LONDON (AP) — Amazon says a massive outage of its cloud computing service has been resolved as of Monday evening, after a problem disrupted internet use around the world, taking down a broad range of online services, including social media, gaming, food delivery, streaming and financial platforms.

The all-day disruption and the ensuing exasperation it caused served as the latest reminder that 21st century society is increasingly dependent on just a handful of companies for much of its internet technology, which seems to work reliably until it suddenly breaks down.

About three hours after the outage began early Monday morning, Amazon Web Services said it was starting to recover, but it wasn’t until 6 p.m. Eastern that “services returned to normal operations,” Amazon said on its AWS health website, where it tracks outages.

AWS provides behind-the-scenes cloud computing infrastructure to some of the world’s biggest organizations. Its customers include government departments, universities and businesses, including The Associated Press.

Cybersecurity expert Mike Chapple said “a slow and bumpy recovery process” is “entirely normal.”

As engineers roll out fixes across the cloud computing infrastructure, the process could trigger smaller disruptions, he said.

“It’s similar to what happens after a large-scale power outage: While a city’s power is coming back online, neighborhoods may see intermittent glitches as crews finish the repairs,” said Chapple, an information technology professor at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business.

Amazon blames domain name system

Amazon pinned the outage on issues related to its domain name system that converts web addresses into IP addresses, which are numeric designations that identify locations on the internet. Those addresses allow websites and apps to load on internet-connected devices.

DownDetector, a website that tracks online outages, said in a Facebook post that it received over 11 million user reports of problems at more than 2,500 companies. Users reported trouble with the social media site Snapchat, the Roblox and Fortnite video games, the online broker Robinhood and the McDonald’s app, as well as Netflix, Disney+ and many other services.

The cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase and the Signal chat app both said on X that they were experiencing trouble related to the outage.

Amazon’s own services were also affected. Users of the company’s Ring doorbell cameras and Alexa-powered smart speakers reported that they were not working, while others said they were unable to access the Amazon website or download books to their Kindle.

Many college and K-12 students were unable to submit or access their homework or course materials Monday because the AWS outage knocked out Canvas, a widely used educational platform.

“I currently can’t grade any online assignments, and my students can’t access their online materials” because of the outage’s effect on learning-management systems, said Damien P. Williams, a professor of philosophy and data science at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

The exact number of schools impacted was not immediately known, but Canvas says on its website it is used by 50% of college and university students in North America, including all Ivy League schools in the U.S.

At the University of California, Riverside, students couldn’t submit assignments, take quizzes or access course materials, and online instruction was limited, the campus said.

Ohio State University informed its 70,000 students at all six campuses by email Monday morning that online course materials might be inaccessible due to the outage and that “students should connect with their instructors for any alternative plans.” As of 7:10 p.m. Eastern, access was restored, the university told students.

Record of past outages

This is not the first time issues with Amazon cloud services have caused widespread disruptions.

Many popular internet services were affected by a brief outage in 2023. AWS’s longest outage in recent history occurred in late 2021, when a wide range of companies — from airlines and auto dealerships to payment apps and video streaming services — were affected for more than five hours. Outages also happened in 2020 and 2017.

The first signs of trouble emerged at around 3:11 a.m. Eastern time, when AWS reported on its “health dashboard” that it was “investigating increased error rates and latencies for multiple AWS services in the US-EAST-1 Region.” Later, the company reported that there were “significant error rates” and that engineers were “actively working” on the problem.

Around 6 a.m. Eastern time, the company reported seeing recovery across most of the affected services and said it was seeking a “full resolution.” As of midday, AWS was still working to resolve the trouble.

Sixty-four internal AWS services were affected, the company said.

Just a few companies provide most internet infrastructure

Because much of the world now relies on three or four companies to provide the underlying infrastructure of the internet, “when there’s an issue like this, it can be really impactful” across many online services, said Patrick Burgess, a cybersecurity expert at U.K.-based BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT.

“The world now runs on the cloud,” Burgess said.

And because so much of the online world’s plumbing is underpinned by so few companies, when something goes wrong, “it’s very difficult for users to pinpoint what is happening because we don’t see Amazon, we just see Snapchat or Roblox,” Burgess said.

“The good news is that this kind of issue is usually relatively fast” to resolve, and there’s no indication that it was caused by a cyberattack, Burgess said.

“This looks like a good old-fashioned technology issue. Something’s gone wrong, and it will be fixed by Amazon,” he said.

There are “well-established processes” to deal with outages at AWS, as well as rivals Google and Microsoft, Burgess said, adding that such outages are usually over in “hours rather than days.”

MORRISTOWN (AP) — Ace Frehley, the original lead guitarist and founding member of the glam rock band Kiss, who captivated audiences with his elaborate galactic makeup and smoking guitar, died Thursday. He was 74.

Frehley died peacefully surrounded by family in Morristown, New Jersey, following a recent fall, according to his agent.

Family members said in a statement that they are “completely devastated and heartbroken” but will cherish his laughter and celebrate the kindness he bestowed upon others.

Kiss, whose hits included “Rock and Roll All Nite” and “I Was Made for Lovin’ You,” was known for its theatrical stage shows, with fire and fake blood spewing from the mouths of band members dressed in body armor, platform boots, wigs and signature black-and-white face paint.

Kiss’ original lineup included Frehley, singer-guitarist Paul Stanley, tongue-wagging bassist Gene Simmons and drummer Peter Criss. Frehley’s is the first death among the four founding members.

Band members took on the personas of comic book-style characters — Frehley was known as “Space Ace” and “The Spaceman.” The New York-born entertainer and Rock & Roll Hall of Famer often experimented with pyrotechnics, making his guitars glow, emit smoke and shoot rockets from the headstock.

“We are devastated by the passing of Ace Frehley,” Simmons and Stanley said in a joint statement. “He was an essential and irreplaceable rock soldier during some of the most formative foundational chapters of the band and its history. He is and will always be a part of KISS’s legacy.”

Born Paul Daniel Frehley, he grew up in a musical family and began playing guitar at age 13. Before joining Kiss, he played in local bands around New York City and was a roadie for Jimi Hendrix at age 18.

Kiss was especially popular in the mid-1970s, selling tens of millions of albums and licensing its iconic look to become a marketing marvel. “Beth” was its biggest commercial hit in the U.S., peaking at No. 7 on the Billboard Top 100 in 1976.

As the Kennedy Center’s new chairman, President Donald Trump named Kiss as one of this year’s honorees.

In 2024, the band sold their catalog, brand name and intellectual property to Swedish company Pophouse Entertainment Group in a deal estimated to be over $300 million.

Frehley frequently feuded with Stanley and Simmons through the years. He left the band in 1982, missing the years when they took off the makeup and had mixed success. Stanley later said they nearly replaced Frehley with Eddie Van Halen, but Vinnie Vincent assumed the lead guitar role.

Frehley performed both as a solo artist and with his band, Frehley’s Comet.

But he rejoined Kiss in the mid-1990s for a triumphant reunion and restoration of their original style that came after bands including Nirvana, Weezer and the Melvins had expressed affection for the band and paid them musical tributes.

He would leave again in 2002. When the original four entered the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2014, a dispute scrapped plans for them to perform. Simmons and Stanley objected to Criss and Frehley being inducted instead of then-guitarist Tommy Thayer and then-drummer Eric Singer.

Simmons told Rolling Stone magazine that year that Frehley and Criss “no longer deserve to wear the paint.” “The makeup is earned,” he added. “Just being there at the beginning is not enough.”

Frehley and Kiss also had a huge influence on the glammy style of 1980s so-called hair metal bands including Mötley Crüe and Poison.

“Ace, my brother, I surely cannot thank you enough for the years of great music, the many festivals we’ve done together and your lead guitar on Nothing But A Good Time,” Poison front man Bret Michaels said on Instagram.

Harder-edged bands like Metallica and Pantera were also fans, and even country superstar Garth Brooks joined the band members for a recording of their “Hard Luck Woman” on a 1994 compilation.

Frehley would appear occasionally with Kiss for shows in later years. A 2023 concert at Madison Square Garden was billed as the band’s last. While Stanley and Simmons said they would not tour again, they’ve been open to the possibility of more concerts, and they’ve stayed active promoting the group’s music and memorabilia.