Claude was down — here's everything we know
The status page showed a 'Major outage'
It's not deja vu — Claude was having some issues again the morning of April 15, 2026, with Anthropic confirming an active disruption causing 'Elevated errors on Claude.ai, API, Claude Code.' The company first confirmed issues at 10:53 AM ET, and then issued a fix at 11:03 AM ET, but after a recovery, it wrote "Claude.ai and Platform are down" as of 11:40 AM ET, before finally marking the full incident as resolved at 1:42 PM ET.
Down Detector reports matched up with the up-and-down issues and, at its peak, showed over 5,100 reports. Both my colleague and I encountered issues with using Free and Pro Claude accounts on both desktop and mobile as well. Anthropic's given the all-clear now, and services have returned, but ahead you can read our live reporting on the issues that impacted Claude.
Anthropic's status page for Claude specifically calls out issues with logging into the platform, and my colleague and I are seeing that on mobile. The login fails regardless of the choice and displays this error at the top.
There's a disconnect
If you visit Claude.ai, it might appear that Claude is functional. The page is loading, but then many of the functions are offline or throwing errors. When we tried to enter a prompt on a free account, Claude told us we'd used up our prompt complement for the day, even though we hadn't been using it at all today.
We also tried logging into a Pro account, but when we went to enter the verification code Claude mailed us, the website failed.
A tale of two reports
While Downdetector shows a rapid recovery, Claude's status page tells another story: "Claude.ai and Platform are down. Login for Claude Code does not work via Claude.ai."
Why the disconnect? Well, Downdetector, which is based on user reports, can lag behind the real-time, on-the-ground reality. In this case, we have to assume Anthropic knows more about Claude.ai's status than Downdetector.
Imitation of life
Claude.ai on the desktop loads and even accepts prompts, but it cannot seem to process them. We get "Service is temporarily busy. You can try again shortly."
There are currently no updates on the Claude status page. Of course, if you're desperate for your AI fix, you can always turn to Google Gemini or ChatGPT, both of which appear functional right now.
A telling uptick
Downdetector appears to have caught onto the currently sorry state of Claude.ai's operation. You can see the fever chart is heading north again, which means more reports are coming in from frustrated users.
Some good news
Anthropic dropped in with an update at 12:30PM ET on its status page, reporting that "We have seen success rates for login to Claude.ai, including via Claude Code, stabilize and are working to fully resolve this issue. We will provide an update shortly."
Put another way, people can log in to Claud.ai, but it's still not clear if they can enter a prompt and get a result.
Rumors of a return to function may be premature
There are currently two slightly different experiences on the Claude iOS app and the Claude.ai desktop. On the former, we can't even log in. On the latter, we're logged in, but fail on every prompt. This problem is proving tougher to solve than it first appeared. How is everyone else out there faring with their Claude access and use?
No logins and errors on prompt counts
For Pro users — people paying for Claude.ai access — today's outage may be especially frustrating. They can't log in because the system can't seem to either generate or handle verification codes.
For free users, errors in tracking how many prompts you used (free users only get a limited number per day) persist. Claude thinks we've used them up when we haven't even started.
While Down Detector reports are slightly down, both Lance and I are still seeing issues with Claude. On the desktop, where I am still logged in, I am seeing a slew of error messages in the top-right corner.
Some good news – Lance was able to sign back in on mobile, but any chat still errors out with the 'Service is temporarily busy' message at the top. Let us know what you're seeing in the comments below.
It seems Claude's note about login rates improving may be correct, as Lance was able to sign in to a Claude Pro account on the desktop. The luck did end there, though, as any messages with the account are failing with the same error messages I've seen on my free account.
Lance did encounter a new message on the desktop with his free account: "This model isn't available right now. You can switch to another model to continiue using Claude." That switch doesn't yield an answer, though.
Claude is finally responding ... at least to one message. Lance, on his Claude Pro account, was able to get a simple response back, but it did result in an error in the top right corner. Progress nonetheless, though, and it seems that Claude is unaware of its performance issues this morning.
It seems that Anthropic is making some progress, especially with the Pro accounts, as these are back to normal operation, according to Lance. With my free account, I'm still having no luck on desktop or mobile as of yet.
And it's been a bit, but Claude is now back to working on free for myself on desktop – though a little slow – and back to normal on mobile for Lance. This is likely good news, and hopefully Anthropic will update its status page soon.
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