Major Google Cloud Outage Disrupts Internet Services
▼ Summary
– A widespread internet outage on Thursday affected services like Cloudflare and Spotify, linked to a Google Cloud disruption.
– Google Cloud began investigating service issues at 11:46 a.m. PT and expected to restore services within an hour by 2:23 p.m. PT.
– Cloudflare confirmed its limited services using Google Cloud were impacted but expected recovery, while core services remained unaffected.
– Popular apps such as Spotify, Discord, and AI coding tools like Replit experienced outages, with thousands of user reports on DownDetector.
– AWS and Microsoft Azure reported no disruptions, while other cloud providers and affected companies had not responded to inquiries by publication time.
A widespread Google Cloud outage caused significant disruptions across multiple internet services on Thursday, impacting platforms from Cloudflare to Spotify. The technical issues began around 11:46 a.m. PT, with Google Cloud confirming it was investigating service disruptions affecting its customers. By mid-afternoon, the company reported implementing fixes and expected full restoration within the hour.
Cloudflare also experienced problems, noting on its status page that services were beginning to recover by 12:12 p.m. PT after identifying the root cause. “This is a Google Cloud outage,” a Cloudflare representative clarified, explaining that only certain services relying on Google’s infrastructure were affected while core operations remained functional.
User reports flooded platforms like DownDetector, highlighting outages for major apps including Discord, Snapchat, and AI-powered tools like Character.AI and Replit. Developers at Replit acknowledged the issue publicly, stating they were collaborating with Google to restore access quickly. Spotify confirmed it was monitoring the situation but didn’t specify the extent of its service interruptions.
Meanwhile, competing cloud providers AWS and Microsoft Azure reported no disruptions, emphasizing the localized nature of the incident. While Google worked to resolve the problem, businesses and individual users faced delays during peak working hours, particularly across U.S. time zones. Historically, such outages are resolved within hours, and services were expected to stabilize by late afternoon.
TechCrunch reached out to additional affected companies for comment but had not received responses by publication time. The incident underscores how heavily modern digital services rely on centralized cloud infrastructure, and how quickly a single provider’s technical difficulties can ripple across the internet.
(Source: TechCrunch)
