Gmail suffers outage, creating work woes for many
What's the story
In a major shocker, Google's primary email service Gmail has gone down for a number of users around the world. The outage started a few hours ago and appears pretty widespread in India as well as some other nations. Google has already acknowledged the problem but a fix has not been released yet. Here's all you need to know about it.
Issue
Gmail page not loading for users
According to a series of reports on Downdetector.com and Twitter, Gmail is not working for a large number of users in India as well as for some in the UK, the US, and Germany. The complaints largely revolve around people not being able to open the main Gmail page and getting a "This site can't be reached" error on their browser.
Details
Problems with Play Store, other Google services too
Along with Gmail, reports of issues have also spiked for Google Play Store, Google Cloud, Meet, and Drive. Some users said that the glitch is specific to those using the service on Airtel's internet connection, but that has not been confirmed by Google or Airtel. Also, Gmail remains the worst affected in the entire lot.
Frustration
Evidently, users are not happy
The outage of one of the biggest internet companies, which millions of people rely on, is a very serious issue. Notably, ever since the Gmail issue surfaced, users have flooded Twitter with complaints reporting the glitch and noting that the issue has affected their work. "For the first time in my usage of 15 years, #gmail is down," one affected user tweeted.
Response
Google says it is working on a fix
To all the tweets, including those about other affected services, Google has given a uniform response: "We are aware of the issue and are working on a fix. Appreciate your patience." The company has not even clarified how the problem started, what is its cause, or how long will it take to be resolved, which is really not done.
Twitter Post
Here's what another affected user tweeted
Hi Devendra. Thanks for reporting. We are aware of the issue and are working on a fix. Appreciate your patience.
— Gmail (@gmail) July 1, 2020