X (formerly Twitter) is experiencing significant disruptions across India, with users encountering Cloudflare's dreaded "Connection timed out Error code 522" when attempting to access both the website and mobile app. The outage comes just days after a massive global disruption that affected tens of thousands of users worldwide.
According to monitoring data from Downdetector, report numbers spiked dramatically, with over 45,000 users flagging issues as of 8:38 PM on January 16, 2026—a staggering increase from the baseline of just 18 reports.
The error 522 specifically indicates that Cloudflare, the content delivery network that helps power X's infrastructure, couldn't establish a connection with the platform's origin server.
This isn't X's first rodeo with downtime. The platform experienced a major global outage on January 13, 2026, with more than 24,000 users reporting problems, particularly concentrated in India and the United States. Major Indian metropolitan areas, including Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Chennai, showed concentrated clusters of reported problems, suggesting infrastructure issues rather than isolated regional problems.
The timing raises concerns about X's technical stability since Elon Musk's acquisition. The platform has experienced similar issues in recent months linked to Cloudflare, including outages on November 18, 2025, and December 5, 2025. The repeated dependency on third-party infrastructure services appears to be creating cascading failure points that leave millions unable to access their feeds, post updates, or send direct messages.
What You Can Do Right Now
If you're stuck staring at Error 522, here are your options:
Check your connection first: Clear your DNS cache by typing "ipconfig /flushdns" in Command Prompt (Windows) or flushing DNS on Mac/mobile devices. Sometimes the issue is on your end, not theirs.
Wait it out: During the January 13 outage, the platform recovered after several hours, with services gradually returning to normal by afternoon. X doesn't maintain a public status page, making it frustratingly difficult to get official updates.
Monitor third-party trackers: Services like Downdetector, IsDown, and IsItDownRightNow provide real-time crowdsourced data about outages. These tools help distinguish between localized network problems and genuine platform-wide failures.
Try alternative DNS servers: If your ISP's DNS is causing issues, switch to Google Public DNS (8.8.8.8) or OpenDNS for potentially faster resolution.
Update: As of publication, some users report intermittent access returning, though widespread issues persist across multiple Indian regions.