You’re staring at a "Sorry, for some reason reddit can't be reached" message. Or maybe it’s the dreaded "Ow! Our CDN was unable to reach our servers" screen with that sad little alien. It’s annoying. We’ve all been there, usually right when you’re about to read the punchline of a long story or check a crucial product review.
The short answer for Sunday, January 18, 2026: Reddit is currently up and operational for most users.
While the official status pages show green across the board, the reality of the internet is rarely that perfect. Just yesterday, January 17, the platform struggled through a three-hour window of "elevated errors" that made posting images and loading the mobile app feel like wading through molasses. If you're seeing a blank home feed or a "server error" banner right now, it might be a lingering glitch or a localized hiccup rather than a total platform collapse.
How to tell if the problem is you or Reddit
Sometimes the site isn't technically "down," but it's "zombie-moding"—the UI loads, but the content doesn't. Before you throw your phone across the room, you should verify the status through a few different lenses.
- The Official Word: Head over to RedditStatus.com. This is the most "authoritative" source, but honestly, it’s often the last to know. Engineers have to manually confirm an issue before it turns red. If it says "All Systems Operational" but you can’t see any comments, take it with a grain of salt.
- The People’s Choice: Check DownDetector. This is usually much faster than the official status page. When you see a vertical spike in reports—like the massive 100,000+ report surge we saw during the January 13 outage—you know it’s a global problem.
- The Social Test: Pop over to X (the platform formerly known as Twitter) and search for
#RedditDown. If the most recent posts are from three minutes ago and they’re all memes about the site being broken, you’re not alone.
Why did Reddit go down earlier this week?
We’ve had a rocky start to 2026. On Tuesday, January 13, Reddit suffered a massive global outage that left millions of us staring at empty feeds for over an hour. It wasn't a hacker group or a crazy DDoS attack, though people on social media love to claim that every time.
Engineering reports later confirmed it was a backend configuration error. Basically, a routine update to the database connections went sideways, and the failover mechanisms—the "backup" systems—got overwhelmed by the sheer volume of traffic trying to reconnect. It was a classic "cascading failure." Interestingly, that same day saw issues on X and the banking app Monzo. Some people thought it was a coordinated cyber event, but it turned out to be a weird coincidence involving shared cloud dependencies.
What to do when Reddit is "sorta" working
Kinda working is almost worse than being totally down. If the site is loading but you keep getting "server error" banners, there are a few things you can try.
The "Old Reddit" Trick
If the modern desktop site or the app is failing, try going to old.reddit.com. It’s built on much lighter, older architecture. Frequently, when the "fancy" new UI is broken, the old-school version still works perfectly fine because it puts less strain on the API.
Check Your VPN
Reddit has been getting more aggressive lately about blocking certain VPN nodes to prevent spam bots. If you're on a VPN, try toggling it off for a second. If the site suddenly springs to life, your VPN server was likely being throttled or flagged by Reddit’s security filters.
Clear the App Cache
If you're on Android, go to Settings > Apps > Reddit > Storage and hit "Clear Cache." Do not hit "Clear Data" unless you want to log back in from scratch. This fixes about 50% of those "Wow, such empty" errors that plague the mobile app.
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Common error codes you'll see
Knowing the "flavor" of the error can tell you a lot about how long the wait will be.
- Error 503 (Service Unavailable): This is the classic "the servers are literally melting" code. It usually means Reddit is doing emergency maintenance or is totally overloaded.
- Error 504 (Gateway Timeout): This often happens when Reddit’s servers are talking to each other but one isn't responding fast enough. It’s common during partial outages.
- CDN Errors: These mean the "edge" servers—the ones closest to your physical location—can't talk to the main Reddit brain. This is often a regional issue.
Is it worth waiting out?
Most Reddit outages in 2026 have been resolved within 30 to 60 minutes. The engineering team is pretty fast at rolling back faulty updates once they identify them. If the official status page acknowledges the issue, it means a fix is already being deployed.
If you've tried switching from Wi-Fi to mobile data and you're still seeing the same error, it's definitely a server-side problem. Grab a coffee, check a different site, and try again in twenty minutes.
Actionable Next Steps
- Check the "New" sort: If your "Best" or "Hot" feed isn't updating, try switching to "New." Sometimes the algorithms that rank posts break while the raw feed stays functional.
- Bookmark RedditStatus: Keep redditstatus.com in your favorites so you don't have to search for it when the site is lagging.
- Update your app: Check the Google Play Store or Apple App Store. Several recent "outages" were actually just bugs in older versions of the app that were fixed in a patch.
- Use a third-party checker: If you want a second opinion, IsDown.app often provides more granular data on whether the API or the Image hosting specifically is the part that's broken.