pokemon go status screenshotAs many players of Pokémon Go can attest, the augmented-reality mobile game’s astounding popularity has caused numerous server issues. The servers have been known not only to slow to a crawl but also to boot users offline, requiring them to log back in.

Well, someone’s finally doing something about it — or at least shedding some light on the issue.

Normally, New York-based Datadog concerns itself with monitoring the state of non-Dratini-related applications, servers, networks and databases. But today it unveiled a new website that lets Pokémon Go players check whether their favorite game is having problems or it’s just their phone acting up.

According to Datadog, the site will determine whether:

  • Niantic’s servers have been double slapped, resulting in down time.
  • Their latency is abnormally high (probably due to Sleep Powder effect).
  • Logins are working properly (whether you are in the U.S. or in Europe), or are they taking way too long?
  • You can place a Lure Module right now without risking servers going down before the end of the 30 minutes (according to recent availability).

For those interested in the technical details, here’s how the site works, according to Datadog: Server availability is based on HTTP checks against a Niantic data endpoint. These also calculate latency. Then, in order to measure login availability, both with Google and Pokémon Trainer Club accounts, the site logs into Pokémon Go every 30 seconds, using this handmade API behind the scenes. Datadog has servers in Europe and in the U.S., so it monitors both regions.

pokemon server status ssUpdate: A free smartphone app from Chicago-based startup Hooks indicates whether the Pokémon Go server is up or down. It’s available for iOS and Android.

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