Google outage reported by tens of thousands of users

SAN FRANCISCO, United States - Tens of thousands of users reported being unable to access various Google services on Monday night, according to outage monitor Downdetector.

"User reports indicate Google Maps is having problems since 9:36 PM EDT (0136 GMT)," Downdetector tweeted.

More than 40,000 users, including in New York City and Denver, Colorado, reported disruptions when trying to use Google's services, particularly the maps and search engine.

After around two hours, reports of the outage began tapering, but a small number of users continued to report trouble accessing Google's cloud and calendar functions, according to Downdetector.

"We're aware of a software update issue that occurred late this afternoon Pacific Time and briefly affected availability of Google Search and Maps, and we apologize for the inconvenience," a Google spokesperson said. 

"We worked to quickly address the issue and our services are now back online."

On Twitter, some users posted screenshots of the 500 error message they received while trying to use Google, which said the server had "encountered an error and could not complete your request." 

Agence France-Presse

Google services down for users around the world

SAN FRANCISCO, United States - Popular Google services including Gmail and Drive were down for many users around the world on Thursday, with the US technology giant telling affected people they were "aware of a service disruption."

Frustrated customers in countries including Australia, Japan, France and the United States complained online of the outage and tracking website DownDetector reported Google services were down in every continent. 

"Anyone else having issues with @gmail in Australia?" one person tweeted.

Another Twitter user, in Brooklyn, New York, wrote: "Nearly 16 years in and this is the first time I can remember Gmail being completely down." 

Google's @Gmail Twitter feed replied to the posts with: "Thanks for reporting. We are aware of a service disruption at the moment."

The message contained a link to a Gmail service details page that told users "we are continuing to investigate this issue," and to check back later.

As well as English, the Gmail Twitter feed replied to people in French, Japanese, Portuguese and German.

Responding to an AFP inquiry, Google said to refer to the G Suite Dashboard for status updates.

Agence France-Presse