Thousands of Twitter messages carrying the words “gmail” or “gfail” will teach you that Google’s free web-based e-mail platform is currently down around the world. A Google spokesperson told Pocket Lint that their engineers are working on it but have no clue why the errors are turning up.
Meanwhile, a Google representative posted this on a its help pages:
We’re aware of a problem with Gmail affecting a small subset of users. The affected users are unable to access Gmail. We will provide an update by February 24, 2009 6:30 AM PST detailing when we expect to resolve the problem. Please note that this resolution time is an estimate and may change.
(POP3 / IMAP seems to be still functioning, and the problem doesn’t appear to affect other Google Apps at this point)
I’m not buying the small subset part, and considering the fact that Pocket Lint says the problem started occuring around 10:20am GMT, 3 hours before even telling everyone what’s going on is an incredibly long timeframe in my opinion.
Update: Gmail is supposed to be coming back now, at least for some. But Google is also dealing with people posting adult content on Groups pages related to Gmail.
Update 2: there’s a status box on the Gmail Help homepage that says the outage started at 1:30 AM PST, which means the problems have been occurring for nearly 2 hours and a half at the time of this update. The message now reads that access has been restored without any indication of time.
Update 3: the problem appears to be solved for most users now, 3 hours after Google indicated that it was aware of the errors.
This comes a couple of weeks after the chaos when a reportedly human error caused Google’s search engine to erroneously flag the entire internet as malware. Curious to see what their response to this outage will be, as this is not the first time this has happened.
Good thing Gmail went offline with Google Gears some time ago.
Update 4: Google’s official statement was just blogged.
If you’ve tried to access your Gmail account today, you are probably aware by now that we’re having some problems. Shortly after 10 9:30am GMT our monitoring systems alerted us that Gmail consumer and businesses accounts worldwide could not get access to their email.
We’re working very hard to solve the problem and we’re really sorry for the inconvenience. Those users in the US and UK who have enabled Gmail offline through Gmail Labs should be able to access their inbox, although they won’t be able to send or receive emails.
We’re posting updates to the Gmail Help Centre at http://mail.google.com/support/ and Google Apps users can visit the Google Apps help centre at www.google.com/support/a.
Thanks for bearing with us while we sort this out. We’ll report back as we make progress.
I am facing trouble today even with Google Apps accounts.
I was having problems as well. Then I tried to access via IMAP and it worked. Luckily I had enabled IMAP setting a long time ago.
If you have Outlook Express or Thunderbird either of which may come with your OS, you may still be able to access your mails.
Instructions for Outlook below (you must have enabled IMAP already in Gmail previously)
Open Outlook.
Click the Tools menu, and select E-mail Accounts…
Click Add a new e-mail account, then click Next.
Choose IMAP as your server type by clicking the radio button, and click Next.
Fill in all necessary fields to include the following information:
User Information
Your Name: Enter your name as you would like it to appear in the From: field of outgoing messages.
Email Address: Enter your full email address (username@gmail.com). Google Apps users, enter your address in the format username@your_domain.com
Server Information
Incoming mail server (IMAP): imap.gmail.com
Outgoing mail server (SMTP): smtp.gmail.com
Login Information
User Name: Enter your full email address (including @gmail.com or @your_domain.com)
Password: Enter your Gmail password.
Click More Settings… and then click the Outgoing Server tab.
Check the box next to ‘My outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication’ and select Use same settings as my incoming mail server.
Click the Advanced tab, and check the box next to ‘This server requires an encrypted connection (SSL)’ under Incoming Server (IMAP).
Check the box next to ‘This server requires an encrypted connection (SSL)’ under Outgoing Server (SMTP), and enter 465 in the Outgoing server (SMTP) box.
Click OK.
Click Test Account Settings… After receiving the message ‘Congratulations! All tests completed successfully’, click Close.
Click Next, and then click Finish.
Download the latest updates for Outlook from Microsoft. This will help prevent the most common Outlook errors that Gmail users see.
Check our recommended client settings, and adjust your client’s settings as needed.
Anjali Sen
AS OF 12:45 GMT, GMAIL IS BACK UP FOR ME. GCHAT IS ALSO BACK UP.
It seems like Google is progressively resolving the issues … but what a horror!
Advice to everyone, enable your IMAP settings, just in case this happens again!!!
Anjali Sen
Personally I’d have just posted links to this information rather than writing a novel here in comments on a blog.
From Google Help:
Outlook 2007:
http://preview....yurl.com/b5svmr
Outlook 2003:
http://preview....yurl.com/39mymk
Anjali,
What if we’re using Windows Mail with Vista Home Basic?
What is the value which must be entered into the IMAP incoming field under the “Security” tab?
–ADM from Prague
I have always used IMAP from my Mac or iPhone. GMail never seemed to skip a beat. I rarely use the web interface. If I don’t have my laptop I will use my iPhone.
Gmail Fail Cartoon
http://www.pcdi...rld-ending.html
I’ve got seveal Gmail accounts. One of which is with Google Apps.
I just tried to access all of them via the web and IMAP and had no trouble.
This must be region-specific.
Wow, that sucks. Makes you think about what would happen if Google’s servers actually crashed and all the e-mail files were lost. There would be outrage.
http://www.thew...bwar.com/google
What about YouTube. Is the audio audible? I think that’s not working either….
Google Apps accounts work fine so far. At least here…
also nice twit coverage of the “event”
http://twitterfall.com/Gmail
My Gmail Apps account is back online after a short outage. On the plus side the gears enabled off line feature worked great!
Have I mentioned that Google is getting sclerotic?
I just opened a new adwords account and when trying to reach support I was told I don’t have an account yet
)
The beginning of the end. Yahoo and MSN now is the time to counter attack.
I wonder whether this is affecting the ones with an SLA as well?
In any case, it’s affected me, but IMAP access seems to be up, so most users should have some way of getting at their messages anyway
You should know that we’re making fun of this on twitter right now as we knew this story would come but most of us agree that it would come much faster if Michael was here
))
I guess all of my friends and contacts are that “small subset of users” Google is talking about
Mine also!
Back up for me…
Tell your readers POP3/IMAP access is still working
done
haven’t been able to check my mail in nearly an hour. i feel the shakes coming on.
Same here, all people i know seems to be in the small subset of users
Judging by the number of countries enumerated at http://www.pock....phtml#comments, it a big subset of users. Some say it doesn’t work in googleplex either.
POP3/IMAP may work, but you have to enable it under Settings in your Gmail account. How do you get there?
They are aware of it. They will fix it. Temporary outages are not news. Calm the fvck down. Read a book or something. Take a walk. Eat some pie.
suck my ass
“Temporary outages are not news…take a walk” – this is a site that millions of people rely on and it’s been down for HOURS and HOURS now. You calm the fvck down and come back to reality where high availability web apps have uptime responsibility to their users. think. You sound about as glib as Kevin Rose with his “its just the internet” comment.
It *is* just the internet.
An ex-boss of mine once dismissed the internet as being “just a glorified answering machine”.
you get what you pay for? pay for the service than you got a right to complain?
MailboxLocator.com – send yourself
It’s fine now. Did you spend that 2-3 hours doing something constructive, or did you just bitch the whole time?
>this is a site that millions of people rely on and it’s been down for HOURS and HOURS now.
Jebus. Relax. Do you pay for this service?
Got SLA? No? Then like calm down says: calm down.
Or keep crying. Whatever.
And sign up for a free Yahoo! account while you’re at it. Gmail sucks ass. This isn’t the first time it’s been down in the last year (meaning the last twelve months) – more like the dozenth. How does Yahoo’s email server uptime compare (quite favorably, I’m sure)? When will you suckers get a grip and stop worshiping at Almighty G’s ad-driven alter? It is not the end-all and be-all, and none of you – NONE of you – will die without it. Pinky promise.
Personally, I think it’s cool that Google reads people’s mail to peddle them ads. A retard of a coworker got an email title “dude, you’re so gay” and all the ads were…appropriate.
Kickass. Keep using G!Mail, fuckers.
Hmmm.. it’s not about calming down or not. It’s the reliability of the service provided by a public company that touts its technology to its shareholders.
Server error using Google Apps Gmail (other Google Apps work) at 5:29am CST.
I was trying to send TC an hot tip that gmail was down… from my gmail account… damn!
in the same time the Official Gmail Blog is … mute.
Bad Communication from n° 1 Web property in the world
http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/
email down = day off
whooohoo
Here (Lima, Peru) Gmail is not working…
My account is still off-line which is rather annoying for my work (been off since 9.30am in UK). I was so excited when offline gmail launched, admittedly it is very useful in this sort of situation. However, it makes it even more agonising seeing my inbox but not being able to get my new mail PLUS google talk keeps popping up telling me I have messages..which I can’t get!
Boohoo, bitch.
I’m facing today’s problem too. I am from Czech Republic. Hay, where are you from, users which are called to be a “subset”? And what kind of subset (by geografy, account name…) did spokeperson mean? Has someone more precise info?
Still having problems:
Oops… the system encountered a problem (#6502) – Retrying now…
I’m using Google Apps and my webmail has been down for about an hour now…still not back up.
Figured that as I post that my email comes back up…*sigh*
The link for the resolution from the Gmail Guide is from a few weeks ago – check the timestamp.
No Apps for me either. IMAP won’t connect either. I do get the headers, but the messages are not downloaded.
Still down for me here in Berlin. The Google Talk app is telling me I have new mails, but I still can’t check them.
It’s not fixed for everyone! I know I still can’t access my mail – at least through the web (I don’t use POP3 or IMAP at work.
Webmail still down…
FYI that Help Forum link you posted to is an old post. not related to this outage.
I never thought I’d say this but bring back Michael. Your gmail help forum link is 12 days old.
Took it down, it was an oversight. That happens, you know.
From Peru, United Kingdom, Czech Republic – are people in this discussion. What a “small subset of users”
) Which subset of continents has been affected? 
))
Webmail still down as of 11.40 GMT
russia, ukraine – same here
hmm.. the cloud architecture
Webmail is back but problems in the chat box
Chatbox is blank for me all of today. On 2 out of 2 gmail accounts.
Gmail down for me and about 10 clients, for about 3 hours now… Come on Google!
Still broken for me (UK)
OMG OW NOES!
[quote]Update: Gmail is supposed to be back now, and a Gmail Guide has confirmed this on the help forum. (Although a quick glance on Twitter seems to say otherwise)
The problem with Gmail should be resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience and continued support.[/quote]
That’s old folks. That post is dated February 11, not February 24!!
Fixed, sorry.
I’m in Germany and can’t get in at all.
Germans don’t deserve free mail.
We’ve seen this from time to time. It’s very un-Googly to see such problems but they are real and they are getting worse, not better. Apps hang or fail altogether — just about every day — at least a few times per day.
I think IT issues are a big challenge for Google. Never thought I’d say that…
Down here too.. even google apps gmail down!
I am having problems with Google Reader not publishing the correct RSS-feeds for me… Yahoo Pipes returns nothing from normally perfectly functioning feeds…
Someone spilled coke into some very important server at the googleplex…
//Jesper
I am a Google Apps user and it has been down for the past hour and is still down.
The gmail free service may be an imp part in many ppls’life, but wat about business houses who bought the corporate plans from gmail??? but thanks to the lord, the pop3/imap is working..
Follow me on: twitter/sriiniivas
My Gmail doesn’t work, I am in Italy. I suspect that the subset of affected Gmail users corresponds to Planet Earth…
Wonder about Klingon…
Andrea
LOL
Still nothing here in the UAE
Down in Ukraine for several accounts
The Ukraine is a great country!!!
Down for about an hour now in The Netherlands
Like you have reasons to bitch. Go smoke some legal hash, asshole. We don’t want to hear you crying about your hard life.