Postmortem of E-commerce site

The internet plays a vital role in our daily lives, connecting people to essential services, businesses, and entertainment. For e-commerce platforms, uninterrupted service is critical, as downtime can prevent customers from accessing products, completing transactions, or even trusting the platform in the long run. On May 10, 2023, our e-commerce website experienced a serious outage that lasted for more than .two hours, disrupting a large portion of our user base

This report provides a detailed account of the incident, including the issue summary, its impact on users, the root cause, the resolution process, and the corrective and preventative measures that have .been implemented to reduce the risk of recurrence. Our aim is to remain transparent while demonstrating our commitment to delivering a stable and reliable service

 

:Issue Summary

.Date & Time: May 10, 2023, from 2:30 PM to 5:00 PM (WAT)

.Duration: 2 hours 30 minutes

.Incident: Full website outage – the platform became unresponsive, and users were unable to access any services during this period

 

:Impact

The outage had a significant effect on both our customers and business operations. Roughly 80% of users were directly affected, encountering error messages and frozen pages whenever they attempted .to use the site. Core functionalities such as product browsing, account management, adding items to cart, and completing purchases were unavailable

For customers, this meant missed opportunities to shop and complete transactions, which naturally caused frustration and a drop in customer satisfaction. The issue also led to negative discussions on social media platforms, where users expressed their concerns and dissatisfaction. From a business perspective, the outage not only resulted in lost sales but also temporarily damaged trust in our ability to provide reliable service.

 

:Root Cause

Following a detailed investigation, the problem was traced back to a memory leak in the application code. A memory leak occurs when a program fails to release memory that is no longer needed, eventually consuming all available memory resources. In this case, the leak caused the server to run out of usable memory, which ultimately led to a full system shutdown.

 

:Timeline of Events

2:30 PM – Monitoring systems detected the outage, and the operations team was alerted.

2:35 PM – A server restart was attempted but did not resolve the issue.

2:40 PM – Operations investigated server configurations, suspecting a system-level error.

3:00 PM – Abnormal memory performance was identified, pointing to a potential memory leak.

3:15 PM – Development team was engaged to review the application code.

3:45 PM – The memory leak was confirmed as the root cause.

4:30 PM – The bug was fixed through code optimization, and the server was restarted.

4:40 PM – Website services were fully restored.

 

:Resolution

The development team corrected the memory leak by optimizing code and improving memory management practices. Once these changes were applied, the server was restarted, and normal functionality was restored.

 

:Corrective & Preventative Measures

:To prevent a recurrence, the following steps are being taken

Code Quality & Testing

.Regular code reviews with a focus on memory management

.More rigorous pre-deployment testing to identify memory-related issues

Monitoring & Performance

.Improved monitoring tools to track memory usage in real time

.Early-warning alerts for unusual system behaviour

Training & Documentation

.Additional training for the operations team on diagnosing and handling application-level issues

.Updated incident response documentation to ensure quicker escalation in the future

 

. By implementing these measures, we are committed to ensuring that our platform remains reliable, resilient, and capable of providing a seamless shopping experience for all users