# AO3 down: Archive of Our Own could be offline for up to 4 weeks after failed maintenance Source: Searchable (https://searchable.pk/news/technology/ao3-down-archive-of-our-own-could-be-offline-for-up-to-4-weeks-after-failed) Type: News article Author: Searchable Editorial Published: 30 Oct 2026 Updated: 30 Oct 2026 Retrieved: 30 Oct 2026 > The fan fiction site went dark after routine overnight maintenance. Its status page says about two weeks, possibly four, with a slower read-only return hoped for sooner. **AO3, the Archive of Our Own, is down and could stay offline for up to four weeks**, after what was meant to be routine overnight maintenance went wrong, [TechCrunch reported](https://techcrunch.com/2026/10/29/fan-fiction-site-archive-of-our-own-could-be-offline-for-up-to-4-weeks/) on 29 October. "AO3 down" was among the searches trending in Pakistan on Friday morning. The site's status page says: "We estimate that service restoration for AO3 will take around 2 weeks but it could be up to 4 weeks." The team hopes to bring the site back sooner in a reduced, slower form before full service returns. ## What AO3 is AO3 is one of the largest fan fiction libraries online, where readers and writers share stories set in the worlds of books, films, TV shows, anime and games. It is run by the **Organization for Transformative Works (OTW)**, a non-profit that depends on volunteers and donations rather than adverts. That is part of why repairs take time: there is no large paid engineering team on call. ## Was it a hack? Nothing published so far says so. TechCrunch reported the outage followed failed maintenance, and said it is unlikely to be linked to the two serious flaws in the PHP programming language disclosed in late October, because AO3 is built on Ruby on Rails, not PHP. Some other reports have described it as a security incident; OTW had not commented by the time of TechCrunch's report. We will update this page if OTW says anything about user data. Posts on the status page drew millions of views within two hours, which gives a sense of how many people use the site. ## What to do if you use AO3 1. **Check the official AO3 status page only.** Ignore "mirror" sites or links asking you to log in elsewhere: during an outage, copycat pages often appear to collect passwords. 2. **If you used your AO3 password anywhere else, change it there** as a simple precaution, using a different password for each account. 3. **Keep your drafts offline.** Writers working on long fics should save a local copy of new chapters until the site is back. 4. **Do not pay anyone** who claims to sell access to "backup" archives. For other tech news, see our [technology desk](/news/technology); for a recent example of a much bigger security breach, read our coverage of the [Binance hack](/news/crypto/binance-hacked-withdrawals-paused-after-up-to-dollar57-billion-drained-dollar25). ## Frequently asked questions **When will AO3 be back?** Its status page estimates about 2 weeks, possibly up to 4 weeks, from 29 October 2026, with a slower partial service hoped for sooner. ## Sources - Fan-fiction site Archive of Our Own (AO3) could be offline for up to 4 weeks (29 Oct 2026) (TechCrunch): https://techcrunch.com/2026/10/29/fan-fiction-site-archive-of-our-own-could-be-offline-for-up-to-4-weeks/ - Fan Fiction Website AO3 Is Down, And It Could Take Weeks To Recover (Engadget): https://www.engadget.com/2301753/ao3-fanfiction-website-down-for-weeks/ How to cite: "AO3 down: Archive of Our Own could be offline for up to 4 weeks after failed maintenance", Searchable, 30 Oct 2026, https://searchable.pk/news/technology/ao3-down-archive-of-our-own-could-be-offline-for-up-to-4-weeks-after-failed