YouTube, Gmail, Google Maps down: live updates

Update: It looks like normality is returning, as Google's suite of services are getting back online. YouTube is up and working again, and so is Gmail. If you're still having problems, sit tight! Whatever the issue was appears to have been resolved, and you should see the effects of that rolling out shortly.  

Original story: If you've been struggling to load YouTube videos as you head into your lunchbreak, or start your morning routine today, you're not alone; Google is having widespread issues with its most popular services. 

YouTube, Gmail, Google Search, Google Drive, and even Google Maps are all experiencing problems, and no one knows why. 

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Downdetector is showing a whole host of services that aren't working right now, which will impacting businesses using Google Docs, Hangouts, and Gmail, so it's not just your downtime that's being disrupted. 

The issues seem to be concentrated in the UK and Europe, but it looking at the affected areas, the outage is widespread, with parts of the US, India, South America, and Japan having problems.    

There's no word on what's causing any of this, or when it might be fixed, but our dependence on Google's services means that the loss of these sites – even temporarily – is going to throw a spanner in the works of almost everyone who's on the internet's day.  

YouTube's Twitter account has acknowledged the outage, saying:

"We are aware that many of you are having issues accessing YouTube right now – our team is aware and looking into it. We'll update you here as soon as we have more news."

We'll keep an eye on Google's social media accounts for an update, and will let you know what's going on as soon as we find out.