In the past couple days there was recently a major crash with cloud data and it hasn't been usable whatsoever. Some users have complained about this in this forum. I've actually seen at least ten topics regarding the issue, so I decided to make a little explanation.
I don't work for the Scratch Team, but from what I've heard around the forums, Adobe (software publishing company) decided to release a new version of Flash Player (the platform Scratch primarily uses for projects) that no longer supports the plugins used for cloud data. As far as I'm aware, the issue will be fixed as soon as possible.

Sources:
TheLogFather's explanation
Paddle2See's answer

Will update this if there's more information on the issue.

Thank you for making this; we needed it.
[offtopic]I just realized this was the first post on a stickied topic.[/offtopic]

Just as WolfCat67 said, thank you for creating this topic, however I do think the Scratch Team has already responded, kind of officially?

Also, you may want to change the topic name to "Explanation of Why Cloud Data Isn't Working" or all of that in caps if you want.

(EDIT - I'll link people to this if I see more threads asking about it.)

Austinato wrote:

Just as WolfCat67 said, thank you for creating this topic, however I do think the Scratch Team has already responded, kind of officially?

Also, you may want to change the topic name to "Explanation of Why Cloud Data Isn't Working" or all of that in caps if you want.

(EDIT - I'll link people to this if I see more threads asking about it.)

The ST did respond? I got all this info from an non ST member.

jromagnoli wrote:

Austinato wrote:

. . . however I do think the Scratch Team has already responded, kind of officially?

The ST did respond? I got all this info from an non ST member.

Well if I am correct, in response to topics asking about this issue, WolfCat67 did use a quote from Paddle2See, however I'd like to see a source of it.

Austinato wrote:

jromagnoli wrote:

Austinato wrote:

. . . however I do think the Scratch Team has already responded, kind of officially?

The ST did respond? I got all this info from an non ST member.

Well if I am correct, in response to topics asking about this issue, WolfCat67 did use a quote from Paddle2See, however I'd like to see a source of it.

Here's my source: https://scratch.mit.edu/discuss/topic/234150/?page=1#post-2391625

jromagnoli wrote:

Austinato wrote:

jromagnoli wrote:

Austinato wrote:

. . . however I do think the Scratch Team has already responded, kind of officially?

The ST did respond? I got all this info from an non ST member.

Well if I am correct, in response to topics asking about this issue, WolfCat67 did use a quote from Paddle2See, however I'd like to see a source of it.

Here's my source: https://scratch.mit.edu/discuss/topic/234150/?page=1#post-2391625

That works too, as it seems reliable (that post has a reasonable source.)

The4thPixel, you should quote (or link) that post in the OP.

Austinato wrote:

jromagnoli wrote:

Austinato wrote:

jromagnoli wrote:

Austinato wrote:

. . . however I do think the Scratch Team has already responded, kind of officially?

The ST did respond? I got all this info from an non ST member.

Well if I am correct, in response to topics asking about this issue, WolfCat67 did use a quote from Paddle2See, however I'd like to see a source of it.

Here's my source: https://scratch.mit.edu/discuss/topic/234150/?page=1#post-2391625

That works too, as it seems reliable (that post has a reasonable source.)

The4thPixel, you should quote (or link) that post in the OP.

Here's another source, almost the same. It appears the ST is aware and has placed it on high priority as seen on github: https://github.com/LLK/scratch-flash/issues/1261

Oh, you want my source for the Paddle2See quote? Here you go.

WolfCat67 wrote:

Oh, you want my source for the Paddle2See quote? Here you go.

Thanks, OP please notice this.

jromagnoli wrote:

Here's another source, almost the same. It appears the ST is aware and has placed it on high priority as seen on github: https://github.com/LLK/scratch-flash/issues/1261

Alright!

What happened is that the recent update means that Flash no longer supports port 531, which is the one Scratch uses for cloud data.

Sigton

Stickied for visibility.

Shouldn't this now say *wasn't* working…?

(I'm assuming the v453.1 update fixed for everyone else, too, since it did for me…)

TheLogFather wrote:

Shouldn't this now say *wasn't* working…?

(I'm assuming the v453.1 update fixed for everyone else, too, since it did for me…)

Yeah, works for me too.

Sigton

thank you so much
i needed it

I believe it is fixed now, at least for me *grins*

I have added both the sources above to the original post, for those who were requesting them.

AdamTRei wrote:

thank you so much
i needed it

You're welcome, this was mainly created to combat the amount of topics complaining about the issue.

Harakou wrote:

Stickied for visibility.

:OOOOOO
my dreams have finally come true
On a serious note, thank you, I believe it will help to reduce the amount of complaints about it even though I have reports that it's been fixed. (I need to test it myself soon.)

Seems like this worked. The Atomic-Cloud-Data-Complaint-Topic-Launcher isn't firing at us anymore.

The4thPixel wrote:

Seems like this worked. The Atomic-Cloud-Data-Complaint-Topic-Launcher isn't firing at us anymore.

I think that people have stopped making topics since cloud data is working now

Sigton

Here's a screenshot of Paddle2See's explanation, incase his profile ends up getting so many comments that it lags the browser lots to load all of them..

Paddle2See wrote:

My understanding is that Adobe released a new version of Flash that no longer supports the ports that we were using to run cloud data. So we have to find another way to do it.