Gmail, Spotify, Snapchat Go Dark After Google Cloud Crash: Here's What Happened
The glitch didn’t just affect third-party apps — it also disrupted several key Google services.
Google Cloud Outages: A widespread outage linked to Google Cloud services caused major digital platforms, including Gmail, Spotify, Snapchat, and Discord, to go offline or suffer serious slowdowns on June 12. The disruption left thousands of users around the world without access to some of the most commonly used apps and tools.
Google's Own Services Took a Hit
The glitch didn’t just affect third-party apps — it also disrupted several key Google services. Users reported issues with Gmail, Google Maps, Google Search, and Nest. The outage was first acknowledged by Google at 12:41 PM PT via its Cloud Status Dashboard. Another update followed at 1:16 PM PT, as engineers worked to diagnose and resolve the issue.
The problem was largely concentrated in the us-central1 zone, a key Google Cloud region that supports infrastructure for a wide range of digital services. Apps and platforms like Character.ai and the Pokémon Trading Card Game, both of which rely on Google’s backend, also experienced performance issues.
Full Recovery Achieved — Almost
By 6:18 PM PDT, Google confirmed that “all affected services are now operating normally,” with the exception of some residual issues in the us-central1 region. This update brought relief to millions of users and businesses that rely on Google Cloud infrastructure for their daily operations.
The tech giant has promised a full internal review of the incident and pledged to publish a detailed post-mortem analysis once the investigation is complete. “All affected services are now operating normally,” the company reiterated in its final update of the day.
Cloudflare Says Google Cloud Was the Root Cause
Adding clarity to the cause of the disruption, a Cloudflare spokesperson told CNN that the issue originated from Google Cloud itself and not within Cloudflare’s network. “Our core services were not affected,” the representative said, confirming that Cloudflare’s systems remained operational during the crash.
Downdetector, a service that tracks real-time outages, logged over 11,000 reports from India and more than 10,000 from the United States related to issues with Google Cloud services. However, the actual number of affected users may be significantly higher, as the platform only gathers data from select sources.
While the digital world has resumed its regular rhythm, users and developers alike are eagerly awaiting Google’s post-mortem to understand what exactly went wrong — and how similar incidents might be prevented in the future.
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