Xbox Live experiences its second outage this week. The service struggles to keep up with the increased server load caused by millions of gamers stuck at home, thanks to the coronavirus outbreak. As the country races to outpace the rate of infection by practicing "social distancing," meaning self-isolation to prevent the spread of germs, millions are locked in their homes hoping to avoid the virus. Several states have even resorted to closing schools, bars, restaurants, and all other non-essential services. As a result, there are a ton of people at home with nothing to do but play video games.

Xbox Live connects Microsoft's Xbox to the internet and allows players to play online-only games, sometimes even for free. The Live servers also handle everything from using the store to playing games, not to mention allowing users to chat with each other. Xbox Live outages are not uncommon; in fact, one occurred just earlier this week and took a few hours to fix. However, it's looking like extra gamers online might mean more frustrating outages.

Related: Why Xbox Live Went Down Today (& When It Will Be Back Up)

For the second time in a week, Xbox Live is down. It began earlier in the afternoon with Xbox Support tweeting an acknowledgment of the "delays" some users were experiencing redeeming gameplay rewards in DOOM Eternal. A few hours later, the account reported that users were "experiencing issues with matchmaking, Party Chat, and Looking For Groups." They promised their engineers were on the case, and they would post back with updates.  As of this writing, they have not yet published a follow-up tweet.

The coronavirus outbreak has not yet reached its peak, which means unless Xbox can get a handle on its servers, gamers will continue to suffer through random outages. The strain isn't just on Xbox. Steam recently reported a record-breaking number of users online at one time. The Nintendo eShop also experienced outages earlier this week, sending players errors when they tried to access the store or any of its features. In Europe, which is also self-isolating millions of citizens to slow the spread of coronavirus, Netflix, YouTube, and Amazon Prime had to throttle streaming services down to standard definition because high definition streaming quality was putting a strain on the internet.

There couldn't be a worse time for Xbox Live to struggle, as millions of people are forced to stay inside with limited entertainment options. As the weeks go on, and more states move to shelter-in-place their citizens, the internet connectivity issues could continue to deteriorate. Hopefully, experts are working on lightening the incredible strain the networks are under during these unprecedented circumstances, and gamers can play until this all blows over.

More: Everything We Know About The Xbox Series X

Source: Xbox Support via Twitter