Gmail go *boom*!

[giza]

Sometime around 3:30 PM EDT, I found that I could not get into Gmail. Any attempt to log in resulted in a "server error". I did the usual troubleshooting (cleared cookies, cleared cache, restarted FireFox, tried MSIE, etc. etc.) and had no luck.

So then I posted on Google Groups:

http://groups.google.com/group/Gmail-Problem-solving/browse_thread/thread/ab49f4c7d1522802

As of this writing, the thread is up to 22 comments from other users who are reporting the same thing. In the meantime, I have email through my ISP, the address is: dmuthATdcaDOTnet

The real frustrating thing about this outage from Gmail (and the other outages) is what I perceive as the complete and total lack of communication from Google on the matter. I have never seen an explanation from them for ANY of their outages. No explanation, no apology, no ETA on how long until service will return. Absolutely nothing.

Overall, I think Google is a pretty cool company with some cool products. But their Gmail division is really giving them a bad name with their constant keeping users in the dark like this. Something's gotta change over there or Google's overall image is going to take a serious hit.

[Edit: Gmail has returned for me, but other people in the thread (now 37 messages long!) are still reporting issues.]

Comments

[thesmileetiger.livejournal.com]

But but but.. it's beta!

*snicker*

[giza.livejournal.com]

*swats!*

And it's working for me tested 6:30 EST

[wildw0lf.livejournal.com]

I don't check it that often, so I never realized it was down

[antimon.livejournal.com]

i've never had an outage last more then a minute or 2

Re: And it's working for me tested 6:30 EST

[giza.livejournal.com]

Not everyone was affected, that's the problem. Only certain users were affected.

[markmccloud.livejournal.com]

Maybe they handle users in the same manner as LJ: via server clusters. People in a cluster that ends up going buggy get affected.. Others in different clusters see nothing at all or are affected differently?

[giza.livejournal.com]

Quite possibly.

I know that Google File System (GFS) is spread out among many computers, so if 1 or 2 machines fail, I could see some users being affected but not others.

[drleo.livejournal.com]

Aren't you making a lot of noise and demands for a service that's provided free?

[giza.livejournal.com]

All I'm asking is that they provide some sort of explanation. I don't think that's too unreasonable.

And yeah, I practice what I preach. When there's a significant (read: >10 minutes) outage for a service or website that I provide, I let the affected people. It's just commmon courtesy, IMHO.

[nemetfox.livejournal.com]

If they tell you anything that amounts to something more than "The servers were down for maintainence" or "It dun gone `n broke" I will be impressed.

This is just my experience making me cynical.

[furahi.livejournal.com]

Why do they behave this way?

Because they can =P

Google isn't as good as they want us to beleive... but I refuse to ellaborate on that or I'll feel like Microsoft already won (me) x.x