Claude AI Suffers Second Major Outage in Days

Claude AI experienced a major service disruption on April 20, its second significant outage within a three-day period. The incident began at 14:53 UTC, affecting multiple services including Claude Chat, Claude Code, the API, and the mobile application. Users encountered error messages indicating service busyness and page not found issues across the web interface and coding tools.

Downdetector reported a peak of 6,500 user complaints, signaling a substantial outage rather than a minor glitch. Anthropic acknowledged the "Partial Outage," noting "Elevated errors" across Claude.ai, API, and Claude Code. The company identified authentication failures as the primary cause.

While the Claude API fully recovered by 16:01 UTC, access problems for the main Claude.ai interface persisted for some time. This contrast meant API users had a quicker return to service than those relying on the primary web application. The repetition of these widespread outages, impacting conversational and coding tools simultaneously, is a significant concern, especially as enterprise adoption of AI services rises.

The practical implication for users was that various Claude products failed collectively, and a return for one service did not guarantee usability for all. The recurring authentication failures leave an open question about whether a detailed public explanation of the resolution will be provided before another incident occurs.