Archive of Our Own down updates — Thousands of users unable to access fanfiction website as server connection is out

Reports have dropped

User reports of problems with Archive of Our Own have gone down since spiking with 5,701 reports, according to 

Problems are currently continuing for about 500 users.

Fanfiction.net explained

FanFiction.Net is a service that automatically archives fanfiction.

It was started on October 15, 1998, by Xing Li, a computer programmer from Los Angeles who also manages the website.

It boasts more than 12million registered users and stories in more than 40 languages.

How to keep up with AO3 service status

You can keep up-to-date with The Sun's live blog.

AO3 is also posting  on X.

Archive of Our Own explained

Archive of Our Own is a popular fansite where anyone can post stories about their favorite franchises.

The site is similar to Wattpad and Tumblr.

Reports begin to drop

User reports of problems with Archive of Our Own have gone down since spiking around 6.30pm ET with 5,701 reports, according to

Now, problems are continuing for only 3,450 users.

Site went down last month

AO3 was hit by a DDoS attack last month.

DDoS stands for distributed denial-of-service.

It’s when an attacker deliberately floods a website with loads of visits.

The victim becomes so swamped with web traffic that it grinds to a halt.

Users rush to X

AO3 users are rushing to X, formerly known as Twitter, to complain about the fanfiction website being down.

Users complain on Downdetector

AO3 users are taking to to complain about the outage.

"how dare ao3 play with my emotions like this I just wanna have a good day before school comes and ruins my life, like just let me read my fanfics," one user complained.

Another wrote: "PLEASE A03 COME BACK UP I DONT WANT TO RESORT TO WATTPAD!!!"

Users in UK experience outage

Archive of Our Own users in the United Kingdom are also experiencing problems with the fanfiction site, according to

Around 6.30pm, user reports of issues with the website spiked to over 1,000.

Reported outage map

Archive of Our Own users across the country are experiencing issues with the website, but it appears that users in Kansas are particularly struggling, according to .

Server connection isn't working

AO3 users are having trouble accessing the site due to server connection, according to 55 percent of user reports on

However, 44 percent of users are having trouble with the website itself.

Less than one percent of users are experiencing issues with the app.

Thousands of users report outage

Over 5,000 users have reported issues with accessing Archive of Our Own since the problems started after 6pm ET, according to

At 6.30pm, over 5,289 users reported problems with the site.

Issues look to be resolved

Issues with AO3 look to be resolved after issues on DownDetector have dropped to below 100.

Users have taken to social media to claim that the website is back.

AO3 went down earlier this month

According to the site's status Twitter account, AO3 was hit by a DDoS attack earlier this month.

DDoS stands for distributed denial-of-service.

It's when an attacker deliberately floods a website with loads of visits.

The victim becomes so swamped with web traffic that it grinds to a halt.

How do I check the AO3 service status?

You can keep up-to-date with The Sun's live blog.

AO3 is also posting  on Twitter.

Archive of Our Own explained

Archive of Our Own is a popular fansite where anyone can post stories about their favorite franchises.

The site is similar to Wattpad and Tumblr.

Archives of Our Own down for thousands

Archive of Our Own is struggling to load many users.

One message read: “ao3 nooooooo.”

Another read: “If it's still down when i check tomorrow...idk what i'm supposed to do anymore.”

Thousands report issues with AO3

According to DownDetector thousands of users have reported issues with accessing the website.

Nothing more is known about the group

A spokesperson for the Organization for Transformative Works told The U.S. Sun about the group that reportedly caused yesterday’s outage: “We have sent out messages on our AO3_Status twitter account and our AO3 tumblr account with a statement as to what we know so far.

“We know nothing further about the group than what we’ve publicly mentioned and have not been directly contacted.”

OTW will post any updates to their social media accounts.

AO3 warns users about hacker group

AO3 has issued a warning to users against messages from the group that hacked the site.

The site shared on Twitter: “[C]ybersecurity experts believe the group claiming responsibility is lying about their affiliation and reasons for attacking websites.

“View the group’s statements with skepticism.”

Attack was meant to last 24 hours

The Anonymous Sudan group first said the attack was meant to last up to 24 hours but made a $30,000 Bitcoin ransom demand, threatening to shut down AO3 for weeks if the firm does not comply, according to the .

The Organization for Transformative Works (and its AO3 project) is exclusively sponsored by user donations and administered by volunteers, so even if this threat is shown to be legitimate, the firm is unlikely to be able to afford such a ransom.

AO3 is now back up and functioning.

Users can't request a new account invitation

Archive of Our Own users are currently unable to request a new account invitation, the site announced on Twitter.

The feature has been temporarily disabled as a "preventative measure due to the spam attack."

However, AO3 that users that already received an invitation can still use it - but anyone currently in the queue won't receive an invitation until the ability is turned back on.

OTW site shows an error code

Users attempting to visit the Organization for Transformative Works' website are met with a gateway timeout error code after minutes of the site trying to load and timing out instead.

The error seems to be temporary.