YouTube, Snapchat, Gmail connection issues in eastern US now fixed

YouTube, Snapchat, Gmail connection issues in eastern US now fixed

If you had troubles with YouTube or Gmail on Sunday, those issues should now be fixed.

Google Cloud had been experiencing widespread problems Sunday, which wreaked havoc on YouTube, Snapchat, Gmail, Discord and a host of other popular apps and services across the eastern United States.

YouTube wasn't completely down for CNET's John Falcone in Brooklyn Sunday, but some videos were inaccessible, at least temporarily.
Screenshot by CNET

Google pointed to "high levels of network congestion in the eastern USA, affecting multiple services in Google Cloud, G Suite and YouTube."

"Users may see slow performance or intermittent errors," the company said in a statement around 2 p.m. PT. "We believe we have identified the root cause of the congestion and expect to return to normal service shortly."

Google's status page for Cloud confirmed the company was having issues with the service as of 1 p.m. PT. The search giant marked Google's Cloud Compute Engine and Cloud Networking services as suffering outages on its status dashboard.

At about 4 p.m. PT, the status page said the network congestion issue "is resolved for the vast majority of users, and we expect a full resolution in the near future."

As of 5 p.m. PT, the Google Cloud Status Dashboard shows all services available.

"The network congestion issue in eastern USA affecting Google Cloud, G Suite and YouTube has been resolved for all affected users as of 4:00pm US/Pacific," a Google spokesperson said late Sunday.

"We will conduct a post mortem and make appropriate improvements to our systems to prevent this from happening again."

YouTube seemed to be working on the West Coast, with CNET reporters able to access the video streaming site just fine. A CNET editor on the East Coast, however, noted that he was encountering issues. One video, for example, was inaccessible for about 15 minutes.

Google Cloud is the company's hosting platform, similar to Amazon's Amazon Web Services and Microsoft's Azure. In addition to powering its own services, other companies such as Snapchat and Uber, rely on Google's infrastructure to provide the backend for their apps and platforms.

News of the outage quickly spread across social media, with #YouTubeDOWN and #snapchatdown rising to the top of Twitter's Trending Topics section as users voiced their frustrations.

Other services that rely on Google Cloud for hosting also seemed to have experienced issues.

Downdetector.com, which monitors network issues, showed widespread issues for the East Coast of the US as well as in parts of Europe for YouTube and Gmail.

Originally published at 1:20 p.m. PT.
Updates, 2:25 p.m.: Adds comment from Google and background on Google Cloud; 4:30 p.m.: Adds that the congestion issue is resolved for most users; 5:50 p.m.: Adds comment from Google spokesperson.

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Snapchat adds a meditation feature with the Headspace mini app

Snapchat wants to make it a little easier for you to relax with its Headspace mini app. The mini app, which is an app within the Snapchat app, launched on Monday alongside three others including group decision-making app Let's Do It, future-telling app Prediction Master and study app Flashcards.

The Headspace mini offers a quick meditation session that you do on your own or with a friend. You can choose from six different meditations ranging in length from three to four minutes. The mini app is available by tapping the rocket icon in chat or by searching the app name.

Headspace gives you the option to see how your friends are feeling. Swiping up on the app reveals a "Check in with friends" button that puts a "vibe check" sticker on your snap. You can also add a variety of Headspace stickers and animations to your snaps by tapping "Snap how you feel."

The company said it was working on Snap Minis, apps created with Snapchat by third-party developers, in June during its partner summit. Snapchat noted that other mini apps are on the way including festival planning app Coachella, movie ticket purchasing app Atom and class schedule sharing app Saturn.

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Snapchat And Mental Health