Server Error Plagues Google News for a Second Day

Google (News - Alert) users are starting to feel like they are stuck in the movie “Groundhog Day.”  The same scenario of Google News outages kept repeating itself again earlier today.

 

After a countless number of people experienced outages with Google News and Gmail services on Thursday, Google users had a repeat performance with Google News today. Between 8:45 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. ET, some users received a 502 server message appeared reading, “Server Error: The service you requested is not available yet. Please try again in 30 seconds.”

 

As TMC (News - Alert) reported yesterday, Internet users experienced the same issue. At best, the site for sluggish for some, while others had no access whatsoever. And some people reported problems with Gmail, the company's e-mail service.

 

While Google could not be reached for comment, the Google blog said yesterday an error caused the company to direct some of its Web traffic through Asia, causing a traffic jam. As a result, 14 percent of Google users experienced “slow services or even interruptions.”

 

“We've been working hard to make our services ultrafast and "always on," so it's especially embarrassing when a glitch like this one happens,” the blog said. “We're very sorry that it happened, and you can be sure that we'll be working even harder to make sure that a similar problem won't happen again. All planes are back on schedule now.”

You can see the error message here:

 

But that didn’t seem to be the case today. What’s the reason for latest problem? A Google spokesperson could not be reached for comment at the time of this writing.

 

Once again, people have turned to Twitter to report the news, and to vent their frustration. The outage forced many Web surfers to seek alternative search engines, such as with competitor Yahoo! One poster, identified as joeltanner, wrote, “Did I just see Google News is down again today? Google's 'air traffic controllers' must be on strike.” Another wrote Tweet from Katie Traut said, “Say it isn't so! Google News seems to be down... AGAIN!”

 

The outages and slow service come the same week as Google gave its News page a makeover. To celebrate the seven anniversary of Google News, Google added new colored banners to segment each different type of news story, such as the top stories, world and business stories. In addition, it added featured videos and photos from its partners and areas for images and for popular stories.

 

Google News is the news technology site powered by Google. The site receives headlines and stories from about 4,500 sources from across the globe.

 

The search giant has experienced issues with its service before. For example, last fall Google had problems with its Gmail service. The company announced that it detected a problem that prevented Gmail users from accessing their accounts.

 

The updated Google News page looks great. I just hope it stays up long enough on my screen so I can enjoy it.