Gmail outage hits 'small subset of users'
Gmail was unavailable Thursday morning for what Google said was a "small subset of users," the latest outage from a company that prides itself in running advanced computing systems.
On the Google Apps status dashboard, the company said at 7:29 a.m. PDT that it was aware of the problem. However, using IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) to access e-mail through software such as Outlook or Thunderbird still works, the company said.
Even a small subset can be a lot of people, though, as carping on Twitter indicates.
Gmail outages hit Google itself sometimes, providing extra incentive to improve reliability. One company spokesman, Adam Kovacevich, said on Twitter, "Gmail down (for Googlers too)."
Google had Gmail outages in February, April, and very widely on September 1.
Gmail was working for me Thursday morning, but slowly and without access to my contacts at 8 a.m. PDT. By 8:13 a.m., it was behaving properly.
Updated 9:15 a.m. PDT - Many users are reporting that their e-mail is back to normal, but there are still problems with Gmail contacts. Google posted the following advisory at 8:29 a.m. PDT.
"The Gmail issue should now be resolved for most of our users. There still might be issues with your contacts. For Gmail users: Use www.google.com/contacts to access your contacts For Google Apps Customers: www.google.com/contacts/a/yourdomain-name.com."
Updated 9:54 a.m. PDT - Google asked for more time before it feels ready to declare an all-clear. "We are continuing to investigate this issue. We will provide an update by September 24, 2009 10:30:00 AM UTC-7 detailing when we expect to resolve the problem."
Updated 10:10 a.m. PDT - It's now safe to return to your computer, according to Google. "The problem with Google Mail should be resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience and continued support."
Tom Krazit contributed to this report.
The Google Apps status dashboard flagged the Gmail problem Thursday morning.
(Credit: Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)
Stephen Shankland writes about a wide range of technology and products, but has a particular focus on browsers and digital photography. He joined CNET News in 1998 and since then also has covered Google, Yahoo, servers, supercomputing, Linux and open-source software, and science. E-mail Stephen, or follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/stshank. 
And I just happened to be stuck in that small subset both times now? Right.
People ought to own their own email addresses. Otherwise, you are at the mercy of Google.
Buy your own domain and your own service. At least you own it then!
But hey, maybe Gmail is just for the sheep! The shepherds already know this.
....e-mailing my professor through our Gmail-sponsored campus e-mail system. I hate Gmail, I only use it b/c our campus is set up w/ it for ALL student accounts.
- by U. Tripps September 24, 2009 9:34 AM PDT
- I was in the subset. Just reinforces my view that if a service is critical to your business operations, you should expect to pay for that service and have a way to enforce damages if the service goes down.
- Like this Reply to this comment
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Showing 1 of 2 pages (35 Comments)Gmail is free. And while it really, really annoys me when it goes down, I have no real right to expect perfect and continuous uptime from a free service.