Google Hangouts goes down - Google Drive, G-Chat and Spreadsheets follow

Google Hangouts, G-Chat, Drive and Spreadsheets all mysteriously went down on Monday afternoon. Google stated that it is aware of the problem and was working on it.

Initially, users who had Google Hangouts, G-Chat and other services open, received messages which read, "[User] did not receive your chat," after sending messages to fellow Google users. On the Google+ page, Hangouts simply said, "Things are taking longer than expected," and Google's brightly colored animation ball continued to spin indefinitely. On the G-Chat and Google Hangouts apps, login errors were also reported, as suers were unable to access their accounts.

In response to inquiries from Tech Crunch, Google responded with the following email:

Hi there,

We're investigating reports of an issue with Google+ Hangouts. We will provide more information shortly.

Please check the Apps Status Dashboard for further information:https://www.google.com/appsstatus#hl=en&v=status

Thanks,

The Press Team

Google Drive and Spreadsheets were also reported down shortly after news of the Google chat app malfunctions was reported. Other Google Docs appeared to be working normally.

Google Drive and Google Spreadsheets seem to be working again as of 1:04 p.m. EST, but Hangouts and G-Chat are still down. For about 15 minutes, Google Hangouts would not load on the Google+ web page. Then, around 1:08 p.m. EST my contact list reappeared. I attempted to send a message via Google Hangouts from the Google+ web page, but it failed yet again. The message also failed to send from my iOS Hangouts app.

Meanwhile, in Gmail, none of my G-Chat contacts loaded and Google's processing animation continued to swirl.

Google also experienced another huge outage to Gmail and G-Chat on Jan. 24 this year. In that case, both services were down for around 50 minutes before Google finally restored them. Google issued an apology to users shortly after the crash. Google is not known for having frequent outages, so these recent issues come as something of a surprise.

We will update this story once all services are restored. Since Google is aware of the problem, we don't expect things to be down for much longer.

UPDATE: Around 1:55 p.m. EST, I was able to send a receive messages on Google Hangouts from the Google+ web page. G-Chat is still not working on Gmail, though.

UPDATE: Around 2:02 p.m. EST, I was able to send and receive messages in G-Chat from the Gmail web page. It looks like service is back to normal, everyone!

UPDATE: Around 2:30 p.m. EST G-Chat and Hangouts appeared to be down yet again. It seems that Google is still working on the problem.

UPDATE: At 3:28 p.m. EST, Google announced that it had resolved the issue on all the affected apps. Hangouts and G-Chat are working normally.