“Our site namecheap.com is currently undergoing an emergency maintenance due to a power outage affecting our datacenter in Phoenix,” the web hosting provider said in a Thursday notice.
The problem means some sites created through Namecheap are inaccessible or displaying 503 connection errors. In other cases, sites are slow to load. The private email service through Namecheap has also been disrupted. “We do not expect any email to be lost in the process, but there might be a delay with email delivery,” the company said.
To add to the troubles, Namecheap noted: “We’re currently experiencing an issue with our support helpdesk. As a result, we are unable to assist you in live chats. You can still contact our Customer Support Team using Microsoft Teams and via email.” It's promising updates on its X account.
The outage could have a significant impact, given that Namecheap, founded in 2000, hosts over 24 million web domains. The private email service also covers 1.4 million inboxes. According to Downdetector.com, users began reporting problems as early as 4:30 a.m. PST, before the outage reports soared two hours later. Netblocks, which monitors internet activity, also reports that Namecheap's network activity has plummeted.
The outage is causing some harsh complaints. “So you're telling me that a multi-million dollar company doesn't have [a] plan for redundancy? One data center goes out in Phoenix and it takes down their entire system aside from their status page? Hilarious,” wrote one user on Reddit.
For now, Namecheap has only said: “We're sorry for the disruption this is causing. Our team is working to restore services as soon as possible.”