Google Drive service outage affects thousands of US users, impacts reported in HK

Google experienced a widespread service outage on Wednesday affecting multiple core services including Google Drive, Docs and Sheets, with thousands of US users reporting access issues and some Hong Kong users also experiencing connectivity problems.

The disruption began around 12:25pm EST, according to monitoring site Downdetector, which recorded nearly 3,000 user reports from the United States alone. Major affected cities included New York, Boston, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Google confirmed the "service outage" affecting Drive, Docs and Sheets on its Workspace Status Dashboard, stating engineering teams were investigating the issue and apologizing to affected users. The company provided no immediate workaround solution.

Some Hong Kong and Asian users reported similar problems with Google services including search, maps and Gmail experiencing delays or loading failures. Service appeared restored by approximately 4am Hong Kong time Thursday.

Users reported being locked out of cloud data and receiving error messages including "cannot open file, please check network connection" and SSL protocol errors. The outage disrupted school and business operations, with social media complaints about inaccessible assignments and work documents.

Google Drive serves as a critical cloud storage platform for more than 2 billion daily active users globally, making it one of the world's most widely used productivity tools.