Google Services Crater in Widespread Outage
Google's services were severely disrupted on Sunday morning as users reported widespread outages across various platforms. The problems began to emerge around 2 a.m., with Downdetector showing a significant spike in user-reported issues, reaching 10 times the normal rate by 9 a.m.
The affected services included Google.com, Gmail, YouTube, and YouTube TV, with some users experiencing difficulties loading pages or accessing content. On YouTube, thumbnails were not appearing on some streaming devices, but videos would still play if clicked. Additionally, some users reported slow buffering or 'glitchy' video playback on YouTube TV.
Google Pay was also reportedly non-functional for one user. The extent of the outage and its cause are currently unclear, with Google yet to make an official statement.