By James Simons-
Google applications including YouTube, gmail and Docs suffered a major and rare service outage, with users unable to access many of the company’s services.
The outage which started shortly before noon UK time caused disruptions lasting more than half an hour before services were restored.
Users around the world reported problems with Gmail, Google Drive, the Android Play Store, Maps and more.
Users were still able to access the websites’ landing pages in “incognito mode”, which does not store a log of the users’ browsing activity
Google’s search engine, however, remained unaffected by the problems affecting its other services.
The brief outage had a significant impact on the company’s millions of users, many of whom rely on Google services for basic work apps such as email and calendars.
The outages had no effect on the company’s automated systems reported no problems for any services for the first 30 minutes of the outage, across both consumer-facing and its cloud tools for developers.
At 12.25pm, the company published an update, saying “We’re aware of a problem … affecting a majority of users. The affected users are unable to access [Google services].”
The outage is believed to have been related to the company’s authentication tools, which manage how users log in to services run by both Google and third-party developers.
Users of Google Docs were unable to use any online features during the outage.
The outage also affected Google-connected smart devices such as Home speakers – leading some users to complain on social media of being unable to switch off some lights in their homes.
The outage also had a knock-on effect on other apps, with players of the smartphone game Pokémon Go, for example, reporting being unable to log in.
Despite the widespread outage, Google’s service dashboard initially showed no errors – before switching to red status across all services.
“We’re aware of a problem with Gmail affecting a majority of users. The affected users are unable to access Gmail,” the statement said, with the word “Gmail” replaced by other services. The Google crisis may have been brief – it took services offline for less than an hour – but it was an unnerving reminder of just how dependent millions of people have become on services in the cloud.
Those who tried to respond to an urgent Gmail message will have felt a sense of dread when the message came back: “Please try reloading this page, or coming back to it in a few minutes. We’re sorry for the inconvenience.”
The pandemic has shown us just how valuable services like the Google Cloud Platform can be to keep a workforce collaborating productively from home.