Slack Faces Major Outage, Thousands Report Communication Issues

San Francisco, CA — Slack, the popular workplace messaging platform, faced significant outages on Wednesday, February 26, 2025, impacting thousands of users who reported trouble connecting or loading the service. The outage peaked around 11 a.m. EST, with over 3,000 users affected, as indicated by DownDetector, a website that tracks real-time service outages.

The first complaints emerged at approximately 10:27 a.m. EST, prompting Slack to announce on its tech dashboard that they were investigating the issues. By 12:26 p.m. EST, the company confirmed that the investigation was ongoing regarding functionality for various Slack features, including workflows and messaging capabilities.

“We are still working to restore functionality to affected Slack features,” Slack stated in a 3:05 p.m. update, while acknowledging that some users were still encountering login issues and problems with sending and receiving messages.

As of 3 p.m. EST, the number of reported issues dropped to around 439, indicating a gradual return to normalcy for some users. However, Slack continued to warn that full functionality had yet to be restored. “We have identified the cause of the issue, but it is still not fully resolved,” the company added.

Throughout the outage, key features such as file sharing, searches, and notifications remained operational, helping to mitigate some of the impact on users. Nevertheless, the disruption affected many businesses, forcing companies to revert to alternative communication methods during the downtime.

“When Slack goes down, it affects our entire communication structure,” noted Desire Athow, Managing Editor of TechRadar Pro. “We rely on it for real-time communication across our organization.”

Founded in 2009 by Stewart Butterfield, Slack has grown rapidly into a leading business communication tool, boasting over 200,000 paid customers active in more than 150 countries. In a landmark acquisition, Salesforce purchased Slack for $27.7 billion in late 2020, a significant move aimed at enhancing Salesforce’s collaborative offerings.

As of late Wednesday evening, users began reporting that functionality was being restored. Slack confirmed that all affected features would be fully operational soon, thanking users for their patience amid the complications.

Despite the challenges faced on Wednesday, experts suggested that such outages have occurred sporadically in the past, raising questions about the platform’s resilience under heavy use. “This isn’t the first major disruption for Slack, and it might not be the last,” commented a tech analyst. “It’s crucial for them to bolster their service to prevent future issues.”