YouTube and many of Google’s other online services have broken, amid a major outage.
Everything from Gmail to Google Calendar appeared to have broken, as well as the video site.
Users instead saw error messages that informed them that the services had broken, though not why.
Follow live for the latest on this widespread and significant outage.
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Show latest update 1607950935
Google’s status page turns green again
According to Google’s own tracking page, the problem is fixed “for the vast majority of affected users”. Here’s the full statement, which again mentions Gmail but also shows for all the other services:
“The problem with Gmail should be resolved for the vast majority of affected users. We will continue to work towards restoring service for the remaining affected users, but no further updates will be provided on the Google Workspace Status Dashboard. Please rest assured that system reliability is a top priority at Google, and we are making continuous improvements to make our systems better.”
Andrew Griffin14 December 2020 13:021607949942
Issues persist even when users can get online
Some people (including our own Anthony Cuthbertson) are back into Gmail but not entirely – he can’t, for instance, access his contacts. Instead he sees a warning that the service “is temporarily unable to access your contacts” and warns that “you may experience problems while this persists”.
Andrew Griffin14 December 2020 12:451607949847
August outage took Google services down for hours
As things start to return, it’s worth remembering that things could be worse – it could be August. Back in summer, they went down for as long as six hours. It even has its own Wikipedia article.
What’s perhaps strangest of all is the fact Google never said why that happened, and hasn’t explained these problems, either.
Andrew Griffin14 December 2020 12:441607949564
Services gradually coming back to life
Reports of problems seem to dropping and the services appear to be coming back to life. (Anecdotally, I can get back on.)
Andrew Griffin14 December 2020 12:391607949143
Outage still ongoing
It’s been nearly 45 minutes since the issues first arose, and they still seem as prevalent and significant as before.
Andrew Griffin14 December 2020 12:321607948717
Google finally comments on outage
The update to the status page means that Google has finally addressed the issue, though it doesn’t give much information on it. This is what it says – it’s the same for whichever service you look at, though this is Gmail’s.
“We’re aware of a problem with Gmail affecting a majority of users. The affected users are unable to access Gmail. We will provide an update by 12/14/20, 12:12 PM detailing when we expect to resolve the problem. Please note that this resolution time is an estimate and may change.”
Andrew Griffin14 December 2020 12:251607948589
Google’s status page finally turns red
The “Google Workspace Status Dashboard”, which tracks outages at the company, has been stubbornly green all throughout the problems. It’s now turned red all over.
Andrew Griffin14 December 2020 12:231607948385
YouTube working in incognito
It appears that YouTube is working if you try to go on the site in incognito mode, and that the issue is to do with being logged in. So you might still be able to watch videos that way.
(Obviously that solution is impossible for Google’s other services, which by their very nature require you to be logged in.)
Andrew Griffin14 December 2020 12:191607947940
Hello and welcome
… to The Independent’s live coverage of an outage that has taken down Gmail and YouTube.
Andrew Griffin14 December 2020 12:12
