Royal Bank of Canada (RY.TO) has restored service on its web brokerage platform after an outage began on Thursday afternoon and prompted investors to vent their frustrations on social media.

RBC said it became aware of the service disruption around 1 p.m. ET on Thursday and that the issue was related to a fibre optic cable and “not related to volumes,” Kathy Bevan, RBC’s senior manager of communications, said in an email.

“Our team worked diligently to address this issue and we can confirm that service has been restored,” Bevan said.

“We regret any inconvenience this has caused our clients and appreciate their patience as we worked through this issue.”

On Thursday, RBC said that as an immediate work around, clients could place orders through RBC’s mobile app or by phoning the bank’s customer service line.

The bank said in a tweet on Thursday afternoon that RBC Direct Investing “is experiencing higher than normal volumes.”

RBC’s outage occurred amid extreme volatility in North American stock markets, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average sank more than 1,000 points into correction territory on Thursday afternoon. 

A number of Twitter users reported problems with RBC Direct Investing. One customer said that the platform “can’t produce quotes,” while another said there was “no way to trade” even after waiting more than an hour on the phone.

In early January, customers experienced similar disruptions and delays with TD’s WebBroker and RBC’s online banking and Direct Investing platforms.