How to Read a Status Page: What Each Label Means
A status page labels each part of a service as operational, degraded performance, partial outage, major outage or under maintenance. “Operational” means that part works as expected. “Degraded performance” means it works but slowly. “Partial outage” means it fails for some users. “Major outage” means it is unavailable. The labels below follow Atlassian’s Statuspage documentation, which many companies use.
What do the component status labels mean?
Each service is split into components, such as “Login”, “API” or “Mobile app”, and each component gets one label. Atlassian’s Statuspage documentation (Show service status with components) defines five:
| Label | Meaning | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|
| Operational | The component is functioning as expected and in a timely manner | The fault is probably not here. Check your own connection |
| Degraded performance | The component works but is slow or affected in a minor way | Expect slow loading, delays or occasional errors |
| Partial outage | The component is broken for some users and works for others | You may be affected while someone else is not |
| Major outage | The component is completely unavailable | Waiting is the main option |
| Under maintenance | The component is currently being worked on | Planned work, often announced in advance |
Other providers use their own words, such as “Service disruption” or “Available”. The idea is the same: a scale from working to unavailable, plus a label for planned work.
What do Investigating, Identified, Monitoring and Resolved mean?
These four words describe where an incident stands, and an update to an incident moves it from one to the next. Atlassian’s Statuspage documentation (Create an incident) defines them this way:
- Investigating: symptoms of a problem are visible, but the cause is not known yet.
- Identified: the cause has been found and a fix is in progress.
- Monitoring: a fix is believed to be in place, and the team is watching to confirm that symptoms are fading.
- Resolved: the cause has been eliminated and systems are back to full performance.
“Monitoring” does not mean the service is fully back for you. Caches and retries can keep some people seeing errors for a while after a fix goes in. If you still see errors after “Resolved”, follow the steps in is it down or just me to check your side.
How do I read an incident update?
Read from the bottom to the top. Status pages list updates with the newest first, but the oldest entry at the bottom shows when the company first acknowledged the problem. Then read the newest entry for four things:
- Which components are affected. An incident on “Video calls” may leave “Chat” untouched.
- What the symptoms are. “Elevated error rates” and “increased latency” describe different problems: the first means failures, the second slowness.
- Whether a cause or fix is named. Words like “identified” or “mitigation” show progress.
- The time stamp and time zone. Check which zone the page uses before you compare times with your own.
A company’s estimate of when service returns is a guess, not a promise. If an update says nothing about timing, none was available at that moment.
Why does the page say Operational when my app is broken?
A status page shows what the company has reported, and it may describe the whole service while your problem sits in one part. Three common reasons for a mismatch:
- The incident is partial and does not touch your account, region or device.
- The component you use is not listed, or it is rolled into a broader one.
- The fault is on your side: your network, browser or app version.
Atlassian also notes that a component’s status does not always reset by itself when an incident closes. Someone on the company’s team may have to change it back, so a label can lag behind reality in either direction. Compare the page with a live Discord status style page for the service you use, and with a test on another network.
How can I get alerts instead of refreshing?
Most Statuspage-based pages have a Subscribe button that offers email, text message or webhook notifications. Subscribing to the components you use means you hear about “Resolved” without reloading the page. Only subscribe through the official status page itself, and be wary of messages that claim to come from the company and ask you to log in to see status. For what to do while you wait, see what to do during an outage.
Bottom line
Read the component label first, then the incident stage, then the newest update. “Operational” on a status page does not rule out a problem for you, and “Resolved” does not mean every user recovered at the same moment. Pair the official page with a test on a second network to be sure.
FAQ
What is the difference between degraded performance and a partial outage?
Degraded performance means the component works but slowly or with minor problems. A partial outage means it is broken for some users while others can still use it.
Does “under maintenance” mean the service is down?
Not always. It means the component is being worked on, and some maintenance causes no visible downtime. Check the announcement for the expected impact and the time window.
Who writes status page updates?
The company’s own team posts them, often engineers or support staff. That is why the page can trail user reports by a few minutes.
Why do some services have several status pages?
Large companies may publish a separate page for each product, for example one for consumers and one for developers. Check the page that matches the product you use.