Google Maps Outage Disrupts Mobile Navigation for Users
A widespread outage struck Google Maps on Wednesday, leaving many users unable to access core features of the mobile application. The disruption prevented the Android and iOS apps from fully loading maps, displaying business listings, or providing turn-by-turn directions. For some, the app presented an error message stating it could not reach the server.
The issue began in the afternoon, Eastern Time, and prompted a surge of user reports. Over 4,000 problem reports were filed on the downtime tracking site Downdetector as users encountered the errors. Google officially acknowledged the problem through its Cloud Status Dashboard, noting it had begun an investigation into an issue affecting its Maps SDK and Navigation SDK.
The web-based version of Google Maps appeared to be unaffected by the technical problems and continued to operate normally throughout the incident. The outage was isolated to the mobile applications.
Google provided periodic updates on its status page as engineers worked on a fix. The company stated that mitigation efforts were underway and later reported it was seeing initial indications of a recovery. The issue was eventually marked as resolved hours after it first began.
In a final update, Google confirmed the problem had been fixed and stated that a full analysis of the incident would be published following an internal investigation. The company did not immediately disclose the root cause of the outage that disrupted navigation for countless users.
This incident follows another significant outage in June that impacted Google Cloud services, which in turn affected a wide range of popular platforms including Spotify and Snapchat for several hours.
