Amazon Crash Sparks Internet Outages Across NJ, Nation

NEW JERSEY - A massive outage struck New Jerseyans and others across the country who use Amazon's web services - including the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission.

“A multi-state Amazon Web Services outage has impacted some MVC phone services, especially the call-back function. We apologize for any inconvenience,” the agency tweeted.

A multi-state Amazon Web Services outage has impacted some MVC phone services, especially the call-back function. We apologize for any inconvenience.
— New Jersey MVC (@NJ_MVC) December 7, 2021

The outage Tuesday morning and afternoon left customers struggling to use Instacart, Venmo, Kindle, Roku, Disney+, among other companies, the Associated Press reported.

Both Amazon.com and Amazon Web Services, a cloud-based service many small- and mid-size companies use, had problems during the outage, according to Downdetector.

"We have identified the root cause and are actively working towards recovery," a message on Amazon Web Services' site stated.

Among the companies that use Amazon Web Services are:

Aon, Adobe, Airbnb, Alcatel-Lucent, AOL, Acquia, AdRoll, AEG, Alert Logic, Autodesk, Bitdefender, BMW, British Gas, Baidu, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Canon, Capital One, Channel 4, Chef, Citrix, Coinbase, Comcast, Coursera, Disney, Docker, Dow Jones, European Space Agency, ESPN, Expedia, Financial Times, FINRA, General Electric, GoSquared and Guardian News & Media.

Also, Harvard Medical School, Hearst Corporation, Hitachi, HTC, IMDb, International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research, International Civil Aviation Organization, ITV, iZettle, Johnson & Johnson, JustGiving, JWT, Kaplan, Kellogg's, Lamborghini, Lonely Planet, Lyft, Made.com, McDonalds, NASA, NASDAQ OMX, National Rail Enquiries, National Trust, Netflix, News International, News UK, Nokia, Nordstrom and Novartis.

Also, Pfizer, Philips, Pinterest, Quantas, Reddit, Sage, Samsung, SAP, Schneider Electric, Scribd, Securitas Direct, Siemens, Slack, Sony, SoundCloud, Spotify, Square Enix, Tata Motors, The Weather Company, Twitch, Turner Broadcasting, Ticketmaster, Time Inc., Trainline, Ubisoft, UCAS, Unilever, US Department of State, USDA Food and Nutrition Service, UK Ministry of Justice, Vodafone Italy, WeTransfer, WIX, Xiaomi, Yelp, Zynga and Zillow.

With reporting by Matt Troutman and Beth Dalbey.