Slack service disrupted as workers return after holidays

Slack kicks off 2021 with a global outage.

Slack suffers an outage (AP)

Thousands of people reported being unable to access their Slack accounts for several hours Monday, when workers headed back to the virtual office after the holidays.

According to the website Downdetector, which monitors service outages, more than 15,000 people complained of connection issues in places from Texas to Ukraine. “Down in my ‘home office,'” wrote one user on the site.

About 2:30 p.m. New York time, the company said its service was coming back online. 

“We're seeing improvements with error rates on our side, and we believe affected customers should be able to access Slack,” the San Francisco-based company said in a statement on its website, adding that some calendar apps and email notifications were still experiencing trouble. 

“We're truly sorry for the disruption today. We'll be back with a summary of this issue.”

Salesforce.com Inc. agreed to purchase Slack Technologies Inc. late last year for $27.7 billion. 

Slack's shares have risen about 80% in the past year as the pandemic made people more dependent than ever on internet-based communication while they work from home.

By Molly Schuetz