Update - AO3 is now up! Some features have been temporarily disabled to allow us to bring the site back earlier than the four-week mark. At this time, icons across the site (user icons, collection icons, etc.) are disabled, external work importing is unavailable, and works can only be downloaded in HTML format. These features will be restored. No icons have been deleted, they are simply not being displayed currently.
Due to high traffic, you may experience a delay before AO3 loads. This is an intentional measure to help manage traffic. If you see the AO3 downtime page, please refresh and try again!
No AO3 data has been deleted. Your works, bookmarks, kudos, etc., are still safe. Draft deletion was successfully paused and no drafts have been deleted while AO3 was down. In addition, we are going to leave draft deletion paused for the next two weeks to allow users time to log back into their accounts and save copies of or publish their drafts. Beginning November 29, draft deletion will return to normal and all drafts which are 30 days old will be deleted. Please note that the deletion date listed at the top of the draft will remain listed as 30 days after the original creation date and will not reflect the new deadline. We recommend you review your drafts and either save a copy for yourself or post them as soon as you are able.
As this is a security incident, we will not be sharing specifics about what mitigating changes are being made at this time. However, we do want to share that we’ve partnered with a security firm to review the incident and analyze the site to help prevent future incidents. AO3's security is deeply important to us.
At this time, we have no reason to believe that the user database was compromised, though we cannot rule out that possibility. As the site is now up, we recommend you consider changing your password and ensuring that your email is up-to-date. As a precaution, we also recommend changing your password on any other sites where you have reused your AO3 password.
We understand that the wait and uncertainty surrounding AO3's return have been difficult, and we apologize for the inconvenience. We greatly appreciate your support during the downtime, and continued patience as our volunteers work hard to return AO3 to its full functionality. We will provide further updates when we have them.
Nov 15, 2026 - 08:00 UTC
Due to high traffic, you may experience a delay before AO3 loads. This is an intentional measure to help manage traffic. If you see the AO3 downtime page, please refresh and try again!
No AO3 data has been deleted. Your works, bookmarks, kudos, etc., are still safe. Draft deletion was successfully paused and no drafts have been deleted while AO3 was down. In addition, we are going to leave draft deletion paused for the next two weeks to allow users time to log back into their accounts and save copies of or publish their drafts. Beginning November 29, draft deletion will return to normal and all drafts which are 30 days old will be deleted. Please note that the deletion date listed at the top of the draft will remain listed as 30 days after the original creation date and will not reflect the new deadline. We recommend you review your drafts and either save a copy for yourself or post them as soon as you are able.
As this is a security incident, we will not be sharing specifics about what mitigating changes are being made at this time. However, we do want to share that we’ve partnered with a security firm to review the incident and analyze the site to help prevent future incidents. AO3's security is deeply important to us.
At this time, we have no reason to believe that the user database was compromised, though we cannot rule out that possibility. As the site is now up, we recommend you consider changing your password and ensuring that your email is up-to-date. As a precaution, we also recommend changing your password on any other sites where you have reused your AO3 password.
We understand that the wait and uncertainty surrounding AO3's return have been difficult, and we apologize for the inconvenience. We greatly appreciate your support during the downtime, and continued patience as our volunteers work hard to return AO3 to its full functionality. We will provide further updates when we have them.
Nov 15, 2026 - 08:00 UTC
Update - While #AO3 remains down, we wanted to share that work to restore AO3 and make changes to prevent future incidents is ongoing and proceeding well. We believe that our original return time estimate remains accurate.
As part of our work to restore AO3, some notification emails (such as subscription updates and kudos announcements) that were queued before AO3 went down in October were released. These emails are real, from us, and are not a reason for concern.
We know that many people are concerned about drafts they had in progress saved on AO3. We are actively working to ensure that drafts are not deleted during this period.
We will provide further updates when we have them.
Nov 06, 2026 - 00:00 UTC
As part of our work to restore AO3, some notification emails (such as subscription updates and kudos announcements) that were queued before AO3 went down in October were released. These emails are real, from us, and are not a reason for concern.
We know that many people are concerned about drafts they had in progress saved on AO3. We are actively working to ensure that drafts are not deleted during this period.
We will provide further updates when we have them.
Nov 06, 2026 - 00:00 UTC
Update - Earlier today, we detected evidence of a security incident on AO3. We are still in the early stages of response to this security incident and determining its scope. AO3 will remain down while we continue investigating and addressing what has been found so far. However, we want to make some things clear:
First, no AO3 data has been deleted. All your works, bookmarks, kudos, etc., are safe.
Second, while we currently don't believe that the user database was stolen, we are also unable to rule it out. The AO3 database contains account information that may include your username, email address, IP address, and a hashed version of your password.
We use industry-standard techniques for storing passwords in a scrambled form that cannot easily be reversed. Even so, no hashing method can fully protect a weak or reused password from being cracked. As a precaution, we recommend that you change your passwords on any other sites where you use the same password as on AO3.
AO3 does not collect real names, so none could be exposed. Additionally, our donor information is held in an entirely separate system and is never linked to AO3, so that data has also not been exposed.
We will update everyone as our investigation continues; we may be unable to respond to individual inquiries from users. Please keep an eye on our official outlets for updates. Our next update will be posted when we have further information available.
Our current expectation is that AO3 will be down for a minimum of two weeks; however, it could take up to four weeks. During that time, we may be able to bring the site back up in a degraded state, meaning that not all features will be available and/or the site may be read-only. If we are able to do that, please be aware that we might have to bring the site back down unexpectedly as part of our recovery efforts. We will keep you in the loop for any developments.
Oct 30, 2026 - 01:27 UTC
First, no AO3 data has been deleted. All your works, bookmarks, kudos, etc., are safe.
Second, while we currently don't believe that the user database was stolen, we are also unable to rule it out. The AO3 database contains account information that may include your username, email address, IP address, and a hashed version of your password.
We use industry-standard techniques for storing passwords in a scrambled form that cannot easily be reversed. Even so, no hashing method can fully protect a weak or reused password from being cracked. As a precaution, we recommend that you change your passwords on any other sites where you use the same password as on AO3.
AO3 does not collect real names, so none could be exposed. Additionally, our donor information is held in an entirely separate system and is never linked to AO3, so that data has also not been exposed.
We will update everyone as our investigation continues; we may be unable to respond to individual inquiries from users. Please keep an eye on our official outlets for updates. Our next update will be posted when we have further information available.
Our current expectation is that AO3 will be down for a minimum of two weeks; however, it could take up to four weeks. During that time, we may be able to bring the site back up in a degraded state, meaning that not all features will be available and/or the site may be read-only. If we are able to do that, please be aware that we might have to bring the site back down unexpectedly as part of our recovery efforts. We will keep you in the loop for any developments.
Oct 30, 2026 - 01:27 UTC
Update - We estimate that service restoration for #AO3 will take around 2 weeks but it could be up to 4 weeks. We are hopeful that we will be able to bring the site back up in a degraded state sooner. If that does happen, there may be times when the site has to be brought down temporarily until this is fully resolved. Please stay tuned for further info.
Oct 29, 2026 - 17:41 UTC
Oct 29, 2026 - 17:41 UTC
Identified - AO3 maintenance is in progress. We expect it to take at least 12 hours, but it may take longer. We will provide updates as necessary.
Oct 29, 2026 - 09:03 UTC
Oct 29, 2026 - 09:03 UTC
Investigating - AO3 is down for maintenance.
Oct 29, 2026 - 07:13 UTC
Oct 29, 2026 - 07:13 UTC
About This Site
Welcome to the OTW status page! Below is the current server status of our projects. We will post incidents as we become aware of them and will provide updates as we have them.
Archive of Our Own
Degraded Performance
Fanlore
Operational
Transformative Works and Cultures
Operational
OTW Website
Operational
Operational
Degraded Performance
Partial Outage
Major Outage
Maintenance
Major outage
Partial outage
No downtime recorded on this day.
No data exists for this day.
had a major outage.
had a partial outage.