Claude problems on 21 October 2026

Status	Resolved
Worst verdict	Some users report problems
Started	21 Oct 2026, 19:49 UTC
Ended	21 Oct 2026, 20:29 UTC
Duration	40 min
Official incident	Degraded performance for Claude Fable 5
Affected	claude.ai, Claude Code, Claude Cowork, Claude API (api.anthropic.com)

Timeline

21 Oct 2026, 19:49 UTC

We started seeing problems. Our verdict: Some users report problems.
21 Oct 2026, 19:49 UTC · official update

Degraded performance for Claude Fable 5 (investigating): “We are investigating elevated errors on requests to Claude Fable 5. We will provide an update as soon as possible.” Source
21 Oct 2026, 19:51 UTC

Looking normal again. We'll keep watching for 15 minutes before closing this.
21 Oct 2026, 19:53 UTC

Our verdict changed to: Some users report problems.
21 Oct 2026, 20:29 UTC

Looking normal again. We'll keep watching for 15 minutes before closing this.
21 Oct 2026, 20:43 UTC

Everything has looked normal for 15 minutes, so we marked this incident as resolved.

Times are shown in your local time zone. “Official update” entries quote Anthropic's status page; follow the source link for the full text.

How we track incidents

We open an incident when Claude stops looking normal or Anthropic posts an official incident, and close it after 15 minutes with everything back to normal. More about our method.