BREAKING: SendGrid AWS us-west-2 DNS Issue — Workarounds Inside

SendGrid experiencing AWS us-west-2 DNS Health Checks failure affecting email delivery. Immediate workarounds and alternatives for indie hackers.

🚨 BREAKING: SendGrid Experiencing AWS us-west-2 DNS Health Checks Issue

Status: Monitoring | Severity: High | Last Updated: Now

What's Down & Who's Affected

SendGrid is currently experiencing DNS health check failures in the AWS us-west-2 region. This impacts:

Email delivery via SendGrid API endpoints in affected regions

Transactional emails (password resets, confirmations, notifications)

Users routing through us-west-2 infrastructure or using SendGrid's default endpoint routing

Not all regions equally affected — us-east-1 and other regions appear stable

Affected users: Primarily those with default SendGrid configurations or US West-based infrastructure.

Immediate Workarounds (Do This NOW)

1. Force Region Override

If you're using SendGrid's API, explicitly route to a healthy region:

```javascript // Node.js example const sgMail = require('@sendgrid/mail'); sgMail.setApiKey(process.env.SENDGRID_API_KEY);

// Force us-east-1 endpoint sgMail.setHost('https://api.sendgrid.com'); // Default, but verify routing ```

2. Implement Queue & Retry Logic

Don't let emails fail silently:

```javascript const queue = []; const maxRetries = 5; const retryDelay = 30000; // 30 seconds

async function sendWithRetry(email, attempt = 0) { try { return await sgMail.send(email); } catch (error) { if (attempt < maxRetries) { setTimeout(() => sendWithRetry(email, attempt + 1), retryDelay); } else { console.error('Email failed after retries:', email); // Alert you via Slack/Discord } } } ```

3. Use Sendgrid's Status Dashboard

Monitor real-time status: status.sendgrid.com — don't rely on assumptions.

4. Fallback Email Provider

Temporarily route to backup provider:

```javascript async function sendEmail(to, subject, html) { try { return await sendViaSendGrid(to, subject, html); } catch (error) { if (error.code === 'ECONNREFUSED' || error.status >= 500) { return await sendViaResend(to, subject, html); // Fallback } throw error; } } ```

How to Check If Your Project Is Affected

1. Test API endpoint: curl -X GET https://api.sendgrid.com/v3/mail/send -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_KEY" 2. Check response times in your logs — sudden 500ms+ delays = region issue 3. Monitor error rates in your dashboard — spike in failures starting ~[incident time] 4. Check SendGrid status page for official confirmation

Alternative Email Services (Quick Swap)

| Service | Setup Time | Notes | |---------|-----------|-------| | Resend | 5 min | Modern, great for developers, free tier | | Postmark | 10 min | Reliable, excellent docs | | AWS SES | 15 min | Cheap, but steeper learning curve | | Brevo | 10 min | SMTP alternative, generous free tier |

Monitor Recovery

Stay updated:

Watch status.sendgrid.com — refresh every 5 minutes

Check SendGrid's Twitter/X (@SendGrid) for official updates

Set up monitoring alert in your preferred service (Uptime Robot, PagerDuty)

Test your fallback email flow now, not during an outage

Bottom Line

This is contained. SendGrid is investigating. Your action items: 1. ✅ Verify your project is actually affected (don't assume) 2. ✅ Implement retry logic if you haven't 3. ✅ Consider a fallback provider 4. ✅ Monitor recovery on status page

Don't panic. Have a backup plan. Keep building.

Questions? Reply in our Discord community — others are troubleshooting too.