Multiple Google services, including some parts of Google Drive, Hangouts, and Chat, have gone down and since it is the beginning of the work week, many users are upset.
For nearly an hour some people have been unable to access the services and now that the issue has progressed, the majority of users cannot view or edit their documents, chat with co-workers, or start Hangouts.
An explanation for the downtime has not been provided, therefore the services are returning with generic error messages and apologies.
Google Drive encountered an error. If reloading the page doesn’t help, please report the error.
We’re sorry, a server error occurred. Please wait a bit and try reloading your spreadsheet.
To learn more about Google Drive, please visit our help center. – Google
Is Google Docs drunk today or something? #GoHomeSpreadsheets
— Matthew Harrison (@sutherland360) March 17, 2014
A handful of users are still able to get through to the services that are experiencing issues but based upon the increase in tweets about the downtime, it seems as though the majority of people are currently out of luck.
Considering the popularity and importance of services like Google Docs, any significant amount of issues on a workday is going to result in many angry and annoyed people.
My @google docs are killing me today. Created two specific to a project today, and both will not open.
— Alexander Gould (@angould) March 17, 2014
Google Docs, you're drunk, and it's only 9:40am. #StPatricksDay #googledocs pic.twitter.com/kXuwGlnj7E
— Isaiah Duty (@IsaiahDuty) March 17, 2014
After about 30 minutes of waiting, Google finally updated the status of some of its service on the Apps Dashboard. According to the status updates, Google Talk and Google Hangouts are experiencing some issues, however the majority of complaints are coming in for Docs, for which there are “no issues.”
Depending on which platform you are trying to use in order to access the services, different error messages and authentications issues are popping up. The apologies and alleged errors are also different depending on the application. In Gmail Chat, statements like “user did not receive your chat” are being provided, whereas “Google Drive encountered an error” is returned when trying to access spreadsheets in Docs.
Summary: Numerous Google services are experiencing issues and extended periods of downtime on Monday. Many users are complaining on sites like Twitter. Google has confirmed some of the issues on the Google Apps status dashboard but no explanation has been provided.
Image Credit: tapscape