Skype Outage Caused by Windows Update - Sort Of
No, it wasn't a bad Windows Update patch that caused the massive Skype outage that started last Thursday and continued into the weekend. It was the semi-synchronized massive reboot across the globe, which exposed a bug in the Skype Code.
On Thursday, 16th August 2007, the Skype peer-to-peer network became unstable and suffered a critical disruption. The disruption was triggered by a massive restart of our users’ computers across the globe within a very short timeframe as they re-booted after receiving a routine set of patches through Windows Update.
The high number of restarts affected Skype’s network resources. This caused a flood of log-in requests, which, combined with the lack of peer-to-peer network resources, prompted a chain reaction that had a critical impact.
This will teach users to not set their computers to automatically apply Windows Updates. Honestly, though, for most users that is probably the safest setting. The question arises: why did this not happen previously? Possibly a recent change to the Skype code?
