Technology

Navigate the holidays like a pro by learning the best and worst times for Thanksgiving travel, as well as the worst times to go Black Friday shopping.

Reddit suffered through its second major outage in as many days on Thursday, November 21. The homepage and subreddits were unreachable for some on desktop and mobile, including us here at TechRadar, and there were numerous reports on social media.

Reddit confirmed to TechRadar that this outage was caused by an update that it quickly rolled back. Similarly, yesterday's more extended outage was the result of some bad code that introduced a bug. One thing that is not going on here, at least according to Reddit, is any outside force tampering with the platform. Instead, it's just a run of bad coding luck, and maybe a call for Reddit to have a word with its developers.

By 11:18AM ET, Reddit appeared mostly functional, quickly loading new pages but with some still featuring an error bar at the top.

While Reddit publicly apologized on X (formerly Twitter) for the outage, it has so far made no similar posts for this second go-round.

(Image credit: Future)

Reddit appeared to be recovering by 4:13PM but the instability remains.

(Image credit: Future)

Some pages, like the all-important Popular, remain blank.

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On the bright side, you can still peruse some of Reddit's homepage.

Today, perhaps coincidentally, was also the day of US News Anchor Katie Couric's first-ever Reddit AMA. It launched at 2PM ET, though we're not pointing any fingers.

Post by @katiecouric View on Threads

While the Reddit homepage appears to be sort of functional, Reddit's own status checker is reporting degraded performance for most of its services. No word, yet, on what's causing the issues. and, yes, "popular" remains offline.

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As of 4:36PM ET, Reddit's homepage was failing again. Clearly, the issue, whatever it is, is significant enough that Reddit's developers are likely playing a game of whackamole with critical failures.

(Image credit: Future)

While the function for adding a new Reddit post appears, the system is still reporting multiple errors, and ultimately nothing gets posted. Guess all those anxious Reddit users will have to head over to Discord to post updates.

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As is usually the case, people on other social media platforms are enjoying a little schadenfreude over Reddit's ongoing problems.

I hear Reddit is down Y’all know what that means #GME pic.twitter.com/ghFDPuTkoPNovember 20, 2024

Post by @davedigscars View on Threads

Even upstart social media platform Bluesky was paying attention though it, too, was suffering through a series of small outages on Wednesday. There is no indication they are connected. Bluesky keeps going down because of its sudden and almost unprecedented popularity.

(Image credit: Future)

Some parts of Reddit appear to be performing normally except for this annoying error message banner that appears at the top of almost every page. It's another sign that all is not well in Reddit Land.

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If Down Detector is any measure, Reddit appears to recovering. It's obviously not out of the woods yet and Reddit's status page has yet to show an update, but all signs point to an imminent return to normal Reddit up- and down-voting.

(Image credit: Future)

Reddit's Popular section remains mostly down and while the other subreddits are live, Reddit's response time when you click on any of them is quite slow. This is still not the Reddit you know and love.

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Perhaps we spoke too soon. As of 5:00PM ET, Reddit's homepage was again mostly empty. The error message at the top is now the most interesting thing to read. Reddit has not updated its status report since 3:38PM ET.

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Reddit's last public comment on the outage was on X (formerly Twitter) in response to someone asking if Reddit was down. They posted, "We're working on it."

Yes. We're working on it. https://t.co/8MZVlusmD7November 20, 2024

In the first sign of truly good news, Reddit's crucial Popular subreddit returned, though not without the big, red error bar. We, however, consider this progress. Full Reddit and posting should be back in no time and then we can all get back to laughing at silly road and store signs and cats telling us ironically to "hang in there."

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The platform is healing. From the looks of things, Reddit is returning to form. It's still a bit slow and there are those occasional big, red issue bars but we're seeing more and more complete pages without that blemish. Some of them are even loading quickly.

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Hold on a second. Just as Reddit appeared to be truly recovering, we saw a new and far more dire message when we tried to access Reddit.com

A CDN going down or being unable to communicate with servers is far more serious and could indicate some kind of backbone outage. Reddit is a big system and probably needs a lot of back-end server support to keep delivering all those hot memes. Some part of that infrastructure could be down.

Our colleagues over at Tom's Guide got this statement from Reddit: "The teams are working on it but we don't have a timeline to share."

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Oh, Reddit. Even when you're down, you know how to reach us.

The discussion platform appears almost fully healed and Reddit has been mostly mum about the cause except for a brief comment from a spokesperson. Now, though, we have the "full story" and in completely Reddit fashion.

In truth, it's just a post on X, but it's also quite brilliant, being both a meme and an explanation. Reddit's X's post says the cause was a bug in a recent update that's now been fixed. Reddit is ramping back up. Next to it the explanation, though, is an image from a classic Real Housewives meme. That is just so Reddit.

Welcome back, Reddit, and thanks for keeping it saucy.

pic.twitter.com/4YjwVdWRKONovember 20, 2024

All's well that ends well, right? On Thursday, Reddit was back to full operation

Down Detector tells the tale

Down Detector is showing a major spike in Reddit outage reports. And Reddit's homepage is not loading. This issue looks, perhaps, worse than yesterday's.

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Social media immediately took notice but Reddit, which acknowledged yesterday's outage on X (formerly Twitter) and later posted a humorous update and apology when the discussion platform returned to normal has yet to comment.

Reddit is reportedly down for thousands of users currently. Are you one of them? #RedditDown https://t.co/seLUFviBwGNovember 21, 2024

Reddit's status page appears unaware of the issue, showing "All systems operational." If this outage continues, that's sure to change.

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You might wonder why we're reporting on a Reddit site outage, it's just another place where people chat, post memes, and run celebrity AMAs (As Me Anything). Reddit is more than that. It's increasingly become a place where people find answers hidden in an untold number of topic-based subreddits (note how often it appears at the top of your Google Search results).

Reddit is also incredibly popular with over half a billion users, many of them between 18 and 29 years old. One report found that the majority of people come to Reddit for entertainment and "r/funny is the most popular subreddit."

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If I'm being honest, I'm not the biggest Reddit user. I visit sometimes and even end up going down a few subreddit rabbit holes. I've read some memorable AMAs – Nic Cage's comes to mind – but I'm not embedded in the platform.

So I asked someone who is to tell us why Reddit is so important. Hamish Hector is TechRadar's Senior Staff Writer for News and when I asked him why Reddit is his platform of choice, he sent me this:

Since abandoning Twitter and Facebook (for the most part) Reddit has become my social media platform of choice because it’s so convenient to find the niche communities I’m interested in. Rather than a timeline filled with (let’s face it) random garbage with the occasional relevant post, Reddit feeds me curated news, guides, and memes for just the topics I care about.

(Image credit: BigTunaOnline via Shutterstock) Reddit comments

Reddit is aware of the issue and a company spokesperson told us this morning, "An update we made caused some instability. We reverted and are seeing Reddit ramp back up."

That's good news and might mean we're back to checking the latest dank memes in no time.

Reddit is already showing some signs of life. As of 11AM ET, it was back to serving pages but with a large, red error banner at the top. This is progress. We may be seeing the promised reversion taking effect.

(Image credit: Future) Success subreddit

Reddit's reversion had the desired effect and Reddit appears to be back online. Down Detector reports have dropped precipitously and we're now able to navigate the discussion site.

(Image credit: Future)

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• MobiPrint robot autonomously prints designs directly onto floors
• Developed for accessibility, inspired by tactile markers for navigation
• Future plans include AI for larger, adaptable, on-site printing

Imagine a 3D printer that can print creations exactly where you need them. That’s the idea behind MobiPrint, a mobile 3D printing robot developed by Daniel Campos Zamora at the University of Washington.

This innovative device autonomously navigates a room, printing designs directly onto floors or other surfaces, offering “a new system that combines robotics and 3D printing that could actually go and print in the real world,” as Campos Zamora told IEEE Spectrum.

Unveiled at the ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology, MobiPrint introduces a new level of flexibility to 3D printing. The system consists of a modified Prusa Mini+ 3D printer mounted on a Roborock S5 vacuum robot, using the open source software Valetudo to map its environment autonomously, allowing users to view and control its path locally without cloud dependency.

Park and print

Capable of printing on carpet, hardwood, and vinyl with dimensions up to 180 x 180 x 65 mm, MobiPrint has already been used to produce objects like pet food bowls, signage, and tactile markers, demonstrating its practical versatility.

The inspiration for MobiPrint came from accessibility needs. Campos Zamora’s lab is focused on creating tools to assist visually impaired users. “One of the things that really inspired this project was looking at the tactile surface indicators that help blind and low vision users find their way around a space,” he explained to IEEE Spectrum. By printing these indicators directly on-site, MobiPrint could make navigation easier in indoor spaces that frequently change.

Currently, MobiPrint operates in a “park and print” mode, requiring it to stay stationary while printing, limiting its ability to create larger designs. However, Campos Zamora envisions expanding its functionality to print larger, continuous objects, follow users to print accessibility markers along their path, or even use AI to suggest print locations.

Though the robot may seem unconventional, and it certainly looks rudimentary in its current form, the technology has the potential to make 3D printing more accessible and versatile, directly shaping spaces with designs customized to the user’s needs. You can see it in action in the video below.

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