Google users around the world faced disruption to services on Monday with Gmail, Google Drive and YouTube apparently down in dozens of countries.
Users received error messages with the failure quickly trending on social media accounts from locations around the globe.
Errors ranged from “something went wrong” on YouTube, to “there was an error. Please Try again later. That’s all we know,” when attempting to log in to the company’s mail product. Google products were failing to load for users in New York, the UK and across Europe.
Problems were first reported at 11.48am GMT on Monday and were back up in a little under an hour.
“Today, at 3.47AM PT Google experienced an authentication system outage for approximately 45 minutes due to an internal storage quota issue," a statement from Google read.
"Services requiring users to log in experienced high error rates during this period. The authentication system issue was resolved at 4:32AM PT. All services are now restored. We apologise to everyone affected, and we will conduct a thorough follow up review to ensure this problem cannot recur in the future.”
Internet monitoring tool DownDetector.com showed most complaints were from users in Europe, followed by the US eastern seaboard, Japan, east Asia and Russia.
Other services that were down included Google Classroom – which has been widely used since the start of the coronavirus outbreak – Google Play and Google Hangouts.
The hit mobile game Pokemon Go also impacted, DownDetector showed, presumably as users struggled to log in to Gmail accounts.
Crashes are not uncommon for major websites or internet providers and are often not the result of hacking or any other form of attack.
Companies including Google, Apple, Amazon.com, Microsoft, and others routinely experience them because of temporary server failures often caused by human error.
But Monday’s crash is notable for its pervasiveness across the Alphabet portfolio.
Despite that, Google's main search engine – used by billions every day – appeared to be functioning correctly throughout, and third-party ads – the main source of income for the tech giant – remained visible in various results.
Downdetector.com noted that about 260,000 users reported problems with accessing YouTube in 20 minutes from when services dropped out at about 11.48am GMT. About 86,000 users reported Gmail issues, while 122,000 reported problems accessing Google.com.
YouTube 2018 crash
The outage on Monday appeared to be the most significant for Google since October 2018, when YouTube went down for nearly two hours.
The service, which accounts for billions of dollars in revenue, was fixed after its "highly trained monkeys ... [were] dispatched to deal with this situation", the company said at the time.
Profile of Bitex UAE
Date of launch: November 2018
Founder: Monark Modi
Based: Business Bay, Dubai
Sector: Financial services
Size: Eight employees
Investors: Self-funded to date with $1m of personal savings
Timeline
2012-2015
The company offers payments/bribes to win key contracts in the Middle East
May 2017
The UK SFO officially opens investigation into Petrofac’s use of agents, corruption, and potential bribery to secure contracts
September 2021
Petrofac pleads guilty to seven counts of failing to prevent bribery under the UK Bribery Act
October 2021
Court fines Petrofac £77 million for bribery. Former executive receives a two-year suspended sentence
December 2024
Petrofac enters into comprehensive restructuring to strengthen the financial position of the group
May 2025
The High Court of England and Wales approves the company’s restructuring plan
July 2025
The Court of Appeal issues a judgment challenging parts of the restructuring plan
August 2025
Petrofac issues a business update to execute the restructuring and confirms it will appeal the Court of Appeal decision
October 2025
Petrofac loses a major TenneT offshore wind contract worth €13 billion. Holding company files for administration in the UK. Petrofac delisted from the London Stock Exchange
November 2025
180 Petrofac employees laid off in the UAE
Engine: 3.5-litre V6
Transmission: eight-speed automatic
Power: 290hp
Torque: 340Nm
Price: Dh155,800
On sale: now
OPINIONS ON PALESTINE & ISRAEL
Evacuations to France hit by controversy
- Over 500 Gazans have been evacuated to France since November 2023
- Evacuations were paused after a student already in France posted anti-Semitic content and was subsequently expelled to Qatar
- The Foreign Ministry launched a review to determine how authorities failed to detect the posts before her entry
- Artists and researchers fall under a programme called Pause that began in 2017
- It has benefited more than 700 people from 44 countries, including Syria, Turkey, Iran, and Sudan
- Since the start of the Gaza war, it has also included 45 Gazan beneficiaries
- Unlike students, they are allowed to bring their families to France
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Libya's Gold
UN Panel of Experts found regime secretly sold a fifth of the country's gold reserves.
The panel’s 2017 report followed a trail to West Africa where large sums of cash and gold were hidden by Abdullah Al Senussi, Qaddafi’s former intelligence chief, in 2011.
Cases filled with cash that was said to amount to $560m in 100 dollar notes, that was kept by a group of Libyans in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
A second stash was said to have been held in Accra, Ghana, inside boxes at the local offices of an international human rights organisation based in France.
The specs
Engine: 1.5-litre 4-cylinder petrol
Power: 154bhp
Torque: 250Nm
Transmission: 7-speed automatic with 8-speed sports option
Price: From Dh79,600
On sale: Now
Babumoshai Bandookbaaz
Director: Kushan Nandy
Starring: Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Bidita Bag, Jatin Goswami
Three stars
