Server blackout

The old secondary world select menu during a blackout.

A server blackout is the unexpected crash of a server, typically resulting in all players being logged out for an extended period of time. Blackouts usually affect most, if not all, game servers and may affect other RuneScape facilities such as the forums and main website.

Server blackout rates have been steadily increasing over the years for an unknown reason, but blackouts are generally caused by a technical failure on the part of Jagex. Players who suffer from blackouts can only wait until the problem is fixed by Jagex. In some cases, a rollback is necessary. A rollback is an operation that returns server databases to their previous state from before the blackout occured. On rare occasions where a rollback is performed, any changes that occurred between the crash and the previous state are lost. This includes gained experience, trade transactions, quest progress, etc. Rollbacks typically revert the servers to the state they were in anywhere from 15 minutes to one hour prior.

This is what happens to players who attempt to login during a blackout.

During an intentional server blackout, worlds on the select screen are listed as OFFLINE, as opposed to displaying the number of players logged in. However, on an unexpected crash, the login server simply assumes that nobody is connected to that server.

In the following subpages, each notable blackout that has occurred during the history of RuneScape is documented, along with the reasons given for the blackout. All times are noted in UTC, unless otherwise stated. (Note that this is one hour behind British Summer Time, or BST, during the summer due to daylight savings.)