# AssemblyAI: Major incident: Timeout on transcriptions using speaker labels

**Summary:** AssemblyAI reported a major US Asynchronous API outage starting 2026-06-25 15:37 UTC (reported impact began 15:00 UTC), resolved at 2026-06-25 16:48 UTC; computed duration: 1 h 10 min. Speaker diarization failures caused timeouts for speaker-labeled files under 2 minutes, with backlog delays and timeouts affecting other requests; a fix was released and processing recovered. _(machine-written, sol)_
- Kind: Major incident · Label: outage (model (Jev))
- Changed: 2026-06-25 15:37 UTC · Detected: 2026-10-17 18:22 UTC
- [Source: https://stspg.io/tfnsv26ktlfl](https://stspg.io/tfnsv26ktlfl)
- [Company: AssemblyAI](https://rewindex.com/company/assemblyai.md)
- Versions: before (none: first archived) → after incident\_version:2/rr0rpzfpp5vx@845620dc6bc7
- Change 1 of 1 for this incident

## What changed

**1. Added: Title**

```diff
+ Timeout on transcriptions using speaker labels
```

**2. Added: Impact**

```diff
+ major
```

**3. Added: Status**

```diff
+ postmortem
```

**4. Added: Start time**

```diff
+ 2026-06-25 15:37 UTC
```

**5. Added: Resolved time**

```diff
+ 2026-06-25 16:48 UTC
```

**6. Added: Affected components**

```diff
+ APIs - Asynchronous API, Asynchronous API
```

**7. Added: Update** (investigating) · 2026-06-25 15:37 UTC

```diff
+ We are currently investigating an issue with async transcriptions on the US endpoint that use speaker labels. This is resulting in timeouts for all transcriptions with speaker labels enabled for files under 2 minutes long. This began at 15:00 UTC.
```

**8. Added: Update** (identified) · 2026-06-25 15:38 UTC

```diff
+ The issue has been identified and a fix has been released.
```

**9. Added: Update** (monitoring) · 2026-06-25 16:00 UTC

```diff
+ A fix has been implemented and our API is slowly beginning to recover normal processing.
```

**10. Added: Update** (monitoring) · 2026-06-25 16:14 UTC

```diff
+ The root cause has been addressed and our system is slowly working through the transcript backlog, which is causing slower processing on our US async endpoint.
```

**11. Added: Update** (monitoring) · 2026-06-25 16:27 UTC

```diff
+ Our API is continuing to recover and incoming transcriptions are returning to normal processing. We are continuing to monitor the situation.
```

**12. Added: Update** (resolved) · 2026-06-25 16:48 UTC

```diff
+ This incident has been resolved.
```

**13. Added: Update** (postmortem) · 2026-06-25 18:02 UTC

```diff
+ **What happened**   An issue related to our speaker diarization service caused certain requests to hang until they timed out. This lead to a backlog of requests to our async API creating a processing queue across our US transcription pipeline, which slowed and timed out transcription requests more broadly, including requests that were not using speaker diarization. --- **When**   Impact ran from approximately 15:00 to 16:25 UTC on June 25, 2026 \(about 1 hour 25 minutes\). The most severe disruption was in the first 45 minutes \(15:00–15:45 UTC\); remaining delays and timeouts cleared shortly after. Full recovery was confirmed by ≈16:40 UTC. --- **What services were affected**   On our US async API endpoint transcription requests during this window saw processing delays and timeouts.   Our EU async API endpoint was not affected and operated normally throughout.
```

## History of this incident

| When (UTC) | Change | Label |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 2026-06-25 15:37 UTC | Major incident: Timeout on transcriptions using speaker labels (this change) | outage |

All AssemblyAI changes: [timeline](https://rewindex.com/company/assemblyai/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/i247fa6aed89166 · Markdown: https://rewindex.com/change/i247fa6aed89166.md · JSON: https://rewindex.com/api/v1/changes/i247fa6aed89166 · Generated 2026-10-18T01:29:43.216Z