Canvas, and millions of other websites, are down after cloud computing service provider, Amazon Web Services, suffered a major outage in the middle of the night on Oct. 20, 2025.
The first reports of the outage appeared on AWS Health Dashboard at 12:11 A.M. PDT with this update, “We are investigating increased error rates and latencies for multiple AWS services in the US-EAST-1 Region. We will provide another update in the next 30-45 minutes.” Since this update, more than 100 Amazon software services have been reported as impacted, with a severity of “degraded.”
Millions of websites and services rely on AWS to operate smoothly, including the online learning management system (LMS), Canvas. Chabot College has used Canvas as it’s primary platform for hosting class information, assignments, and for connecting remote students to their online classes since the school moved away from its previous LMS, Blackboard, in 2018.
Canvas was launched in 2011 by LMS provider, Instructure, utilizing AWS software since its inception. In 2023, Instructure CEO, Steve Daly, estimated that 36% of higher education institutions utilize Canvas in some capacity. This includes nearly every Ivy League University, schools like CSU East Bay and Stanford University, and the majority of California Community Colleges.
Chabot students and instructors are noticeably upset, as the outage impacts their ability to complete assignments and facilitate their lessons plans. In the middle of midterm season, those who rely on Canvas have lost the ability to access quizzes, exams, syllabi, and learning materials crucial to their classes.
“I’m really frustrated because my teacher assigned nine assignments last night, and now I can’t do it. And I have three hours in between my classes, so I have to spend it waiting around,” said Elena Perez.
There is no protocol or backup plan for how to receive or submit assignments without Canvas. Ysabella Ballesil is concerned it could have a significant impact, “I feel like a lot of students are going to start becoming behind in their assignments, especially because it’s the middle of the semester already and usually everyone has built up a routine. If Canvas is down, then the students are going to be down.”
“Now, it’s not just Canvas, it’s other Amazon web services down. So, for instance, I’m programming in C++ and my class uses OpenGDB, which uses, I believe, CloudFlare, which is an Amazon server. So our class had to be basically cut short because we weren’t able to complete the lab section,” said Ethan Fujimura-Engstrom, a Chabot STEM student.
“I couldn’t even take attendance,” said mass communications instructor, Tom Lothian.
While the main AWS headquarters is located in Seattle, Washington, the outage appears to have originated from their east coast head quarters in Arlington, Virginia. “The root cause is an underlying internal subsystem responsible for monitoring the health of our network load balancers,” Amazon reported in an earlier update. In simpler terms, this means that the software that ensures web traffic is evenly distributed across AWS servers went down.
The sheer scale of this outage has sparked conversation among Chabot students about society’s dependence on the internet and internet connected services. “A tool meant for connection has allowed us a false sense of security,” said Cassandra Brown. “It leads us down two paths: a shout into a void in which nothing is seen and heard, or a call into an echo chamber, where all thoughts, even uneducated ones, are worshiped without question or reasoning.”
“I think it’s great that we have the ability to communicate with anyone in almost any place,” said Brian Hernandez. “But, at the same time, I think it’s definitely made us more secluded…we’ve, in a sense, become like hermits.”
The AWS Health Dashboard reports that mitigating steps to solve the issue are leading to improvements, but as of 12:15 P.M. PDT, Canvas and several other services have yet to be restored to full functionality.
