Google's Gmail and Google Drive went down for thousands of people all around the world on March 12.
The hiccup in Google's services seems to have primarily affected populations in North America, Asia, and Australia according to reports and comments from DownDetector.
With over 4,000 commenters chiming in, some reported things being back to normal while others continued to endure specific issues like Gmail's IMAP not playing friendly with Microsoft's Outlook.
When Gmail Is Down, Talk About It On Twitter
Naturally, affected users turned to social media to vent their frustrations. Others took it as an opportunity to have some fun and take a break from work, especially on Twitter.
In case anyone is wondering Google is having problems. Email and YouTube currently broken for me and many clients. #googleoutage #googledown pic.twitter.com/iKqM09HwDQ — Dylan O'Donnell (@erfmufn) March 13, 2019
That one time when you say "I've been having trouble sending and receiving email" and it's actually true. #gmaildown #gmail — Jayde Lovell (@JaydeLovell) March 13, 2019
It wasn't until later the following morning that Google finally acknowledged a problem.
"We're investigating reports of an issue with Google Drive. We will provide more information shortly. The affected users are able to access Google Drive, but are seeing error messages, high latency, and/or other unexpected behavior," Google said.
Not Just Gmail and Google Drive
It wasn't just Google's services that were affected, however. Any other platforms and apps that connected to a user's Google Drive accounts could not access their data, for example. Of course, users of those services suffered outages, too.
This worldwide outage coincidentally occurred on the same day that Google also released a redesign for Google Drive. An update to the app reveals a new design language being implemented to better align with other Google properties such as Gmail.
Like Facebook's recent update to its main social networking app bucking the current dark mode trend, Google Drive now sports a familiar look with a heavy emphasis on contrasting elements against a sea of white. The only sign of color in the app now comes from a user's saved and in-progress documents and document format types.
Google Drive Redesigned And Down At The Same Time
Unfortunately for Google, instead of impressing their users with a fresh new look in Google Drive, they were met instead with an error message. "Oops, something went wrong," is what would pop if someone tried to attach a Google Drive file into an e-mail inside Gmail.
It wasn't until hours later that Google finally declared its issues resolved.
"The problem with Google Drive should be resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience and continued support. Please rest assured that system reliability is a top priority at Google, and we are making continuous improvements to make our systems better," the company announced.
Though all may seem well again with Google's services, it's unfortunate to have debuted Google Drive's fresh new look with an annoying service disruption.
