Google Drive Goes Down: Search Giant Is Investigating Cause Of Outage That Affected Cloud Apps, Storage [UPDATE]

Google Inc.’s cloud-based storage and software suite, Google Drive, went down for several hours Tuesday for many users. The company said it was investigating the issue but offered no further details.

Google first updated its Apps Status Dashboard at 10:28 a.m. EDT to report it was aware of an issue with Google Drive that might be causing “latency” and error messages for users. “We're investigating reports of an issue with Google Drive,” it said at the time.

Less than an hour later, Google updated the page to announce that the Drive team was “continuing to investigate this issue,” promising another update by 12:15 a.m. EDT. “We thank you for your patience,” it said.

Update (2:12 p.m.): Google has updated its Apps Status Dashboard to say that the problem is now fixed, only mentioning "continuous improvements" to its systems. Here is the full statement: "The problem with Google Drive should be resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience and continued support. Please rest assured that system reliability is a top priority at Google, and we are making continuous improvements to make our systems better."

Update (12:32 p.m.): The company says Google Drive services have been restored for some, and it expects a fix for users who are still experiencing problems in the "near future." It also curiously notes that the vague "time frame is an estimate and may change."

The errors are also preventing some users from opening a number of Google Drive apps, like Docs and Slides. International Business Times was unable to open anything but Sheets as of this writing. Google has not responded to a request for comment on what caused the outage, or how long it will last.