back to article Google Apps goes TITSUP for millions - users REJOICE on Twitter

Google's customers are currently complaining about an outage affecting a number of the ad giant's products - including Gmail and storage service Drive. The company said it was investigating reports of disruption to its service and claimed that only 0.007 per cent of its users - which would amount to millions of people - were …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    My Dropbox folder is the same as my local Google Drive folder. So both services need to be down before I cannot work.

    Local copies of files are essential for just this sort of issue. Google does not get this and only provides shortcuts for their native files.

    1. JDX Gold badge

      I had thought about doing the same with DropBox + SkyDrive but wondered if there might be any problems doing so?

    2. TReko

      Local copies are essential. My Google Drive is backed up with the syncdocs.com service which makes full local copies, not just shortcuts, of everything on Google.

  2. Chris Miller

    I stopped getting email from pop.gmail.com about 13:00 - it's working again now. Google docs seemed to be OK, though.

  3. Sporkinum

    problem here

    I had set up IMAP access in outlook, and it wasn't working this morning. I could sign into web gmail though. I decided to remove gmail from outlook as it incessantly bugged me for a password that would not work.

    1. eulampios

      Re: problem here

      It might also be a good idea to move to thunderbird or something that has no bug you have described. Running mutt myself and having no problems with any of my gmail IMAP setups. Tried alpine, rmail and thunderbird -- no issues.

      1. TeeCee Gold badge
        WTF?

        Re: problem here

        "...something that has no bug you have described."

        Er, actually I've never seen that "bug" in several years' gmail IMAP use with, er, Outlook (XP, 2003 and 2010 over time). Thus I suspect it's not a bug, but a config ballsup somewhere.

    2. cybersaur
      Meh

      Re: problem here

      I have IMAP access to Gmail set up with Thunderbird. Thunderbird would not connect to Gmail this morning. I was able to login via web, but it was noticeably sluggish.

  4. illiad

    this is why I use a *proper* email program...

    outlook, eudora, etc can be used to download all your mail , so you can see it even without a 'net connection... :)

    1. Cliff

      Re: this is why I use a *proper* email program...

      How does the email get to your email client?

      Just askin'

      1. Captain TickTock
        Headmaster

        Re: this is why I use a *proper* email program...

        "How does the email get to your email client?"

        the usual way, when the server is up. OP said "see" your email. Obviously can't check for new mail, but at least can refer to already received mail on a local client.

        1. peyton?
          Headmaster

          Re: this is why I use a *proper* email program...

          "but at least can refer to already received mail on a local client."

          This is exactly how I use my work gmail. They do provide imap access.

  5. David Kelly 2

    I have one of the free 10-user Apps accounts which was momentarily down this morning. Another gmail address w/o Apps was fine.

  6. Bill the Sys Admin
    Alert

    Fluffy

    Oh the cloud..so fluffy and perfect. Until it goes down. Just like everything else can.

    1. Mike Bell

      Re: Fluffy

      Yep. Like a SysAdmin with a hangover can.

  7. Turtle

    A Year To The Day.

    "It's exactly a year to the day since Google had a similar problem with its Gmail service, after it stubbornly stopped working for about 30 million of the company's users."

    In the tradition of the Y2K bug, we now have the 4/17 bug.

    Nice.

    1. Gerard Krupa

      Re: A Year To The Day.

      Is it the fourth of Febtober already?

      1. Yag
        Trollface

        Re: A Year To The Day.

        Sure thing, and I will be late for my appointment at 30:05:00 PM.

        Let's just says "-04-17" then, ISO 8601 is convenient to avoid issues with those strange people who can't get their dates straight...

      2. Turtle

        @Gerard Krupa: Re: A Year To The Day.

        "Is it the fourth of Febtober already?"

        Well that's the bug that caused the failure!

  8. DArlington

    Solved

    I had this problem with my gmail - couldn't access across any mobile device regardless of OS. This was solved by going through the CAPTCHA process again to certify my devices.

    Strangely only affected one of my google accounts.

  9. Rafael 1
    Headmaster

    0.007 per cent of its users - which would amount to millions of people

    We all love bashing {Google, Apple, Microsoft, aManFromMars}, but if 0.007% of X is "millions" (let's just say 2 millions) then X is 28 billion? Just asking.

    Where is the icon for pedantic math nazi alert, or in my case, pedant math drunkard alert?

    1. Darryl
      Unhappy

      Re: 0.007 per cent of its users - which would amount to millions of people

      Damn - beat me to it.

      (Just wanted to let you know you're not alone in being a math pedant, I guess)

    2. Badvok

      Re: 0.007 per cent of its users - which would amount to millions of people

      Strangely my comment pointing out the same mistake was rejected - must have been my tone.

    3. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Trollface

      You want to believe? Check the user numbers!

      You now realize that Google is being patronized by a host of Venusians, Zeti-Reticulaneans on short business trips and the ever-chtonian Plutonians!

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: You want to believe? Check the user numbers!

        No, it's just that Google has moved onto "The Internet Of Things", and counts my phone, my tablet, my TV, and my router as "users".

        Next up, my glasses, my watch, and my car.

        Then, my shoes (2 users!) and socks (2 more!).

  10. volsano

    Thunderbird suddenly would not talk to gmail, claiming my memorized password was bad; re-entering the pw made no difference. However, the web browser interface logged straight in no worries.

    Guess I get what I pay for with Google apps.

  11. toadwarrior
    Trollface

    Makes me want to buy a chromebook so I can make it exciting and lose access to everything.

  12. David Woodhead

    Oops ...

    In the article:

    "The company said it was investigating reports of disruption to its service and claimed that only 0.007 per cent of its users - which would amount to millions of people - were affected by Gmail and other online properties going titsup."

    Let's assume that just 2 million people were affected. If they represent 0.007 per cent of Google's users, that would mean that their user base amounts to approximately 285,000,000,000 people. As the population of the Earth is around 7,000,000,000, there must be an awful lot of Zillons from the planet Tharg signed up to Google Apps as well.

  13. WallyM

    Wierdly we had all users in our satellite office get their accounts "suspended for abuse" about this time yesterday. No one else was affected. We suspected a malware outbreak on that particular LAN but nothing came up on any machine after scanning using 3 different AV products.

    Apparently the ISP connection was changing its dynamic public IP "too rapidly"- maybe google was unhappy with the resultant surge of successive logons to the same accounts from different IPs.

    I don't really believe in co-incidences. My suspicion is that google have had a security scare that they're trying to contain. Either that or one of their security systems has gone schitzo...

  14. mrY
    Boffin

    0.007% = a Bondth?

    Does 0.007% equal one Bondth?

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      Re: 0.007% = a Bondth?

      Yes, but how much are James Bondth?

  15. Anonymous C0ward

    Didn't notice with Gmail or Drive

    Groups was hosed though. 500s and 404s.

  16. ecofeco Silver badge
    WTF?

    A year to the day?

    Interesting.

  17. Peter 26
    FAIL

    My Google Drive went down from 1pm to 3pm GMT. I couldn't access my google apps spreadsheets which I really needed. Email was fine for me though.

    I can't see what else I could have done as backup. I have google drive on my PC synced, but the spreadsheets on my disk are just shortcuts to the google drive web page.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Where's Eadon slagging off Google, like he does whenever there is a hint of a smell of an MS based outage?

    It's almost like he has massive double standards...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Only Almost???

      Trolling of the highest order only permitted under that account. Am surprised there is no commentary somehow blaming Microsoft for the outage tbh...

  19. John Angelico
    Headmaster

    Oh, no - more moral equivalence

    Please El Reg, an "outage" (short term loss of service but expecting to be restored) is NOT the same as "going titsup" (loss of service probably permanent because provider has gone into liquidation).

    Not quite a grammar problem, but the nearest graphic that fits the case - if the gif fits...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Oh, no - more moral equivalence

      I hadn't realised that there was an accepted definition of "going titsup", I'd always - going back to the 80s - understood it to be a slang term for "broken". A device can go titsup, or it can break, it may be fixable, a company can go titsup which would usually mean bankrupt.

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like