Google restores services for 'vast majority' of users following global outage

Google said it was “aware of the problem” and that it had left the “majority” of users unable to access its services.

Update 12.45am: Many services including Gmail and YouTube are coming back online.

Google services are beginning to come back online, albeit in a somewhat limited capacity,

Gmail and YouTube have returned but users are experiencing problems when signing into accounts for the video-sharing service.

Users are also seeing a banner message from Gmail when logged in, telling them they are "temporarily unable to access your contacts. You may experience problems while this persists."

According to reports the outage appeared to be related to the company’s authentication tools, which manage how users log in to services run by both Google and third-party developers.

That means that tools that do not work without logging in, such as Gmail and Google Calendar, were unavailable entirely.

In an updated statement, Google said it had restored service for the vast majority of its users, just over an hour after the outage was first reported.

The company said it would “continue to work towards restoring service for the remaining affected users” but that no further updates would be provided via its service status website.

The technology giant did not disclose what had caused the problem, which had affected the company’s entire suite of apps.

“Please rest assured that system reliability is a top priority at Google and we are making continuous improvements to make our systems better,” the company said.

Google is down: Services crash for users worldwide

Sites tested by the Irish Examiner are currently returning non-specific 500 errors.

Google services, including search, Gmail, G Suite, and YouTube are unavailable across many countries around the world right now. 

Users around the world reported problems with Gmail, Google Drive, the Android Play Store, Maps, and more.

Sites tested by the Irish Examiner are currently returning non-specific 500 errors.

According to DownDetector, the issues started at around 11:56 GMT.

As well as impacting YouTube viewers, and companies that rely on Google Workspace, users are reporting that smart home gadgets integrated with Google Assistant are experiencing issues.

The cause of the outage is presently unclear.

Google said it was “aware of the problem” and that it had left the “majority” of users unable to access its services.