Google Drive Users Report Widespread Issues During Service Outage

Mountain View, California — Thousands of users experienced problems with Google Drive and related services on Wednesday afternoon. Reports began surfacing shortly after noon EST as users struggled with server connections and access to documents.

Downdetector, a website that tracks outages, noted more than 2,800 user reports by 1 p.m. EST, indicating issues with Google Drive, Google Docs, Google Sheets, and Google Slides. Users took to social media platform X to express their frustrations.

One user wrote, “is google docs down or smth bc why cant i open my assignments,” while another lamented, “GOOGLE, GOOGLEDRIVE AND GOOGLE SLIDES ARE DOWN,” citing urgent deadlines. A screenshot on social media showed Downdetector’s dashboard, which marked the issue.

Downdetector confirmed that problems with Google Sheets were logged around 12:42 PM EST. Among the reports, 366 users cited issues with the service specifically. As of 1:10 p.m. EST, there were no official acknowledgments of service interruptions from Google Workspace.

Google has yet to issue a statement regarding the cause of the outage. Typically, users encountering the ERR_SSL_PROTOCOL_ERROR on Google services may experience problems due to a security handshake failure. Common troubleshooting steps include adjusting device date and time settings, clearing browsing data, and using the SSL state clearance option in Google Chrome.

This is a developing story and more updates are expected as the situation evolves.