Status thread for RetroAchievements API outage

As of 11/30, tracking is now fully working again - there are no more restrictions and new users can add their accounts to the site.

For the latest updates, please visit the RetroAchievements Discord channel.

As we have been receiving a lot of messages asking why RetroAchievements profiles are not updating on the site, I decided to create an announcement thread to hopefully better inform everyone of the current situation and direct users to the proper channels for updates.

Starting around June, the RetroAchievements API was disabled as it was impacting reliability of the RA site itself. At the time, they left a few API endpoints operational so we could continue updating profiles for existing users. They planned to fully re-enable the API once certain planned upgrades were made to improve the site performance.

On August 1 however, RA experienced a surge in traffic and the site itself went down. They have since restored the site and moved it to an upgraded server to handle the increased load. This time the decision was made to completely disable the API - which is why your profile on Exophase hasn't updated since then, despite them restoring the site.

We do not have an ETA on when the API will return, and until it does, profile updates for RA will remain down. All other tracked services are not affected. The current roadmap per a developer from the RA Discord is highlighted below.

All in all, I would recommend being patient as RA is entirely a community-run effort and the developers are volunteering their time to keep the site up. The latest updates can be found on their Discord channel, though I'll try to keep this thread updated if any new news emerges.

 

[x3sphere]

As of 8/24, the RA team has re-enabled certain parts of the API which means profile scans are partially working again. If you earn new achievements going forward they should be picked up by the site, but anything earned during the downtime (which was from August 1-23 I believe) won't be picked up and will have to wait for full restoration of the API.

Still unable to retrieve a user's full game list and profile information, so new users still cannot be added to the site and profile verification is down, but incremental updates will work for existing users. Here is the update from their Discord:

 

[x3sphere]

We just got word the API was fully disabled again - this means tracking is down for now. I'll update when it returns.

 

[Cheeze]

But the RA stats are still off tho

 

[Retodon8]

But the RA stats are still off tho

You mean "off" as in not working, or "off" as in not quite correct? I see recent stuff on the RA website, newly added achievements are also being unlocked, I see you just unlocked some achievements yourself just today, so you must mean the latter. Either way you should take it up with RA itself if you think something's not working right.

 

[itsluanrox]

when

 

[Cheeze]

You mean "off" as in not working, or "off" as in not quite correct? I see recent stuff on the RA website, newly added achievements are also being unlocked, I see you just unlocked some achievements yourself just today, so you must mean the latter. Either way you should take it up with RA itself if you think something's not working right.

I meant it as in not working because it doesn't update my stats on exophase.

 

[Retodon8]

I meant it as in not working because it doesn't update my stats on exophase.

Ah, so you replied to a post saying it's not working yet by saying that it's not working yet. It is known.

I just checked the RA Discord, and there's a message from just a couple of days ago saying it's still offline, so no new updates from over there yet.

 

[Drakub]

Looking forward to getting this back. Keep up the great work, guys!

 

[cybertroid]

Looking forward to getting this back. Keep up the great work, guys!

Same here!

 

[REDFOX02051978]

Anyone know the latest on getting retro API back up?, thanks in advance.

 

[cybertroid]

I'm wondering that too. Here's hoping.

 

[Retodon8]

RE mentioned less than an hour ago "Maintenance of the servers is done. Our services should be much more reliable now. [...] As soon as the new servers have settled in we'll re-evaluate enabling the Web API again. Bear with us just a little longer." I also see that they have plans to make a "https://status.retroachievements.org/" sometime, so we can more easily see what is or isn't currently working.

 

[REDFOX02051978]

RE mentioned less than an hour ago "Maintenance of the servers is done. Our services should be much more reliable now. [...] As soon as the new servers have settled in we'll re-evaluate enabling the Web API again. Bear with us just a little longer." I also see that they have plans to make a "https://status.retroachievements.org/" sometime, so we can more easily see what is or isn't currently working.

Thankyou my friend.

 

[hello8963]

This is great to hear!

 

[REDFOX02051978]

I'm just presuming if any achievement is earned on retroachivements, once exophase is back online with retro they will sync to our account.

 

[cybertroid]

I'm certainly hoping for that too.

 

[x3sphere]

I'm just presuming if any achievement is earned on retroachivements, once exophase is back online with retro they will sync to our account.

Assuming the API remains the same as before then yes, everything will sync up automatically when the API is brought back online. If they do make changes - we might have to make some minor adjustments before tracking resumes, but that is not my expectation.

 

[drmunkee]

Looks like it is coming online now! As far as I can tell, all of my achievements are showing in my profile complete with time stamps!

 

[x3sphere]

Yep, looks like the API is partially back online again A few things are still not operational - can't connect new RA accounts to the site yet - but tracking is working for all existing users again. Nice to see!