# Descript: Critical incident: Avatar generation is unavailable

**Summary:** Descript’s critical avatar generation outage ran from 2026-09-04 01:31 UTC to 2026-09-04 05:17 UTC, lasting 3 h 46 min. Avatar generations failed due to a third-party outage; Descript reported successful generations after that service returned and marked the issue resolved. _(machine-written, sol)_
- Kind: Major incident · Label: outage (model (Jev))
- Changed: 2026-09-04 01:31 UTC · Detected: 2026-10-17 18:22 UTC
- [Source: https://status.descript.com/incidents/01M1N0NXRJ6AVF18YNRSZ5KG09](https://status.descript.com/incidents/01M1N0NXRJ6AVF18YNRSZ5KG09)
- [Company: Descript](https://rewindex.com/company/descript.md)
- Versions: before (none: first archived) → after incident\_version:13/01M1N0NXRJ6AVF18YNRSZ5KG09@9aaa75aecaeb
- Change 1 of 1 for this incident

## What changed

**1. Added: Title**

```diff
+ Avatar generation is unavailable
```

**2. Added: Impact**

```diff
+ critical
```

**3. Added: Status**

```diff
+ resolved
```

**4. Added: Start time**

```diff
+ 2026-09-04 01:31 UTC
```

**5. Added: Resolved time**

```diff
+ 2026-09-04 05:17 UTC
```

**6. Added: Update** (investigating) · 2026-09-04 01:31 UTC

```diff
+ Avatar generations are currently failing due to a 3rd party outage. We're currently awaiting an update from them.
```

**7. Added: Update** (monitoring) · 2026-09-04 04:46 UTC

```diff
+ Our 3rd party service appears to be back online and avatar generations have been succeeding in the last hour. We're monitoring that recovery holds.
```

**8. Added: Update** (resolved) · 2026-09-04 05:17 UTC

```diff
+ This issue is now resolved.
```

**9. Added: Update** (resolved) · 2026-09-04 05:17 UTC

```diff
+ This issue is now resolved.
```

## History of this incident

| When (UTC) | Change | Label |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 2026-09-04 01:31 UTC | Critical incident: Avatar generation is unavailable (this change) | outage |

All Descript changes: [timeline](https://rewindex.com/company/descript/changes.md)
_Diff excerpts are shown on normalized text: dates, counters and tokens appear as ‹date›, ‹count›, ‹tok›; noise-only edits are hidden. Rewindex shows the changed passages, not a copy of the page._


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Canonical: https://rewindex.com/change/i11572145a892bf · Markdown: https://rewindex.com/change/i11572145a892bf.md · JSON: https://rewindex.com/api/v1/changes/i11572145a892bf · Generated 2026-10-18T02:29:29.251Z