Server blackout

This page documents the various server blackouts that have occured during the history of RuneScape. A server blackout is the unexpected crash of a server, typically resulting in all players being logged out for an extended period of time. Those listed on this page are events which affected most if not all game servers and may have affected other RuneScape facilities such as the forums and main website.

Server blackouts are generally caused by a technical faliure at Jagex and as such players can do nothing but wait until the problem is fixed. In some cases, a roll-back has occured, but that is rare. During a server blackout, worlds on the select screen are listed as having 0 players, rather than being Offline or having a specific number. This occurs because when a server is deliberately taken offline, the game screen is changed to reflect this. However on an unexpected crash, the login server simply knows that nobody is connected to that server.

In the sections below, each blackout is documented, along the reasons given for the blackout. All times are UTC. (Note that this is one hour behind British Summer Time, or BST, during the summer due to daylight savings.)

First server blackout of 2007
The First Server Blackout of 2007 was a pair of events that happened on 2 and 3 June 2007 in which all RuneScape servers were shut down for several hours. RSC servers remained online however, and received a flood of RS2 players, reaching 1,000 logged in on both RSC worlds combined.

Mod Craddock explained:

Aftermath
When the servers went back online, players were confused and were unsure about why this happened. Since it was the first blackout many players had encountered, rumours that a hacker manipulated the servers were everywhere. A group of players in World 66 in Falador lied that the Kalphite Queen appeared in Falador and when players stormed into Falador, a group of mages attempted to telegroup players to the Ice Plateau in level 50 Wilderness. Many lower leveled players who were unaware that the Ice Plateau was located in deep Wilderness accepted the teleother and were killed. This event was a clear example of luring.

Second server blackout of 2007
The Second server blackout of 2007 occurred on 15 July 2007. It caused players to lose what they had done in the past hour thus causing several rants and riots in game, most notably the riot in World 66, Falador. Jagex moderators stated on the forums that this was due to a Jagex ISP outage, and that they would take steps to decrease the chance of this occurring in the future, as it was the second blackout within two weeks.

Third server blackout of 2007
The Third server blackout of 2007 occurred starting at 01:28 (UTC) and ending at 04:33 on 19 November, 2007. It was caused by a hardware failure at Jagex's main hosting facility; for some reason the router/firewall broke and stopped forwarding traffic to the internet. As well as the actual RuneScape 2 game including the German beta version, all other aspects of RuneScape which require logging in such as forums and account management went offline as well, with the exception of RuneScape Classic. The friends list server went down approximately half an hour before the servers blacked out. Shortly after the servers came back on, a riot broke out in World 66. Mod Zach showed up to talk to players.

As with all other riots, players congregated in Falador centre shouting phrases such as, "Shave the whales", "Ice me", "Jagex Failed", along with many other phrases from previous riots. The Retribution prayer was also seen during this riot; players would activate the prayer to show their anger with Jagex. In Frozen Waste Plateau, the riot continued.

Trivia

 * The last person remaining was in world 120, and the runner up to the last person was in world 59.


 * The last 3 servers to have 1,000 players or more remaining were worlds 144, 6, and 2 respectively.


 * Approximately 50 people were being logged out per second.

First server blackout of 2008
The first server blackout of 2008 was the result of RuneScape and all its servers going offline. The official forums and other parts of the website also went offline. It occurred on 17 January 2008, around 18:50 UTC. The servers came back on at around 19:05. It is not yet known why this happened.

Second server blackout of 2008
The second server blackout of 2008 occurred at about 05:30, 19 January 2008 (UTC). All players were kicked off the servers, although the login servers were down for some time before. Website features were also offline, like in every other server blackout. This blackout was short-lived, however, as the servers came online again at about 06:00 UTC.

Third server blackout of 2008
The third server blackout of 2008 occurred at about 15:25 UTC on Friday, 13 June 2008. World 119 was the first server offline, and at about 15:34 all players were kicked from the worlds, though the login servers went down at 15:25.

During much of the blackout, the main page indicated that there were still 347 people playing the game, despite the fact that on the world selection list, all servers were listed as having zero players. This appeared to have been fixed at about 17:00 UTC. It was apparent that this was a bug, as there were not actually any players on the servers. The General and Tech Support forums user numbers went up and Jagex Mods (mainly Emilee), Forum Mods, and helpful players congregated, helping the confused players. Rumors began of a second RuneScape 666, which was of course not true.

This server blackout also affected FunOrb, being the first blackout since its launch. Most players were unable to play games, though some could still log into the games despite the blackout. Website features and the forums were also disabled as a result.

At about 17:00 UTC, the following was announced on the RuneScape main page:

"'Telstra, one of our service providers, is currently experiencing technical difficulties. As a result, you will not be able to access the RuneScape game and a number of our website features. We apologise for any inconvenience caused, and we are assured our service provider is working hard to rectify this fault.'"

By 17:30 UTC, RuneScape was back online, with the exception of World 119, which was fixed later on and is currently back online.

Fourth server blackout of 2008
This server blackout occured at 13:55 UTC on Tuesday, 1 July. Free servers, those which were British, crashed first, possibly due to Jagex's location in the United Kingdom. Every server after this blacked out, with evidence pointing to the July 2008 graphical update, as this was introduced only 20 minutes beforehand. As of 14:07 UTC on Tuesday, 1 July, the rants forum has 383 active users and growing. At 14:14 UTC on Tuesday, 1 July, the rants peaked at 452 users, then the number fell to 180 at 8:25 UTC and is still falling. Much like the update that caused the removal of player killing.

The servers were brought back online at approximately 14:25 UTC the same day. The Runescape Mainpage announced:

Fifth server blackout of 2008


This server blackout occured after a system update around 14:00 UTC on Thursday, 17th July. The world selection screen was shown as ALL worlds, either Members or Free-to-play were unable to be selected. The text shown was: OFFLINE.

This was short-lived and was fixed and some servers started to come online again at around 14:13.

Sixth Server Blackout of 2008
Occurring now 2:13pm (EST)/7:13pm (GMT)

Partly back up at 2:22pm (EST)/7:22pm (GMT) some worlds are getting back on track, although there are alot still offline

2:52pm (EST)/7:52pm (GMT) Many servers still offline