Server blackout

The old secondary world select menu during a blackout.

A server blackout is the unexpected crash of a server, typically resulting in all players being logged out for an extended period of time. Blackouts usually affect most, if not all, game servers and may affect other RuneScape facilities such as the forums and main website.

Server blackout rates have been steadily increasing over the years for an unknown reason, but blackouts are generally caused by a technical failure on the part of Jagex. Players who suffer from blackouts can only wait until the problem is fixed by Jagex. In some cases, a rollback is necessary. A rollback is an operation that returns server databases to their previous state from before the blackout occured. On rare occasions where a rollback is performed, any changes that occurred between the crash and the previous state are lost. This includes gained experience, trade transactions, quest progress, etc. Rollbacks typically revert the servers to the state they were in anywhere from 15 minutes to one hour prior.

File:Serverblackoutlogin.png

This is what happens to players who attempt to login during a blackout.

During an intentional server blackout, worlds on the select screen are listed as OFFLINE, as opposed to displaying the number of players logged in. However, on an unexpected crash, the login server simply assumes that nobody is connected to that server.

In the following section, each notable blackout that has occurred during the history of RuneScape is documented, along with the reasons given for the blackout. All times are noted in UTC, unless otherwise stated. (Note that this is one hour behind British Summer Time, or BST, during the summer due to daylight savings.)

List of server blackouts in 2007

First server blackout

File:Runescapecrashedjf5.png

The 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.

“	We do apologise. We had experienced a slight server outage which had removed all of the players from the game. This was done as a safeguard to ensure that our players did not lose any game data. We will continue to monitor this throughout the night but we suspect that this will be an isolated incident. Thank you for your patience regarding this matter.	”
	— Mod Craddock

File:2007 server riot.png

Falador centre filled with rioters during the event.

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-levelled players who were unaware that the Ice Plateau was located deep in the Wilderness accepted the teleother and were killed by monsters and higher-levelled players. This event was a classic example of luring.

Second server blackout

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 in Falador. Jagex moderators stated on the forums that this was due to a Jagex Internet Server Provider (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 months.

Third server blackout

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 unknown reasons, the router/firewall malfunctioned and stopped forwarding traffic to the internet.

RuneScape 2, including the German beta version, as well as all other aspects of RuneScape which required logging-in such as the forums and account management went offline, the only exception again being 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. The riot continued in the Frozen Waste Plateau to the western side of Gielinor.

List of server blackouts in 2008

First server blackout

The first server blackout of 2008 occurred around 18:50 UTC on 17 January 2008. The official forums and other parts of the website went offline. The servers came back on at around 19:05. The cause of this blackout is currently unknown.

Second server blackout

The second server blackout of 2008 occurred only two days after the first blackout of 2008 at about 05:30 UTC on 19 January 2008. All players were logged-off the servers, although the login servers were down for some time before. Website features were also offline, similar to other blackouts that have occurred in the past. This blackout was short-lived, lasting only 30 minutes as the servers came online again at about 06:00 UTC.

Third server blackout

The third server blackout of 2008 occurred at about 15:25 UTC on Friday, 13 June 2008 (Friday the 13th). World 119 was the first server to go offline. The login servers went down at 15:25, and at about 15:34, all players were logged-off from the worlds.

During much of the blackout, the website's 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. 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 moderators (mainly Mod Emilee), forum moderators, and helpful players congregated, helping out the confused players. Rumours began of a second RuneScape 666 (a reference to the infamous glitch that allowed players to attack each other outside the wilderness.), which was of course not true.

This blackout also affected FunOrb, being the first blackout since its launch. Most players were unable to play games, although some were able to login 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, all world servers were back online, with the exception of World 119 being back online a while later after some maintenance work.

Fourth server blackout

The fourth server blackout of 2008 occurred at 13:55 UTC on Tuesday, 1 July 2008. Free servers, especially those which were British, crashed first. This was possibly due to Jagex's headquarters being located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. Shortly after, every other server blacked out. Evidence suggests that this blackout resulted from the RuneScape High Detail update, which was introduced only 20 minutes beforehand.

At 14:07 on the same day, the rants forum had 383 active users and peaked at 452 users at 14:14. The number of users fell to 180 at 20:25.

The servers were brought back online at approximately 14:25 the same day. The following was announced on the RuneScape main page:

“

Due to the high volume of traffic and the size of today's update, RuneScape has experienced some technical difficulties. This has led to several worlds going offline and issues with the Grand Exchange. We are aware of these problems and they should be fixed shortly. We apologise for any inconvenience we may have caused you. If you are struggling to download the client, please choose a world from the USA, as they have more bandwidth available. You can always switch to your favourite world once the client has downloaded.

”

Fifth server blackout

File:Rsworldsblackout.png

An image of the world choosing page during the fifth server blackout.

The fifth server blackout of 2008 occurred after a system update around 14:00 UTC on Thursday, 17 July 2008. The world selection screen showed all worlds, either members or free-to-play, as being offline. No announcement was made as to what caused this blackout.

Some world servers started to be back online at around 14:13 and the blackout lasted only 13 minutes.

Sixth server blackout

The sixth server blackout of 2008 occurred at on 19:13 UTC on 23 October 2008. The servers were partly back online at 19:22, becoming the shortest blackout ever and eventually were fully running a short while later. This blackout was originally believed to be due to the 2008 Hallowe'en event update, as evidence suggests that this blackout is similar to the blackout that occurred after the RuneScape High Detail update.

List of server blackouts in 2009

First server blackout

Main article: 25 February 2009 crash

The first server blackout of 2009 occurred on 25 February 2009. Many members-only and free-to-play worlds worldwide (Worlds 110, 111, 112, 115, 49, 81, and 50) went offline at around 23:00 UTC, and those worlds which remained logged-out hundreds of players soon after. This blackout was caused by a mass bug which was exploited by players using the Public chat interface.

Second server blackout

The second server blackout of 2009 occurred on Tuesday, 17 March 2009, after The Chosen Commander was released. Servers began crashing one-by-one, and completely went offline at around 14:04 UTC.

After losing connection with an offline server, players experienced problems with being unable to log into another server, receiving the message "Your account has not logged out from its last session. Try again in a few minutes." even after 10 minutes or more had elapsed.

Many Jagex Moderators had claimed in the RuneScape forums that the blackout could never last more than 10–30 minutes, but this was not the case as the blackout lasted approximately 50 minutes (14:04–14:54 UTC). Popular servers in America and Canada (including Worlds 1 and 2) remained offline until 16:13.

Third server blackout

The third server blackout of 2009 occurred on Sunday, 14 June 2009 at 20:30 when a few worlds were reported to go offline. Jagex fixed the blackout 10 minutes later.

Fourth server blackout

The fourth server blackout of 2009 (though technically not a blackout) occurred only two days after the third on Tuesday, 16 June 2009. At about 15:40 UTC, all European servers were shut down, and almost 4 hours later, the European servers were back online.

Around about the time of the blackout, a Jagex Moderator started a new thread on RuneScape Forums.

“	Unfortunately, our ISP is experiencing some difficulty with their hardware. Whilst this is investigated, we are shutting down all of our European worlds. Please feel free to use one of our many other worlds to continue with your game play. We apologise for the frustration and inconvenience.	”
	— Mod Emilee RuneScape Forums

Fifth server blackout

File:OFFLINE2.png

The servers are offline.

File:OFFLINE %.png

Players experience errors connecting to the servers as they slowly crash.

The fifth server blackout of 2009 occurred on Thursday, 16 July 2009. At 21:16 UTC, Mod Gibson issued an announcement on the RuneScape Tech Support Forum regarding a crash of one of the American servers. Over the next several hours, the problem grew: by 01:06 UTC on Friday, 17 July, 20 American servers (1, 2, 7-9, 21, 22, 26-32, 42, 47, 48, 56, 70, and 100) had gone offline during play, rendering the accounts of players in those worlds inaccessible for over an hour. Some players subsequently reported experiencing a rollback of 15 minutes to an hour while others reported experiencing no such effect. In a press release issued shortly afterwards, Jagex CEO Mark Gerhard blamed the interruption on problems with an ISP contracted by Jagex to provide services in the United States:

“	We'd like to sincerely apologise for a number of worlds being down last night and this morning. This is due to Navisite, one of our ISPs in Nevada. We are deeply disappointed in the service we have received from Navisite during the course of our relationship, and will not only be seeking damages for this service outage, but will naturally be moving all of our services from Navisite to a better ISP.	”
	— Mark Gerhard Update:Worlds Down

Although this statement was obviously issued to calm down frustrated players and help cut down on some of the confusion that was taking place, it actually backfired on Jagex and ended up causing more frustration than there had been previously. Angry players were filling the Forums with rants claiming that since Jagex was seeking damages, and since the players were paying to be able to play and yet were not able to, they should receive compensation credits for lost time due to these outages. However, Jagex never refunded any of the lost members credits.

Service was restored to two servers (1 and 2) later that day, but Jagex took down 19 additional NaviSite-run servers, including 4 serving Canada, due to concerns about reliability:

“	We've temporarily taken down some of our game worlds due to ongoing issues with our ISP Navisite. We deeply regret the service outage, and as I mentioned before we are now in the process of moving to a better ISP. ...The following worlds are currently affected: 4-9, 13, 14, 17-22, 26-32, 37, 42, 47, 48, 56, 61, 62, 64-66, 70, 72, 100 and 113-116...	”
	— Mod MMG Update:Worlds still down

In a later Tech Support Forum post, the Jagex CEO reported that "the problem was caused by the ISP's routers being overloaded. It was not a problem with our own systems, or with us having inadequate bandwidth." Service was eventually restored sometime between 7:37 and 11:37 UTC on 18 July 2009.

Sixth server blackout

The sixth server blackout of 2009 occurred on Tuesday, 28 July 2009 at 17:00 UTC and lasted for around 20 minutes. The server blackout included servers in Sweden, Mexico, India, and many others. Although no official statement was made towards the blackout, there was no warning prior to the blackout and all players on the affected worlds disconnected from RuneScape. Some people involved in the disconnection could not log back into RuneScape as the game was already notifying them of their accounts being online. Service was restored around 2 hours later for all of the affected servers.

Seventh server blackout

The seventh server blackout of 2009 occurred on Thursday, 20 August 2009 at 01:07 UTC and lasted for around 5 minutes. The server blackout included all European servers including the UK, Sweden, France, Germany and the Netherlands. No official statement was made towards the blackout yet there was no warning prior to the blackout either and all players on the effected worlds disconnected from RuneScape. Some people involved in the disconnection could not log back onto RuneScape as the game server was notifying them of their accounts being online. This was mainly caused by the person logging onto the server their account had crashed on. Service was restored minutes after the crash.

List of server blackouts in 2010

First server blackout

The first blackout of 2010 occurred on Thursday, 11 January 2010 at approximately 00:58 UTC. This blackout affected worlds: 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159.

There was not much lag when it went offline.

Second server blackout

File:21-Jan-2010 blackout.png

The third blackout of 2010.

The Second blackout of 2010 occurred on Thursday, 21 January 2010 at approximately 00:20 UTC, this blackout affected Canadian worlds 154, 155, and 157, Mexican world 156, and worlds 158 and 159. As of approximately 1:00 UTC, accounts that were logged into the affected worlds are free to log in. If a player was in a clan chat in one of the affected worlds while the blackout was in effect, their name would remain there as 'ghosts' until the player logged into a different world. Due to this blackout, all accounts that had been playing on these worlds at the time had a rollback, anywhere from 5–30 minutes.

This blackout lasted approximately an hour.

Third server blackout

The third server blackout occurred on Wednesday, 14 April (2 days after the release of Dungeoneering), at or around 17:47 (UTC). This blackout was forced by Jagex in order to fix a major glitch with runecrafting in Dungeoneering in which players were gaining massively inflated experience for crafting runes. Jagex originally planned to give 2 exp per rune, but an unknown glitch caused some people to gain 2000 exp per rune imbued. Thousands of posts were posted on official forums. Jagex claimed the rollback should be no more than 30 minutes worth, but for a brief period of time, the highscores were rolled back 1:00 am. This caused some panic. Mod Nexus soon stated that the highscores would be updated to 17:23 pm once players log back in. The Adventurer's logs also shut down. The server was back up at 19:54 UTC.

Fourth server blackout

The Fourth server blackout of 2010 occurred on Wednesday, 9 June at 12:00 (UTC). Several worlds went offline. These were 2, 6, 18, 20, 29, 31, 33, 39, 65, 78, 84, 90, 91, 99, 100, 117, 136, 144, 156, 165, 167, 171 and 172.

Fifth server blackout

The Fifth server blackout of 2010 occurred at Thursday, 22 July. The friends and ignore list, as well as clan chats, were inaccessible for most players and some of the sites of RuneScape was shut down, including the forums, hiscores and Adventurer logs. Anybody who attempted to add a name to their friends or ignore list got a server busy message, and a similar message was shown for entering some clans.

Sixth server blackout

The sixth server blackout of 2010 occurred at Wednesday, 4 August. Anyone who tried to login during the blackout got the message: Unable to connect: Login server offline. The blackout lasted over 1 hour and 15 minutes.

Seventh server blackout

The seventh server blackout of 2010 occurred at Tuesday 21 September. It happened immediately after the new Quest; Gunnars Ground was released, the worlds that were affected are; 10,51,52,54,71,105,148 and 151.

Eighth server blackout

The eighth server blackout of 2010 occurred at Thursday 14 October. It affected worlds 49 and 50.

Ninth server blackout

The ninth server blackout of 2010 began on 25 October. Most worlds are affected. Jagex released an update to fix the problem but it made disconnects occur more frequently.

Tenth server blackout

The tenth server blackout of 2010 began on 4 November at around 8:30 AM (UTC). It was documented in a Jagex update released the day before.

List of server blackouts in 2011

First server blackout

The first server blackout of 2011 happened on 17 January at 4:20 PM (UTC). The login servers went down just after the Hati Wolf update. Players could still log into forums, but when trying to log into the game would get a message saying that their password was invalid or error connecting to server. It came back online a few minutes later.

Second server blackout

The second server blackout of 2011 happened on 9 February around 16:37 PM (UTC). The login servers went down, players could still log into forums, but when trying to log into the game would get a message saying that their password was invalid or error connecting to server. Many players posted on the forums, and Mod Dowd reacted quickly. The game crashed again at 17:06, and the game wasn't fixed until at least 17:50.

Third server blackout

All times mentioned are in UTC.

The third server blackout of 2011 happened on 11 April around 15:45. The forums went down, friends list servers were unable to connect to the game and the Grand Exchange servers also refused to connect or were extremely lagged in some cases. Some players were still able to connect to those three without problems, but shortly thereafter problems arose for those users too. Many players were unable to login while others were locked into the game and unable to log off. At the time of the blackout approximately 188,000 players were logged in and at 19:20 this number dropped to 2 players online. At around 19:20 Jagex attempted to reboot the game. At 19:55 servers began to start back up, but only for approximately 5,000 people. A few minutes later they went back down. Around 20:20 the servers were down for most players, yet "there are currently 0 people online" was still shown. At about the same time, the forums and other website services came back online.

This has been the biggest Server blackout so far. All of Jagex's servers were shutdown and nobody was able to connect to RuneScape Classic, War of Legends, Funorb, and even Stellardawn sites or games. This includes hiscores, forums, news, the Grand Exchange database and most other services on Jagex sites.

Mod Scorpion posted on Facebook on the Runescape Fan Page that the Jagex team was aware the game was down and was working to fix it. A later post then said that changes would not be lost for RuneScape players who get disconnected and encouraged players who were in game to continue playing. This was a response to the players fearing a rollback of the game(s). Players were also being kept up to date and informed about the issue via RuneScape's Twitter page by Mod Knox and Mod Scorpion. Mod Scorpion's first post about this went up on Facebook at 16:13. Later RuneScape Mod Zach posted on Facebook that Jagex were having hosting issues with their core hosting provider.

At 20:13 Mod Knox stated via Twitter that they had leads towards the problem of the blackout. Players became able to log back into Runescape at roughly 20:50, about 5 hours after the first signs of the blackout.

Jagex added the following post to the main page of the website at 20:26:

"Due to an issue with our core infrastructure, the RuneScape game client and certain website features are currently unavailable. We are taking steps to rectify this issue as quickly as possible, and the game and all website features should be back in full working order over the coming hours. Some profile data may have been lost during this time.
At the moment we are NOT planning a roll back."

“	Hi everyone, Earlier on today you may have experienced trouble logging in to the game and the RuneScape Official Forums, as well as your Friends List going on/offline if you were still logged into the game. At approximately 17:30(GMT+1) we were made aware that several of our servers had gone offline. After instant investigation into the issue, it became apparent that this was a result of a technical problem with our core hosting provider. We have been in constant contact with them in order to ensure that the issue was resolved as fast as possible. We will be here for as long as it takes in order to get this fixed, do not worry. Your account security will not have been compromised at any time and our systems have remained completely secure – as always – during this period. All items both in your inventory and within your bank will also have been entirely secure during this time. A few of you may be trying to login to a different world and finding that you get a message “Your account is already logged in.” This is nothing to worry about. When a server crashes, your character will remain locked in the game for a minimum of 30 minutes, or until the servers are brought back online. This is simply because the server is unable to send logout packets to the login servers, meaning they do not know that they player is no longer connected. Thank you to everyone for your patience and we apologise for any inconvenience caused by this unexpected down time. Many thanks,	”
	— Mod Chrisso

“	Hello again guys!! We’re having issues with our core hosting providers – they are looking into it but we still have no timeframe. We really appreciate your patience while we work to resolve this. :)	”
	— Mod Zach Runescape Facebook Page

“	Hello all, Many thanks for your patience!! A few people are able to log in but the experience will still not be good. We are still working on the fix. We are unable to send out a newspost at this time but will post on RuneScape.com when we are back up and running.	”
	— Mod Zach Runescape Facebook Page

Fourth server blackout

The fourth server black out of 2011 occurred on 21 April around 18:50 (UTC). Several servers went suddenly offline. The affected servers were: 16, 23, 24, 25, 67, 68, 80, 92, 118, 120, 121, 124, 134, 135, 136, 138, 144 and 169.

This blackout was probably caused by problems with the login servers, since Mod Stevew posted a message with explanations for some problems at 13:45 (UTC), only a few hours before the blackout. The problems obviously weren't fixed completely. Some players who were at the affected servers at the moment the blackout occurred, were able to log in onto other servers some time later. Many of these players have lost their bound items in Dungeoneering and began ranting on the forums about losing their Shadow Silk Hood, Hexhunter Bow, etc. The blackout isn't fixed entirely as of yet.

Fifth server blackout

The fifth server blackout of 2011 occurred on 28 June. It started when the friend's list server went offline, then the Grand Exchange, and then the Forums. All of Runescape's game servers went offline, the website login module was down, and all features of the RuneScape website related to player information (including the forums, hiscores, toolbar and account management) were inaccessible. In effect, the only area of the website available to players is the main page. This was short lived, not even lasting an hour, possibly only 10 minutes, and thus went largely unnoticed.

Sixth server blackout

This incident occurred on 7 July around 22:00 (UTC). This blackout lasted over an hour in length.

Added around an hour after this second incident began, Runescape staff commented on the official Runescape Facebook page: "We're currently experiencing a few technical issues with the website. Our technical team are working hard on a solution and we should have everything up and running soon."

Seventh server blackout

This incident occurred on 9 August around 18:15 (UTC). A message had appeared at the main page saying: "Hey all, We're currently shutting down all Runescape worlds due to some memory leak issues. We hope to have these back up and running shortly.Apologies for the inconvenience, -Mod Easty"

During the blackout the recent updates forum had over 1000 players using it. All of the servers were back up, however as of about 18:50 (UTC).

Eighth server blackout

File:Server blackout 16 aug 2011.png

Allowed some players to select a world, but not enter it.

This incident occurred on 16 August at around 15:00 (UTC). All the login servers appeared to be down, preventing players from logging in or swapping worlds, though players currently in-game remained unaffected. When trying to log in, a player would either experience denied login for an invalid username or password, or a wait that eventually produced "No reply from login server. Please wait a minute and try again." A player might occasionally be able to access the lobby, but only to produce "Unable to connect: login server offline." when selecting a world. The login servers came back online for many players around 15:55 (UTC).

Ninth server blackout

This happened on the 22 August, around 12AM EST time. It was a small blackout, so not much is known about it.

Tenth server blackout

Around 19:30 UTC all servers crashed on 28 August. Logging in would result in losing connection and being thrown out to the login screen again. It was, however, fixed within fifteen minutes.

Eleventh server blackout

File:12th blackout 2011.png

Offline worlds during blackout #11.

At 6:48 UTC on 29 August, servers 6, 9, 18, 22, 27, 31, 33, 39, 42, 44, 45, 46, 48, 52, 58, 59, 60, 61, 64, 66, 70, 76, 77, 78, 79, 89, 91, 97, 98, 99, 100, 103, 104, 114, 115, 116, 129, 130, 131, 132, 141, 143, 145, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160 and 164 went offline. This lasted at least an hour, with world 9 being offline for the longest. Many players reported that their account suffered a rollback.

At 15:00 UTC, hours after most of the servers were brought back online, players complained of frequent connection loss and experiencing major amounts of lag. This led to a short riot at World 66 Falador with many of the people wearing pink and violet afros, H.A.M. clothes, and pink robe bottoms. The lag issue had been fixed by about 16:00 UTC.

Twelfth server blackout

At 21:10 UTC on the 31st August, world 82, 71, 56 and 36 crashed. World 172 was removed from the world select page. Users on the affected worlds could not log in, getting the message 'Your account has not logged out from the last session'. Upon entering Clan Chat, players on affected worlds were still logged in but they did not register as online on a player's Friends List. After about an hour, players affected could log into other worlds, and half an hour after this, it kicked out any remaining players left in the crashed worlds and you could log back on to all worlds.

Thirteenth server blackout

At 16:00 UTC on the 4th September it seems that there was a short loss of service on a few unconfirmed worlds. Players were given the message that their accounts were still logged in for roughly an hour. After the servers came back on line it became apperent there had been a small roll back.

Fourteenth server blackout

File:Timeout.jpg

The message which showed up while trying to log in.

At roughly 10:05 UTC on 25 October many players suffered a loss of connection, booting them out of the game. At the same time difficulty logging into the lobby was reported, with players attempting it being told to "try again on a different world". This blackout had no connection to ClusterFlutterer, aka "Bot Nuke Day", which was scheduled for 12 UTC that day.

“

Hey everyone, Some worlds are currently down but please do not worry! We will look to resolve this as soon as possible. If you get the message 'your account is already logged in' when trying to log into another world, then this is nothing to panic about. When a server crashes, your character can remain locked in the game for a minimum of 30 minutes or until the servers are brought back online. This is simply because the server is unable to send logout packets to the log-in servers so they don't know that the player is no longer connected. We are deeply sorry for any inconvenience caused. - Mod Mozza

”

“

It looks like we've lost contact with one of our UK hosting centers - we're looking at this right now. This is unconnected to the update we're planning later today.

”

Mod Chris

At around 10:55 UTC the servers came back online for many players.

Fifteenth server blackout

At 01:06 UTC on 26 October the servers once again had suffered a mild black out.

Sixteenth server blackout

As of 17:00 GMT on 1 December, all RuneScape servers, including the RuneScape homepage and the game itself have become extremely slow for many people. If you try to log in, you might be ejected back to the login screen.

Seventeenth server blackout

On 4 December, it was impossible to log in for some players. If they were able to get into the lobby, they were thrown out quickly. Their friends' lists wouldn't load and clicking on play or on a world would do nothing. Moreover, closing the screen would not trigger a warning option about logging out, as it normally would. Other players had problems loading the game client, being stuck on 0% on the "Loading application resources" page.

List of server blackouts in 2012

First server blackout

At around 17:35 UTC on 30th January, all players on World 84 were disconnected. Upon trying to log back in, it came up with the message 'Your account hasn't been logged out of it's last session. Please try again in a few minutes'. This lasted for around 15 minutes.

Second server blackout

Around 17:25 UTC on 14 February, PvP situations automatically logged players out of world 77 after they had killed someone.

Third server blackout

Around 17:24 UTC on 19 February, the servers crashed making all players unable to login. The players who were already logged in didn't have any connection with friends chat, clan chat, Grand Exchange, or friends list, but players inside of their clan's Citadel were not affected and had access to their friends list, friends chat, and clan chat, unless they tried to leave which caused the player to disconnect and get stuck not being able to log in.

People who were in the lobby couldn't log in and also didn't have any connection with friends chat, clan chat or friends list. When trying to connect, players received the message "Error connecting to server." Also, when trying to connect to webpage, a message said "Login Error". Mod Mor kept all players updated on the forums.

The blackout ended at around 20:10 UTC, after roughly 3 hours.

“

Hey everyone, We are aware of a Login Server going offline which may cause some issues for people to get into game. We are getting it rebooted as I make this post, so please be patient with us if you are having difficulties getting into game and we'll get this resolved as soon as possible! EDIT: Just wanted to add this to reassure you all. Your accounts are safe and there is no need to panic. We should have this issue solved as soon as possible! EDIT #2: Hey everyone, I have been informed that the login server should be back up within 1 hour. If it is not up by then, I will be back to inform you further on the matter. We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience this has caused for everyone and we are working hard to get you all back into game! EDIT #3: Locking thread as it appears to be used for players to spam. Please keep checking back to this post where I will update when more information is available. Furthermore, we are aware of some Grand Exchange and Friend List issues which may be linked. We are working on these and thank you all for informing us with this. Could we please refrain from excessive posting on the forums, bug tickets, technical ticketing system and e-mail systems as we are aware of these issues. Thank you again for your co-operation during this time and we apologise for the delay. EDIT #4: Hey everyone, I was hoping to update with some positive news but currently there is no change in the situation. We are working on the issue but it is proving to be quite difficult. Please remain patient with us, we want to get you back in game as much as you want to be there! Regards, Mod Mor

”

Fourth server blackout

World 20 went out of action (Fist of Guthix). It has since come back online. The cause of this blackout is currently unknown.

Fifth server blackout

On 6 April shortly before 3:50am UTC , World 96 (Members quick chat) went offline, the world has come back on since then. The cause of this blackout is currently unknown. Another Glitch that has happened that all the members who were on the server were muted for 2 days.

Sixth server blackout

World 11 (UK) and World 53 (Pest Control (MEMBERS)) went offline, the servers have come back online.

Seventh server blackout

On 8 April at around 10:45pm BST, Worlds 36, 56, 71, 82 and 96 went offline. The players on these worlds were disconnected, and when trying to log back in were shown with the message 'Your account has not logged out from its last session, please try again in a few minutes'. The accounts were unstuck at around 11:38pm BST, but the worlds stayed offline. There was a 5-10 minute rollback.

Eighth server blackout

On 9 April at around 10:00pm UTC or earlier, Worlds 6, 29, 31, 33, 61, 64, 66, 70, 76, 79, and 89 went offline. The players on these worlds were disconnected, and when trying to log back in were shown with the message 'Your account has not logged out from its last session, please try again in a few minutes'. The accounts were unstuck soon after but the worlds stayed offline. There was a 5-10 minute rollback.

Ninth server blackout

On 11 April at around 1:45am UTC, many worlds including Worlds 11, 16, 23, 24, 25, and 84 went offline, causing the game to black out, freeze, or crash for players playing on them. Soon after the login server shut down, making players unable to log back in. At around 2:20am UTC, all servers came back online, including the login server.

Message that comes up when the login server is offline.

Tenth server blackout

On 13 April at around 1:25am GMT, all Runescape worlds went offline. When trying to login, the message No reply from login server. Please wait a minute and try again appeared.This issue was resolved within 15 minutes of the login server crash.

Eleventh server blackout

On 15 April, around 16:26 GMT the login system went offline, giving all players the message "Our systems are currently unavailable. Please try again in a few minutes". Mod Ollie posted about the issue on the Runescape forums, telling the players they were looking in to it.

Twelfth server blackout

On 26 April all services went offline at around 18:00 GMT, The servers and the website were offline for about two hours.

Thirteenth server blackout

On 4 May at around 1:07 GMT servers 6, 29, 31, 33, 61, 64, 66, 70, 76, 79, and 89 went offline. All players that were logged into the world were "server locked" and could not log back in. They would receive the message "Your account has not logged out from it's last session". Players appeared to be online to other online players. This made many players on the Runescape forums believe that their account was hijacked. This lasted about 30-40 minutes and was shortly fixed. The reason was unknown. There was also a 20-30 minute rollback.

Fourteenth server blackout

On June 3rd 2012 at approximately 3:02 GMT, There was a problem with a server near the east coast of the United States and East Coast of Australia that caused anyone logged in at the time to experience severe lag, Disconnection, or the inability to log in or out of the game. Anyone in the lobby did not experience this, but upon entering any world would experience severe lag and would be forced to log out or close the game. The players who were in the lobby were not able to see their friends list, friends chat, clan chat and world selection.

Update: Players can now see their friends list, friends chat, clan chat, and world selection as well as log onto a world. However, once logged on they experience severe lag and connection lost problems. The Runescape website is also back up.

Update: Worlds that seem to work are 84, 79 and 31. According to forums, it may be possible to log in by continuing to click 'Play Free Now' on the home screen, as this will randomly select a server for the player.

Fifteenth server blackout

On June 5th 2012 4:20pm UTC many servers went offline, the reason for this is still unknown. The servers are now back online.

Sixteenth server blackout

On June 11th, 2012 4:00am UTC, many servers went offline displaying the message "RuneScape is not available at this time" or "Our systems are currently unavailable. Please try again in a few minutes". Approximately 25,000 players were unable to connect during this short period of time (30 seconds to a minute). The reason for this is still unknown.

Seventeenth server blackout

On June 12th, 2012 12:50 UTC, there was problem with the server which caused everyone in worlds 39, 89 and possibly many others to disconnect. The servers were down for a few minutes, during which connection attempts displayed the message "RuneScape is not available at this time" or "Our systems are currently unavailable. Please try again in a few minutes". Approximately 22,500 players were unable to connect during this short period of time (30 seconds to a minute). It happened again shortly after at 1:01 UTC. The cause of this is still unknown.

This server blackout preceded planned maintenance on 12 June 2012, and was not caused by this maintenance.

Eighteenth server blackout

On June 14, 2012 4:12 UTC, some servers began disconnecting players. Around 70,000 players were disconnected for roughly 30 seconds to a minute, and no reason has been given yet.

Nineteenth server blackout

On June 14, 2012 4:21 UTC, just a few minutes after the last blackout another blackout happened. No reason has been given yet.

Twentieth server blackout

Again on June 14,2012 4:27 UTC, the server went offline for about 2 minutes then came back on. No reason has been given yet.

Twenty-first server blackout

From the time of The Crucible update on 19 June 2012 (12:00PM UTC) login servers have suffered a blackout. At the time of the update, approximately 120,000 players were logged out and could not access the game thereafter. This is an on going issue. No reason has been given yet. At 1:15pm UTC all worlds were emptied with 0 people in, while dozens of servers got OFFLINE status. At 1:31pm login issues seems to be solved. Several updates were made following the 1:31 update that carried on through till 2:14, after which all problems concerning log-ins seemed to be fixed.

For some people, logging in wasn't a problem, before the fix there were approximately 30,000 players online.

Twenty-second server blackout

At approximately 17:00 UTC on 20 June 2012, the world servers suffered a blackout. Every world appeared 'OFFLINE' although some players were able to remain online. By around 17:20 UTC all worlds were back online. The cause of this blackout is unknown.

Twenty-third server blackout

At 00:00 UTC on 1 July 2012, the world servers suffered a blackout. As of 01:30 UTC, only around 3000 players were online. Between 02:00-02:30 UTC, servers steadily climbed to about 4,000 players online. Access to the main page and the forums were unaffected. Jagex has attempted to roll back the game in order to fix the crash, but with no luck. Accessing the game on client or web browser will stay stuck on Loading Configuration: 0%, and eventually crash saying a Java error or a firewall is blocking connections. The official forum post from Jagex can be found here. The blackout has affected people until 02:46 UTC, when over half the game worlds came back online.

At 02:02 UTC, RuneScape's Twitter account posted the following:

“	Hi again! We're still looking at getting things back up and running as soon as possible! No ETA as of you, but I'll keep you updated.	”
	— Twitter status 219249323001647104

World 68 is currently online, at this time you could try connecting to the game using http://world68.runescape.com/

The RS forum has been updated with the following message:

“

Edit 03:25 You may be able to log-in to worlds 1, 10, 51, 54 or 68 but we cannot guarantee stability at this point in time.

”

At this time you could try connecting to the game, using the following links. http://world68.runescape.com/

Newest RS forum update:

“

Edit 03:38 The game worlds are now coming back online. We will continue to monitor the situation very closely but if you now try logging-in and let us know if you still have any issues.

”