6 ms·

What I find most interesting about this is how long it took to see reporting on this issue, unlike what I remember the reporting on Slack being down 5 or 6 year

What I find most interesting about this is how long it took to see reporting on this issue, unlike what I remember the reporting on Slack being down 5 or 6 years ago that I could fairly reliably find somewhere that said it was down. Has how we used these tools just changed? They are so janky in the first place that them being "down" is questionably different? Just seems weird.

dangerboysteve 3y ago
I think it was because it was a widespread problem or did not appear that way. Teams for our company were mostly working.
- hrunt 3y ago
  I think it was because most people are used to Teams being an application with a poor experience, so a widespread degradation in service just looks like what people normally expect from Teams. I know in the orgs that I work with, everyone today blamed any problems on Teams being a crappy application. No one thought twice about it being something more than that.
  - digging 3y ago
    This was my experience. Teams was slow and functioning badly this morning, but it wasn't until someone else said they were also not seeing images that I realized it wasn't just typical jank. Teams is just not good to use in the first place so it doesn't occur to me to think I should check for outages whenever I have a problem.
  - nerdjon 3y ago
    I think especially with how Teams responded to this problem. It wasn't saying it couldn't connect or anything. I had a few symptoms: First teams froze my entire computer when I started it when it couldn't connect. Then it finally loaded and a message I sent would appear in the preview on the left but not actually in the chat window (the preview where it shows the name list of chats I have). Then messages would just sit with that circle sending, but I would receive messages occasionally. A simple "can't connect" would have gone a long way.
  - selykg 3y ago
    Today was the first day, in the ~4 months that we've been using Teams and MS365 for our company, that anyone noticed an actual outage. I got an email about it from a colleague and they weren't aware of the outage (I wouldn't expect them to, this team is very non-technical). So I get to explain these types of things next week, that we can't really "fix" these issues, they will happen though. But yea, Teams is janky. I wish I could say it was the worst thing I experienced at work, but, alas, that remains a wish and a dream.
JohnFen 3y ago
Personally, I just expect Teams to be janky. At least where I work, I don't think that a day goes by that it doesn't glitch out in one way or another.
- Quot 3y ago
  That's my experience too. This outage seemed like the same jank I see every day. It just took me longer to realize it's jankier than usual.
- daemonologist 3y ago
  Yeah, I noticed Teams messages being out of order (and being re-incorrectly-ordered multiple times) this morning and didn't think anything of it. I hadn't seen that particular bug before but it didn't stand out from the normal background jank.
- Vigorosotuna96 3y ago
  Spot on analysis. It's a broken product, most of the time, for me.
  - bboygravity 3y ago
    And yet companies don't mind the extremely obvious loss of productivity this causes. They also don't mind that it makes them look unprofessional. At all. I've seen townhall meetings where 200+ FTE where sitting around waiting for Teams to stop glitching for like 10 minutes. And after they go back to their desk for real work, the glitching continues. "innovation"
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - w0m 3y ago
      My previous employer forced us to use a Hip hat instance. It was legitimately hell, deleting history randomly and just atrocious. Using Teams now (switched jobs) it legitimately feels mystical in comparison.
robertlagrant 3y ago
People seem much harsher on Slack, for some reason. Sometimes being the better product just means people notice when it's broken.
- FridgeSeal 3y ago
  Is there a term for how people just kind of acclimatise to a broken, buggy tool, and don’t realise when it’s extra broken? A sort of software Stockholm syndrome?
  - jurynulifcation 3y ago
    Microsoft Syndrome
  - StarlaAtNight 3y ago
    Clippyitis
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- juujian 3y ago
  When I see the Microsoft logo, I always lower my expectations accordingly.
- thecosas 3y ago
  I think (in general) Slack has been more open to automations and integrations, so entire workflows rest on it. Teams is catching up in this respect, but fewer people rely on it beyond day-to-day communication. Not that it's not important, but maybe just not as critical to things beyond person-to-person comms.
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    I disagree a bit: companies use it partly because it integrates with SharePoint, so a team can have a SharePoint folder easily. That often breaks down, because who needs access to that folder almost never maps to the team members, but it's enough to sell it to people to get their foot in the door, and after that they accept the hideous pain of changing it.
myko 3y ago
Teams is always pretty bad, I noticed slightly worse service/message duplication/call drops today. If it weren't for MS being a monopoly I doubt we'd use it
- portaouflop 3y ago
  How is MS a monopoly when it comes to workspace tools? Seems to me there are plenty of alternatives and I am lucky enough that I never had to use it at work.
  - myko 3y ago
    If your org uses Microsoft products, typically a Teams license is baked in (or at least was at some point). So when it comes to choosing a better tool vs Teams it is an easy decision for the bean counters - we're already paying for Teams, let's just use it.
    - portaouflop 3y ago
      For sure - maybe I read GP in bad faith, but I understood it as “we have to choose Teams in my org because it’s a monopoly” Few things frustrate me more than being forced into an unproductive situation - completely kills my motivation.
      - myko 3y ago
        I'm sure I could've worded it better, but the bottom line is we are an org that uses Microsoft - Azure, C#, etc. Other options had no shot
rubicks 3y ago
My employer uses Teams and it is an extremely reliable productivity killer.
hhh 3y ago
I didn't even look at HN because our yammer page had a post within a few minutes with a description of the issue, an ETA for a fix, and a time for a next update. I don't know if the speed of a technical status update is related to how much we pay to MS, but it definitely feels that way.
snowwrestler 3y ago
This is because of the decline in use of Twitter. When a major platform went down, there was always a notable and reliable surge in tweets on that topic. Tech reporters had running searches that would surface such surges immediately. Now tech folks are more dispersed across several social media platforms so it’s harder to see trends.

dangerboysteve 3y ago

I think it was because it was a widespread problem or did not appear that way. Teams for our company were mostly working.

hrunt 3y ago
I think it was because most people are used to Teams being an application with a poor experience, so a widespread degradation in service just looks like what people normally expect from Teams. I know in the orgs that I work with, everyone today blamed any problems on Teams being a crappy application. No one thought twice about it being something more than that.
- digging 3y ago
  This was my experience. Teams was slow and functioning badly this morning, but it wasn't until someone else said they were also not seeing images that I realized it wasn't just typical jank. Teams is just not good to use in the first place so it doesn't occur to me to think I should check for outages whenever I have a problem.
- nerdjon 3y ago
  I think especially with how Teams responded to this problem. It wasn't saying it couldn't connect or anything. I had a few symptoms: First teams froze my entire computer when I started it when it couldn't connect. Then it finally loaded and a message I sent would appear in the preview on the left but not actually in the chat window (the preview where it shows the name list of chats I have). Then messages would just sit with that circle sending, but I would receive messages occasionally. A simple "can't connect" would have gone a long way.
- selykg 3y ago
  Today was the first day, in the ~4 months that we've been using Teams and MS365 for our company, that anyone noticed an actual outage. I got an email about it from a colleague and they weren't aware of the outage (I wouldn't expect them to, this team is very non-technical). So I get to explain these types of things next week, that we can't really "fix" these issues, they will happen though. But yea, Teams is janky. I wish I could say it was the worst thing I experienced at work, but, alas, that remains a wish and a dream.

JohnFen 3y ago

Personally, I just expect Teams to be janky. At least where I work, I don't think that a day goes by that it doesn't glitch out in one way or another.

Quot 3y ago
That's my experience too. This outage seemed like the same jank I see every day. It just took me longer to realize it's jankier than usual.
daemonologist 3y ago
Yeah, I noticed Teams messages being out of order (and being re-incorrectly-ordered multiple times) this morning and didn't think anything of it. I hadn't seen that particular bug before but it didn't stand out from the normal background jank.
Vigorosotuna96 3y ago
Spot on analysis. It's a broken product, most of the time, for me.
- bboygravity 3y ago
  And yet companies don't mind the extremely obvious loss of productivity this causes. They also don't mind that it makes them look unprofessional. At all. I've seen townhall meetings where 200+ FTE where sitting around waiting for Teams to stop glitching for like 10 minutes. And after they go back to their desk for real work, the glitching continues. "innovation"
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - w0m 3y ago
    My previous employer forced us to use a Hip hat instance. It was legitimately hell, deleting history randomly and just atrocious. Using Teams now (switched jobs) it legitimately feels mystical in comparison.

robertlagrant 3y ago

People seem much harsher on Slack, for some reason. Sometimes being the better product just means people notice when it's broken.

FridgeSeal 3y ago
Is there a term for how people just kind of acclimatise to a broken, buggy tool, and don’t realise when it’s extra broken? A sort of software Stockholm syndrome?
- jurynulifcation 3y ago
  Microsoft Syndrome
- StarlaAtNight 3y ago
  Clippyitis
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
juujian 3y ago
When I see the Microsoft logo, I always lower my expectations accordingly.
thecosas 3y ago
I think (in general) Slack has been more open to automations and integrations, so entire workflows rest on it. Teams is catching up in this respect, but fewer people rely on it beyond day-to-day communication. Not that it's not important, but maybe just not as critical to things beyond person-to-person comms.
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  I disagree a bit: companies use it partly because it integrates with SharePoint, so a team can have a SharePoint folder easily. That often breaks down, because who needs access to that folder almost never maps to the team members, but it's enough to sell it to people to get their foot in the door, and after that they accept the hideous pain of changing it.

myko 3y ago

Teams is always pretty bad, I noticed slightly worse service/message duplication/call drops today. If it weren't for MS being a monopoly I doubt we'd use it

portaouflop 3y ago
How is MS a monopoly when it comes to workspace tools? Seems to me there are plenty of alternatives and I am lucky enough that I never had to use it at work.
- myko 3y ago
  If your org uses Microsoft products, typically a Teams license is baked in (or at least was at some point). So when it comes to choosing a better tool vs Teams it is an easy decision for the bean counters - we're already paying for Teams, let's just use it.
  - portaouflop 3y ago
    For sure - maybe I read GP in bad faith, but I understood it as “we have to choose Teams in my org because it’s a monopoly” Few things frustrate me more than being forced into an unproductive situation - completely kills my motivation.
    - myko 3y ago
      I'm sure I could've worded it better, but the bottom line is we are an org that uses Microsoft - Azure, C#, etc. Other options had no shot

rubicks 3y ago

My employer uses Teams and it is an extremely reliable productivity killer.

hhh 3y ago

I didn't even look at HN because our yammer page had a post within a few minutes with a description of the issue, an ETA for a fix, and a time for a next update. I don't know if the speed of a technical status update is related to how much we pay to MS, but it definitely feels that way.

snowwrestler 3y ago

This is because of the decline in use of Twitter. When a major platform went down, there was always a notable and reliable surge in tweets on that topic. Tech reporters had running searches that would surface such surges immediately. Now tech folks are more dispersed across several social media platforms so it’s harder to see trends.