Is Wikipedia Down? Live status & outage reports

Service info and troubleshooting

Page Won't Load at All

If the site just times out or shows a blank screen, start with the basics: clear your browser cache and cookies, then try reloading. If that doesn't help, switch to a different browser or try opening the page in incognito mode. Sometimes the issue is a corrupted DNS cache — flush it with ipconfig /flushdns on Windows or sudo dscacheutil -flushcache on Mac.

Images and Media Not Displaying

Wikipedia articles often contain diagrams, photos, and audio files hosted on Wikimedia Commons. If those aren't loading, the problem is usually one of these:

• Browser extensions blocking third-party content (ad blockers, privacy shields)
• Outdated browser that can't handle modern image formats like WebP
• Slow or unstable connection causing partial page loads
• Corporate or school network firewall blocking media subdomains

Disable extensions one by one to find the culprit, or just test in a clean browser profile.

Search Returns No Results or Errors

If the search bar stops working or returns empty results for obvious queries, it's rarely a problem on your end — but you can try refreshing the page and searching again. If the issue persists across multiple searches, the site's search index may be temporarily out of sync. Wait a few minutes and retry. Also check that JavaScript is enabled, since the search autocomplete relies on it.

Wikipedia App Freezes or Crashes

The mobile app on Android and iOS sometimes freezes when loading article histories or switching languages. Force-close the app and reopen it. If crashes keep happening, clear the app cache in your device settings — not the data, just the cache. Outdated app versions are a frequent cause, so check for updates in the App Store or Google Play.

Slow Page Load and High Latency

Heavily referenced articles with hundreds of footnotes and large infoboxes can feel sluggish even on decent connections. If load times are consistently above 5–6 seconds, test your connection speed first. If your internet is fine, try the mobile version of the site at en.m.wikipedia.org — it's lighter and loads faster on weak connections.