Gmail de-goodened by contact list glitch
Gmail services were disrupted on Thursday afternoon, as users lost access to their contacts. Help pages for Google's webmail utility explained that the contact list feature was borked. As a result functions including chat, contact manager and email address auto-complete were rendered temporarily unavailable. Reg readers report …
Since VM began switching users onto the Googlemail platform (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/04/15/virgin_media_gmail/) I have been experiencing massive slowdowns on my 4-year old private gmail account: it could just be coincidence, but I've no way of proving yea or nay.
I use gmail though IMAP and that's also very slow, to the extent that it times out as often as not.
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My gtalk is looking like a blank canvas at the moment, so the problem is more widespread than just gmail.
Still, it's free and mostly reliable so cannot complain ;-)
Hmm...I hadn't seen that article before, but my hosted account has been strangely slow since about that time, too. The "loading bar" often freezes prompting a refresh (7-8 out of ten times).
But, cooincidence is no proof of causality.
So Google Mail has gone tuts-ip again today. At one point this afternoon I thought all my contacts had evaporated into the wonderful cloud. Mild panic set in until I realized that I had a backup; no, not somewhere in 'the cloud' - it was on my dear old friend the server sitting quietly under the desk. Phew!
Recently I made the decision to ditch Outlook and make Googlemail my default contact list and calendar. It syncs so smoothly with my iPhone and I told all my business colleages that they should consider this option.
So many times in the past for one reason or another, my version of Outlook failed and I spent ages restoring content and putting everything back in order. No problem said I. This cloud computing is the way to go.
Now, I'm not so sure - hmm, somewhere in one of the drawers in my office there's an old Filofax - if I can just figure out how to boot it up, I might be able to save my contacts....
This was turned on, there would be a lot more persistent connections....
contacts are back as of 11:45 cst (-6 UT)...
I've always used the 'older version' of Gmail because it was quicker and less pop-up-y (poopy?). I had a bookmark of the old version's homepage that took me straight in. This afternoon when I used the bookmark as I have for yonks I repeatedly got " -736 error. Try again in few seconds." I then tried going in via the usual Gmail URL to see if the newer version was still working. It was, but with the contact list buggered as reported. Wonder if ditching the old version of Gmail has also ditched something else....
I have found that I can get acceptable gmail performance by going into basic HTML mode and manually clicking Inbox every half an hour or so to fetch new emails.
Maybe it's time to slap that 'beta' tag back on there..
I've used various Google services for years and each one has become increasingly less reliable, more buggy, more broken. This trend has now attached itself to Gmail. Pity.
They used to have the punching power to give the top players a bloody nose. Not any more it seems. Oh well, it was good while it lasted.
As of 1pm EST (I think that's roughly 18:00 GMT for those of you on the other side of the pond) my contacts list was back and chat was working again...
... and in most cases, people pay nothing for Gmail.
The only exception is that Sky, VM, $ISP might pay ££$$€€ for their users to be migrated - in that case, I feel sorry for you.
Then again, don't rely on ISP provided email, no matter how good it may claim to be.
...oh yeah.
running your buisness off Gmail is like relying on tiscali's £5 budget ADSL to run a web server. you get what you pay for!
A: Arbys' Roast Beef Sale.
Mines the one with the Curly Fries in the pocket....
