Google: ‘Significant’ Number of Gmail Users Receiving Errors Right Now

The logo of Google is seen in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 20, 2020. Arnd Wiegmann/Reuters

Google said Tuesday evening a large number of Gmail users have reported errors.

“We’re aware of a problem with Gmail affecting a significant subset of users. The affected users are able to access Gmail, but are seeing error messages, high latency, and/or other unexpected behavior. We will provide an update by 12/15/20, 5:30 PM detailing when we expect to resolve the problem. Please note that this resolution time is an estimate and may change,” Google wrote at around 4:30 p.m. ET in an update.

At 5:18 p.m., the California-based company said that its “team is continuing to investigate this issue. We will provide an update by 12/15/20, 6:00 PM with more information about this problem. Thank you for your patience. The affected users are able to access Gmail, but are seeing error messages, high latency, and/or other unexpected behavior.”

Downdetector revealed that Gmail was impacted at around 3 p.m. ET. Some users on Twitter said they could not send emails or were receiving bounceback messages when attempting to mail someone with a Gmail address.

A day before that, a number of users on Twitter reported that a number of Google services such as Gmail, Google Docs, and YouTube were suffering outages or errors.

Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity division, in a separate incident, said Monday that several federal government agencies were hacked.

“The Department of Homeland Security is aware of cyber breaches across the federal government and working closely with our partners in the public and private sector on the federal response,” Alexei Woltornist, the DHS assistant secretary for public affairs, said in a statement on Monday.

The statement added: “As the federal lead for cyber breaches of civilian federal agencies, the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has already issued Emergency Directive 21-01 to the federal government to address compromises related to SolarWinds.”