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Skype goes down; causes Issue with Downloading and Sign-in

by Jerry · on May 26, 2011 at 12:27 pm

Worlds leading VoIP provider Skype has gone down due to some issue that is on investigation, Reports on the internet, and on Skype’s Twitter feed, have indicated that for many users the Skype network, and the servers used by new users to download Skype to their computers, has gone down.

The number of people that use Skype to communicate with friends, family and co-workers is huge. The VOIP service has been around for a long time and is one of the most popular services of the type out there. In addition to computers, with the growing popularity of mobile web enabled handheld devices, Skype has also become a popular mobile application.

The Skype service began to cut out for users across the globe at around 12:15pm following an outage which the company are now looking into after pulling the active service. The reports vary somewhat from users who reported difficulty connecting to the service or downloading software, to include other users who have reported the Skype application crashing.

Recent PSAN hack should make fear in users of the Skype, Skype has promised to share details of what caused the outage as soon as they have them. At this point, there is no indication that a hack caused the service to go down.

Here is a quick instruction on Fixing the issue if you have on sign-in for Vista, XP, and OS X users below:

Windows

If the Skype icon is displayed in the system tray at the bottom right of the screen, right-click it and select Quit.
Click Start, type “run” and press Enter. (On Windows XP: Click Start and then Run.)
Type “%appdata%\skype” and click OK.
Locate and delete the file shared.xml. The file may be displayed as shared if file extensions are not displayed by default on your computer.
If you cannot find this file:
- Click Start, type “run” and press Enter. (On Windows XP: Click Start and then Run.)
- Type “control folders” and click OK.
- In the View tab, ensure that Show hidden files and folders is enabled.
- Repeat the instructions from the beginning.
Restart Skype.

Mac

Open Finder and locate the following folder:

~/Library/Application Support/Skype

Delete the file shared.xml.
Restart Skype.

The ~ sign means your home folder. You can find your home folder by opening Finder and selecting Go> Home from the menu bar or pressing Command (Apple), Shift and H keys at the same time.