Is Archive of Our Own Down?

All you want is to have a relaxing night—a glass of wine and maybe some Castiel x Dean Winchester fanfic—but it all comes crashing down when Archive of Our Own (AO3)  curses you with a permanent loading screen. Ugh.

AO3 does go through momentary and, mostly regional, outages every once in a while, but it’s also possible that you’re experiencing a smaller issue that you can troubleshoot on your own. Internet or device connection issues often seem like an outage at first, but can be managed much faster than a full outage.

Let me walk you through a step-by-step guide on how to diagnose your problem, find the solution, and quickly get back online so you can return to what’s really important here: Tony Stark being bitten by a vampire.

How to troubleshoot Archive of Our Own

There are a few things that could be causing AO3 to appear unavailable to you, but we’re going to start by finding out if there really is an outage or if something else is causing the disruption. I’ll walk you through everything you need to do to figure it out for yourself.

Let’s get into it!

Check for an Archive of Our Own outage

Due to the nature of being a free, online website, AO3 does go through temporary regional hiccups and momentary slowdowns. For the most part, these typically resolve themselves before too long.

To see if these types of disturbances, or a full-blown outage, are the culprit of your interrupted reading time, check the status page first. However, it only tracks the status on a daily basis, not in real-time. For quicker updates, check out the team’s Bluesky account.

Your next-best bet is to eyeball online outage detectors and social media. When others are experiencing the same thing, it likely means that it really is a network-wide issue that AO3 needs to handle.

But if you seem like the only one going through an outage, the problem is probably specific to your region, device, or internet connection.

No outage? Try these steps next

Don’t worry—it might be a good thing that it isn’t a complete outage. That means some quick and easy steps that might solve the problem. Let’s look at your device and maybe even your internet.

1  Try accessing the page on another browser or device.

2  Turn off your VPN (if you’re using one).

3  Check if you’re on mobile data vs. Wi-Fi.

4  Restart your modem and router, and make sure they’re functioning properly.

Check your internet connection

Sometimes, you need to know when to call it. If your internet plan isn’t keeping up with daily life, it’s probably time to break up with your provider and find a new one that suits you and your household better. One without all the drama of pages that never load or even crash.

Find out what internet speed your household needs and start shopping for local internet deals. Then, search for a new provider in your area by entering your zip code below. Rest assured that we won’t call or email you with any spammy messages!

What are you waiting for? Let’s make the move!