I’ve been a loyal GMail user for almost 3 years. And today I get this:
Essentially, it says I’ve done something wrong and as such I’m being barred from access to my email for “up to” 24 hours. I’ve done nothing wrong — I’m not running Gspace or anything like that. Other than leaving a Gmail tab open in Firefox all day, I’m a pretty low-volume Gmail user.
The trouble is, I have evidently become too dependent on all things Google to run my life. I use Gmail for my non-work email (in fact, that’s what precipitated this whole thing – I ordered some jackets for the administrative team and needed to go into my account and find the receipt so I could be reimbursed…), I use Google Docs for a lot of basic scratch-pad stuff to flesh out ideas and such before I bring them into Pages or Word (if necessary) to apply formatting, and I use Google Calendar to keep my life in order.
I guess it just never hit me that losing access to that stuff for a significant length of time could leave me blowing in the wind. Today’s Gmail “lockdown” is only affecting one piece of this, but I had a moment of panic as I went to refresh my calendar and my Google Docs to see if they’d been affected.
Has anyone else been a victim of this? How long did your “time-out” last? I’ve read some anecdotal evidence on the web of people being allowed back in after 5 or 10 minutes, but I’ve been down over an hour now. Strangely, though, my Google Notifier is working. That’s just odd.
I’ve seen that before, but I’ve never had it happen to me. Just a question, why do you have GMail open all day? I check it occasionally at breaks, lunch time, etc…I wonder if keeping it open had anything to do with it. Hmmm…interesting stuff. Like you, I use Google stuff for quite a bit of my production stuff. Let us know what happens.
Well – I almost always have a browser open somewhere (even if it’s hidden). And Gmail is always the first tab. This is a practice I’ve had for 3 years so I don’t think that’s it. I don’t refresh it manually in the browser.
Plus it keeps GTalk alive as well. I don’t use GTalk a lot during the day (honest!), but I’ve found it’s a very effective way for my wife to send me a quick message when she needs to know something that isn’t as urgent as a phone call but doesn’t require a full email.
For the record, I’m still down going on 6 hours now. Almost every case I’ve read about online had the person back up and running in 10 to 30 minutes. I am very, very annoyed at this.
I’m actually considering going back to Fastmail which is what I used before Gmail (B.G.?). They offer IMAP and a slick web interface as well. I kept my basic account alive and well just in case Gmail ever decided to take a dive.
I guess some habits are hard to break. I keep on top of my account by using http://www.longfocus.com/firefox/gmanager/ and or using the gtalk app in the system tray. A friend of mine keeps his gmail tab open all the time – I wouldn’t do that, it just seems like it would seen as a problem by Google – don’t know why though! Cheers, Mungo
Well – I do use the Gmail Notifier on both my computers so once I’ve checked my mail it would seem redundant to keep a tab open all the time…
The trouble with Gtalk is that using the Gtalk app is blocked at our district firewall. This is not a problem when using the Gmail web interface.
Which begs the question – If Google didn’t intend for you to keep your Gmail open for long periods of time, why build Gtalk into the interface?
Doesn’t your webhost at scottjelias.net offer you e-mail? Mine does, and they can be as large as I wish. Price for domain, e-mail and almost anything I would want from a provider is there for 100$ a year. The e-mail always work, and so does anything else.
They do, Geir. I’ve just gotten so spoiled with Gmail and their web interface since I’m on multiple machines…
As of 5:45PM MDT on October 3, I’m back up and running. But I’m terrified it may disappear again at any moment. That is NOT a good feeling…
…and I’m locked out again at 6:45 AS I’M TYPING A REPLY I’VE BEEN UNABLE TO SEND ALL DAY!
I can’t believe I may be saying b-bye to Gmail, but this is just inexcusable. It’s not even like when AmEx freezes your account for suspicious activity (“Yes, it was me who bought the new MacBook Pro and clothes at Eddie Bauer all on the same day…”) because with them a phone call resolves the issue. Now I’m at the mercy of Gmail for as long as some random algorithm sees fit to lock me out of my account.
That’s really too bad, Scott. I wonder what happened? I’ve never experienced that before. Like you, I could use the email that I get from my webhost, but I much prefer the GMail interface over that of Outlook Express (which is ok) or Thunderbird (which is better than OE).
Another chat client I use at work is Gaim, which I just run from my USB drive. I use it similar to you–just to keep up on those moderately important messages from family.
Well – I’m going to knock on some wood as I type this, but when I woke up the next morning, everything was back online and I haven’t had a hiccup since. I guess they’re allowed to scare me once every three years…
FWIW, I did change all my passwords, though.