‘Destiny’ Servers Down? Error Code Tapir Stifles ‘Rise Of Iron’ Release Date Excitement [UPDATED]

UPDATE: As of 5:48 a.m. (EST), the Destiny servers seem to be coming back online. Several users, including yours truly, have been placed in queue and will theoretically be allowed to experience the glory of Rise of Iron once some of the traffic dies down and/or new servers come online. Just don't expect the line to drop down too quickly. If social media is any indication, there are no shortage of Destiny players trying to check out the new expansion this morning.

UPDATE 2: Unfortunately, it looks like getting into the queue doesn't mean you're out of the woods quite yet. Several players have reported losing their place in the queue and being moved tens of thousands of spots down the line:

UPDATE 3: Players continue to report losing their place in the queue. Bungie confirmed implementation of the queue about 20 minutes ago; however, the studio has yet to offer any comment on (or advice for) those losing their place in line.

UPDATE 4: Proof of life!

Most of us still can't get connected to the Destiny servers, or even hold our place in line for that matter, and we're fairly certain tapirs are going to hate our little corner of the gaming community by the end of the day. But at least we have proof the Iron Gjallarwing, and (by proxy) the Destiny servers, are real. That's one step closer, right?

UPDATE 5: We're about 90 minutes removed from the official launch of the expansion at this point. We're seeing screenshots from the game a bit more frequently, mostly limited to people claiming their pre-order gear, but there are still tons of people losing their spot in the queue. A pretty lengthy reddit thread on the server issues is up now, too. It's mostly just unhappy Destiny players lamenting the spots they've lost in the queue but some of the disconnection stories being shared might make you feel better about your own wait.

UPDATE 6: Bungie has yet to identify the cause of this morning's issues but the studio says it's still working to resolve the matter. Hopefully we'll have a bit more information soon. On the plus side, those losing their place in line are at least finding a smaller queue waiting on the other side of the notification. We just fell from ~30K to 197,365th but it doesn't seem that bad considering we were knocked back to ~313,000th place in line about 45 minutes ago.

UPDATE 7: It looks like the server issues have cleared up for many players. We'll continue to keep an eye on the situation while we play through the expansion. Hopefully, the servers remain stable throughout the day and we'll be able to publish our early Rise of Iron impressions before day's end. Check back throughout the morning for more on Destiny's server problems, should they return, and/or follow Scott on Twitter for further updates as we have them.

ORIGINAL STORY:

After months of waiting, Destiny: Rise Of Iron debuted on Tuesday morning. Well, at least that’s what Bungie tells us anyway. If you’re currently trying to sign-in to the game, you’ve probably noticed the Destiny servers aren’t handling the sudden rise in traffic particularly well. Longtime Destiny fans likely anticipated the issue, and hopefully have some coffee and/or a nice breakfast ready in the interim, but everyone is obviously hoping to get back online as quickly as possible.

Here’s what we know so far:

Destiny users are reporting a variety of error codes, though “tapir” and "weasel" seem to be the most common, and no one seems to be able to get online. We’re seeing plenty of “Rise of Iron is here!!!” tweets but zero screenshots from the game itself. The only media to emerge thus far are screen captures of the various error codes being shown to the community. Bungie has yet to acknowledge the issue on any of its social media accounts, including @Bungie, @BungieHelp or @DestinyTheGame, but we have little doubt the studio is aware of the issue and doing what it can to rectify the problem.

Bungie has acknowledged the problem on Twitter and says it's working towards a solution.

Unfortunately, there don't appear to be any workarounds at this time. It's just a good old-fashioned server outage. Some users are even getting an error message that says as much. Rather than providing the "standard" error text, which usually includes an animal-themed error code, they're receiving messages that simply state the Destiny servers are down at this time:

Twitter isn't the only place bored Destiny users are congregating, either. As you'd expect, the game's forums are being bombarded by new posts, mostly from those who can't connect to the game's servers; however, we've yet to see an official response from anyone at Bungie in the threads we've reviewed. That said, if you were worried only some folks were having issues with error code "tapir", a quick perusal of Destiny's Help forums should alleviate those concerns pretty quickly.

We’ll be keeping an eye on the situation throughout the morning, compiling responses and workarounds from Bungie and the community, and will update this page as more information is available.

Be sure to check back with iDigitalTimes.com and follow Scott on Twitter for more Destiny: Rise Of Iron coverage throughout 2016 and for however long Bungie supports Destiny after launch.