Amazon's cloud-computing service has experienced an outage in the eastern US region, causing widespread problems for thousands of websites and apps.
The technology company's simple storage service, known as Amazon S3, experienced "high error rates" on Tuesday that rippled throughout its various cloud services, Amazon said in an online posting.
It said on Tuesday afternoon that several features had fully recovered and it was working to return to normal operations.
The disruption had an immediate impact, underscoring the increasing dependency of companies on the cloud for cheap and secure data storage.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world's biggest cloud business.
An AWS spokeswoman did not immediately comment on the suspected cause of the problem.
Apple Inc on its website reported issues with its app store, music-streaming service and other products.
The iPhone maker did not immediately comment on the cause but it previously has said it uses Amazon S3 for some storage.
Nilay Patel, editor-in-chief of tech website The Verge, said on Twitter an article "published without an image because our image system runs on AWS".
Messaging start-up Slack Technologies Inc said users might have had difficulty uploading files, among other issues, due to its hosting service, according to posts on Twitter.
Amazon Music and Amazon Prime Video were unavailable for some users on some devices, including Alexa and internet-connected TVs.
A number of users from western Europe, including Germany and the UK, reported issues with both services, as well as connectivity issues with their Fire TV devices.
The Associated Press's photos, web feeds and other online services were also affected.
Disruptions have been rare because Amazon has many redundant systems in place, said Gene Munster, head of research for Loup Ventures.
"It's a temporary black eye from a customer standpoint," he said, noting Amazon's customers would not go through the hassle of switching to a competing cloud service because of a one-time event.
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