Thread by @AO3_Status

The Archive is experiencing some issues (as many of you have noticed). We're looking into it, please stand by!

We apologize for any distress caused, and we'll do our best to be back soon! As we're running on volunteer power, we can't always act on server hiccups as quickly as we'd like. Thank you for your patience! 🫶

Very sorry we can't give you your fanwork fix right now, or a time estimate for when AO3 will be back. Welcome to all our new followers, and sorry we had to meet like this. 😬 Please stick around for the happier updates! 🌸

It looks like the Archive is under a DDoS attack causing the servers to fall over. Our volunteer sysadmins are working on countermeasures. Please be patient with us, we'll be back!

A DDOS attack is when an attacker attempts to knock a site offline by overwhelming it with requests:

Data is not compromised in a DDOS attack, so there is no need to change your password at this time.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denial-of…

A group presenting themselves as a collective of religiously and politically motivated hackers has claimed responsibility for the attack. Experts do not believe they are honest about their motivation, so we urge caution in believing any reasoning they provide for targeting AO3.

As part of our efforts to help keep the site up, you might find that you get "Retry later" errors more often when searching or filtering works or bookmarks. Don't worry, just go a little slower, or try again in a few minutes! These are temporary measures.

We do not condone anti-Muslim sentiments under any circumstances. Additionally, to reiterate: cybersecurity experts believe the group claiming responsibility is lying about their affiliation and reasons for attacking websites. View the group's statements with skepticism.

We're trying a new approach to defend against the ongoing DDoS attack, so you may see error messages that say "429" instead of "Retry later." (429 is the error code for too many requests.)