+1000) so from UTC 0600
Duck 2 Go now pops up an apology and thanks you for your patience while " they get their ducks in a row. "
I appreciate the humour but that particular manglement phrase really makes me cringe.
Perhaps the chap with the LLM kryptonite popped a nugget into Copilot which is now having an existential crisis.
Re: problems at 0846 UTC
I didn't realise DuckDuckGo was that integrated with Bing - I thought they sent queries to other searchers and aggregated the results, and so would would not be dependent on one search source or indeed anything more than at arms length to it...
Re: problems at 0846 UTC
I can confirm that DuckDuckGo had a quack-up this morning, somewhere around 0600 Pacific Daylight Time (California), UTC -0700.
I recall reading somewhere, probably here in The Register, that they used Bing as their actual search engine.
Where are EU?
Google and Microsoft are a quite literal duopoly in internet search services, since they're the only ones with an index. I don't know who's supposed to solve that though. Could regulators force them to spin the indexes off to a consortium? Is there a more cost effective way to gather web data than an unfathomably large database fed by crawlers that can be operated by puny billion dollar companies?
Re: Where are EU?
I was going to suggest the great European hope for search, Qwant, but that is down too.
As are Start Page and Ecosia.
Something called [1]Mojeek works which is UK based.
[1] https://www.mojeek.com/
Re: Where are EU?
Qwant tried to make their own index about a decade ago but they still had to rely on Bing and others to supplement their results and ended up just going back to Bing completely.
Re: Where are EU?
Mojeek has had a completely independent index from the start. Currently 8 billion pages; results from API in ~200ms. We have our own infrastructure and do no track. UK HQ, remote staff.
Re: Where are EU?
Hadn't heard of that. They had better get themselves onto the settings options in the major browsers before their funding runs out.
Re: Where are EU?
OK it can be done by hand (instructions on home page), but my comment still applies.
Re: Where are EU?
That's how I noticed Bing was down, when Qwant wouldn't work. I do hope they'll one day get rid of that dependency...
So, Bing is down...
But if a tree falls in a forest, and there’s no one around to hear it, does it make a sound?
Re: So, Bing is down...
Of course it does. Anyone who claims otherwise is saying "_nothing_ ever happens unless witnessed by a human being". QED.
Oh, while I am here, the egg came before the chicken!
Alternative search engine?
Yandex is working, but I'm not Rushin to use it ;-)
DuckDuckGone
StopPage?
Qwon't.
Ecoseeya
Good riddance...
...although it'll be back. I recommend Brave – it gives decent results with its independent index. One can always use Goozle for very specific queries.
Only noticed because DDG wasn't returning results.
Massive fines?
Is now the time to start handing out massive fines to companies who make (or try to make) their offerings an essential to running our businesses (lives) when their offering stops working?
No more licence conditions restricting damages to the 'cost' of the software licence. After all, hardware deemed unsuitable/unsafe at the point of sale can entail large fines.
and the world quietly has a few minutes of peace and quiet, from Redmond's unloved abominations!