Pocket down: reading service broken for hours leaving users unable to save any articles

Problems with deploying new code to the read later service have taken it down for over a day

Pocket, the popular service for keeping articles to read later, has broken – leaving users unable to save anything.

Users attempting to add items to their list were met by a pop-up telling them about a server error. Reading already-added articles does appear to be working.

Pocket said that the problems had been caused during the process of deploying new code to the site. It was working hard to fix the problems, it said – but the problems have already stretched into their second day.

“This afternoon, we were deploying new code to the site,” the company said in its first update on the morning of September 3. “During this process a syncing error occurred, which required us to re-run our syncing process from earlier in the day. This took a significantly longer time than we expected.

“Currently, we are testing the site internally and running a bunch of tests. When those are completed we’ll be able to start bringing the site back online and you’ll be able to access your list again. We are being cautious about our approach to make sure everything goes smoothly.”

But the problems already seem to be lasting much longer than anticipated. Functionality was gradually rolling out at the time of publication – with the company claiming that it was able to meet about 30 per cent of requests – but the service was still unavailable to many.

Pocket warned during those fixes that the service might appear slow or drop out, even for those whose accounts were working, since the company was working hard to bring the service back.