Widespread iTunes and iCloud Apple ID "Couldn't be Found" Outage [Fixed?]

appleid
iTunes and iCloud customers trying to log into their accounts early this morning found that their Apple IDs are not working. They were greeted with the following error message:

"The Apple ID you entered couldn't be found or your password was incorrect. Please try again."

A quick search of Twitter shows the problem is widespread, affecting customers all over the world. There are a few scattered reports that some people's Apple IDs seem to be working. Apple's iCloud system status shows no issues at the time of this writing. Trying to change your Apple ID password results in a "Fatal internal error" on Apple's support pages.

Apple ID accounts are required to download apps from iTunes as well as access your iCloud.com data. The wide scale of the problem indicates its a problem with Apple's servers rather than your individual Apple ID account. Apple is likely working to fix the problem.

Update: Many are reporting that Apple IDs are working again.

Top Rated Comments

Kalika Avatar
147 months ago
CONFIRMED.

Spoke with Apple Rep over the phone, she confirmed there are server problems worldwide regarding Apple IDs. No ETA as to when they will be back up. Suggested I leave it for a night, so expect this to be a potentially extended outtage.

They've been swamped with calls regarding this issue from all over the world.

(Australian East Coast here).
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
pjdiddy Avatar
147 months ago
Strangely it makes me feel much better to know that there are thousands of others suffering with me.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
MetalMoon Avatar
147 months ago
One downslide to the cloud, is that the problem is out of your hands until they fix it. Even Itunes match takes a few seconds to load the song you want to play. Cool idea, but I'll be sticking to owning a external for all my info for now.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
till213 Avatar
147 months ago
It gets worse. I just got in.... ALL my iCloud information is erased. Gone. Everything. My calendars, contacts, ten years' worth of email. Even my photo.
Har har har :p Can I quote you and print that out in B-I-G B-O-L-D L-E-T-T-E-R-S and hang it up my wall together with the words: "Thou shall not entrust your data to some Foo Company! Thou shall not entrust your important data..."

It's like in the good ol' days: "Did you save your document yet? You know, power failure and such..." - "Oh yes, sure, it's in the Cloud(tm)(R)!" - "No, I mean, did you save it!"

Good luck in recovering your data, hope Apple has a good backup plan ;)

----------

news on the net that the group 'anonymous' are behind this
Well, that would actually be GOOD news. Because that would mean that at least someone has things under control ;)
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
shompa Avatar
147 months ago
Exactly the same happened when Apple launched iCloud. Old MobileMe members could not log in for days since Apples servers where hammered by 25 million that downloaded iOS5 and migrated to iCloud.

Today Music match is launched around the world and Apples servers are overloaded again.

Some in this thread have written that its the downside with the cloud. No. Its the downside since Apple uses Microsoft Azure servers. Real servers don't have this kind of problem. Unix have been "cloud" based since 90is with NFS. Apple used Sun + Oracle before the migration to Azure. We already in 2 month have had more outages with Azure then 10 years with Sun/Oracle/.mac/mobileme.

Apple is idiots when it comes to corporate computing. They had fantastic server lineup with Xserve/Xraid/Xsan. Instead of using this, they today use Microsoft +HP +netapp. That is not non stop servers. No bank/credit card company uses MFST on mission critical servers. Apple should not do that either. And Apple would save money buying its own hardware.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
JeFurry Avatar
147 months ago
It gets worse. I just got in.... ALL my iCloud information is erased. Gone. Everything. My calendars, contacts, ten years' worth of email. Even my photo.

I really hope this is a temporary glitch and it'll all get restored.

(and yes, I bought iTunes Match last night)
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)

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