Is Claude Down or Just Me? How to Check and Fix

When you encounter a loading error, infinite spinner, or a connection failure on Claude, it is difficult to determine if the platform is experiencing a global outage or if your local network is dropping the connection. Because Anthropic distributes its web application through localized Content Delivery Networks (CDNs), some regions may experience total downtime while others remain unaffected. Follow this systematic troubleshooting guide to isolate the source of the connection failure and restore access.

Step 1: Check the Official Anthropic Status Page Your first step should always be verifying the official system status. Anthropic maintains an external status dashboard that tracks the operational health of the Claude web application, the developer console, and the underlying API.

1. Open your web browser and navigate to status.anthropic.com.
2. Look at the top banner. A green bar indicates all systems are operational. Red, yellow, or orange bars indicate outages or degraded performance.
3. Scroll down to check the component breakdown specifically for "Claude.ai (Web App)" and "API".
4. Review the "Past Incidents" section at the bottom of the page. If there was a recent outage, the engineering team may still be rolling out a fix, which can cause intermittent connection errors.

Step 2: Query Third-Party Outage Trackers Official status pages are sometimes slow to update during the first 15 minutes of an unexpected spike in traffic or a sudden infrastructure collapse. Third-party crowd-sourced platforms can confirm an outage before official channels acknowledge it.

1. Visit a crowd-sourced monitoring site such as Downdetector.
2. Search for "Claude" or "Anthropic" to see if there is a vertical spike in user-submitted error reports within the last hour.
3. Check the comments section or search real-time social platforms (like X/Twitter) using the query Claude down or Claude error. Filter by the latest posts to see if other users globally or in your geographic area are reporting identical symptoms.

Step 3: Run a Local Routing and DNS Check If official and unofficial trackers show that Claude is fully operational, the issue likely resides with your local Internet Service Provider (ISP), your network configurations, or your local DNS resolver.

1. Open your computer's terminal (macOS/Linux) or Command Prompt (Windows).
2. Run a ping test to see if you can resolve the domain by typing ping claude.ai and pressing Enter.
3. If the ping request times out or fails to resolve the host, flush your local DNS cache:
4. Windows: Run ipconfig /flushdns in Command Prompt.
5. macOS: Run sudo dscacheutil -flushcache; sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder in Terminal.
6. If the domain still fails to resolve, change your device's DNS settings to a reliable public resolver, such as Cloudflare DNS (1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1) or Google Public DNS (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4).

Step 4: Bypass Cached Edge States Web browsers store static assets, scripts, and session states to speed up page loads. If Claude's servers went down briefly and then came back online, your browser might still be trying to load a cached copy of the error page or an expired authentication token.

1. Perform a hard refresh of the page. On Windows, press Ctrl + F5 or Ctrl + Shift + R. On macOS, hold Shift and click the browser's reload button, or press Cmd + Shift + R.
2. Try accessing Claude through an Incognito or Private Browsing window. This loads the site without any existing cookies, cached files, or active browser extensions.
3. If the Private window works, clear your browser's cache and cookies specifically for claude.ai through your browser's privacy settings.

Step 5: Test Across Different Network Routes Local ISP routing issues can occasionally block access to Anthropic's server infrastructure while leaving the rest of the internet fully accessible.

1. Disconnect your device from your local Wi-Fi network and enable your mobile device's cellular data hotspot.
2. Connect your computer to the mobile hotspot and try loading claude.ai again.
3. Alternatively, if you have a Virtual Private Network (VPN) installed, turn it on and select a server in a different region or country. This forces your connection to take a completely different network path, bypassing regional CDN bottlenecks.

When to escalate If the official status page confirms an active outage, there is nothing you can do but wait for Anthropic's infrastructure team to resolve the issue. However, if all status pages report 100% uptime, other networks work, but your main connection remains permanently blocked or times out, write down your external IP address and any specific error logs from your browser's Developer Tools Console (F12). Contact your network administrator or ISP support to check if there is an active block or routing failure to Anthropic's IP blocks.