Fans of BlackBerry Messenger had their instant messaging client shut down briefly recently when several servers crashed. Users of the BlackBerry Messenger service, one of the handset's biggest selling points, found messages failing to be sent or received for several hours.
Twitter and social networks began filling with complaints by avid BlackBerry fans who found their handsets rendered virtually useless for close to 20 hours. BlackBerry responded with a tweet which read, "Some users in EMEA are experiencing issues. We're investigating, and we apologise for any inconvenience." Followed soon after by: "Our sincere apologies to all of you affected by today's BlackBerry service issues."
Thankfully the server issue has now been fixed and BlackBerry services have made their return. BlackBerry made the announcement via its UK Twitter feed. "BlackBerry services have been restored. We apologize to our customers for any inconvenience caused."
Pocket-lint got in touch with BlackBerry to try and get to the bottom of what exactly caused the servers to go down. Nothing official as of yet from RIM as to exactly what caused it, but we will have more when it is announced.
BlackBerry did, however, release this statement earlier today: "Yesterday, some BlackBerry subscribers in the EMEA region experienced delays with BlackBerry services. The issue was resolved and services are operating normally. We apologize to those customers who were impacted for any inconvenience."
We currently understand that Slough was hit, but there is also the possibility of things back in Canada taking an outage. In the meantime enjoy having BlackBerry Services back and get yourself BBMing.
Update: It now looks like BlackBerry Services is down again, with Tweets pointing to outage appearing. "services out again today. Sort yourselves out! Over the past two days, simply, I am now considering a move to a different phone!"
T-Mobile has issued the following statement on the new outage:
"Over the past 24 hours, BlackBerry products have experienced a number of problems with email, internet and messaging services. This is due to a European-wide outage on the BlackBerry network run by BlackBerry’s manufacturer RIM, which is affecting all mobile operators.
RIM has apologised for the interruption to services and said it's working to restore normal operations. They have committed to provide further updates. If you have further concerns, please contact RIM directly via their website, www.rim.com."
RIM has now issued the following statement:
“Some users in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, India, Brazil, Chile, and Argentina are experiencing messaging and browsing delays. We are working to restore normal service as quickly as possible. We apologise for any inconvenience this has caused.”
Did you have any BlackBerry issues? Let us know in the comments below ...