Student News Media of Southeastern Louisiana University

The Lion's Roar
Student News Media of Southeastern Louisiana University

The Lion's Roar
Student News Media of Southeastern Louisiana University

The Lion's Roar
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Canvas back online after Monday outage

Tyra Johnson, Staff Reporter • October 21, 2025
Kennith Woods
Canvas briefly shutdown on Monday, Oct. 20, preventing students from checking grades or completing assignments.
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Canvas, the university’s learning management system, is back online after going down Monday due to an Amazon Web Services (AWS) outage.

The outage also affected major platforms like Facebook, Snapchat, and Fortnite, along with banks, Coinbase, and airlines including Delta and United.

AWS is a cloud provider that allows companies to cut costs by outsourcing their internet infrastructure. The shutdown began at 3:05 a.m. Monday, leaving the university without access to its primary learning platform along with dozens of other major services throughout the day before services were restored around 6:15 p.m.

An update on the AWS Health Dashboard said Amazon has located the sources for the connectivity issues and were working on restoring operations. 

CNN reported that although the root cause is unknown, the Domain Name System infrastructure, which is the type of code that applications and websites rely on, was not able to communicate with thousands of company’s databases facilitated by Amazon. 

Throughout the day, the issue interrupted access to resources, preventing students from completing assignments, checking grades and studying for midterms. It is an important week for Southeastern students to check grades because next Friday, Oct. 31 is the course drop deadline. The outage was especially disconcerting for students with 100% online courses. 

Southeastern offers over 500 fully online courses and several 100% online degree programs, which rely on Canvas for lectures, assignments and communication. These students had to put school on pause while waiting for Canvas to recover. 

At first, sophomore Travis Allen said he was stressed because he couldn’t access study guides or see his assignment deadlines, but after some time, emails were sent and due dates were extended. 

“I can’t lie, it was kind of a relief. It turned into the best mental health day the school ever gave me,” Allen said.

After 15 hours of Canvas being down, the platform is gradually being restored. Some services are slow due to high traffic, but Canvas is back for use.

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About the Contributors
Tyra Johnson
Tyra Johnson, Staff Reporter
Tyra Johnson is a sophomore pursuing a marketing major and computer science minor. She began working as a staff reporter over the Summer of 2025 and plans to graduate in Spring of 2028. Following graduation, she plans to take her passion to the fashion world and work on the marketing team for a high-end brand. Other than fashion, she enjoys reading, writing and exercising, including outdoor walks and Pilates. She is excited to continue to be a part of an amazing team!
Kennith Woods
Kennith Woods, Editor-in-Chief
Kennith Woods is a junior communication major with a concentration in television and multimedia journalism and a creative writing minor. A resident of Prairieville, Kennith is The Lion’s Roar’s editor-in-chief. He wants to use journalism to facilitate vital information to the public and simultaneously serve as a mouthpiece for the people’s needs and concerns. More than anything, he’s proud and humbled to lead such a talented group of individuals; he’s thankful for all The Lion’s Roar has given him. To Kennith, Student Publications is the best place on campus.
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