Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Mobile
  3. Legacy Archives

BlackBerry outages spread to the United States and Canada

Add as a preferred source on Google
BlackBerry-India
Image used with permission by copyright holder

For several days, millions of users in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, South America, India and other regions of the world lost their core BB services like BlackBerry Messenger, email, and Web browsing. Now, it appears that reports of problems are continuing to spread, with outages now hitting users in the United States and Canada. Reuters reports. The extent of the North American problem is unknown, but many users have reported delayed or missing email and messages. 

“The messaging and browsing delays … were caused by a core switch failure within RIM’s infrastructure,” said RIM on Tuesday night. “As a result, a large backlog of data was generated and we are now working to clear that backlog and restore normal service.”

Recommended Videos

RIM has not yet commented on the problems in North America. Yesterday, we reported that services were starting to come back online in other areas of the world. For some, service has been off since Oct. 9. 

With all the problems its been having attracting and retaining users in an increasingly iPhone and Android dominated market, the last thing RIM needs is for its core strength–its network–to go down. Though an outage could happen to any company, this could be viewed as a wake up call by some businesses, which rely heavily on RIM’s services. Hopefully, the company can get things back on track.

BB users, let us know if your service is working. 

Jeffrey Van Camp
As DT's Deputy Editor, Jeff helps oversee editorial operations at Digital Trends. Previously, he ran the site's…
Topics
Snapchat Planets Meaning: Order, Rankings, and How Friend Solar System Works
Snapchat Planets turns your best friends list into a solar system, and yes, your orbit says a lot
Snapchat Planets being shown on the Snapchat app on iPhone.

Snapchat+ includes several exclusive features, but few have generated as much curiosity as Snapchat Planets. Part of the app's Friend Solar System, it transforms your Best Friends list into a planetary ranking, assigning each of your top eight friends a planet based on how often you interact.

From Mercury, which represents your closest friend, to Neptune, which represents your eighth closest, the system offers a quick visual snapshot of your interactions. But what do the different planets actually mean, and how does Snapchat decide who gets which one?

Read more
How to use WhatsApp Web
We'll show you how to use WhatsApp on your desktop or laptop
WhatsApp Web

As one of the most popular messaging services, you’ve already heard of WhatsApp. From its humble beginnings in 2009—two years before Apple introduced iMessage—to its acquisition by Facebook (now Meta) in 2014, WhatsApp has become the dominant messaging platform around the globe.

In recent years, it's grown even more potent with new features like video messages, self-destructing voice messages, the ability to edit sent messages, and more. We even finally got an WhatsApp iPad app in May 2025.

Read more
What is WhatsApp? How to use the app, tips, tricks, and more
From setting it up to mastering hidden features, here is your complete guide to WhatsApp.
WhatsApp app store listing open on iPhone

There's no shortage of messaging apps out there. The past decade has given us more options than we know what to do with, largely because smartphones demanded something better than plain old SMS.

Both the App Store and the Play Store are packed with apps that promise to revolutionize the way we communicate. Most of them didn't make it. The truth is, a messaging app is only as good as the number of people using it, and most apps never cross that threshold.

Read more