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GMail Horror Story!

Bob [PersonRank 0]

Wednesday, March 8, 2006
18 years ago

I'm a regular reader of Google Blogoscoped, and yesterday, I experienced a huge shock with regards to my GMail account.

I was able to check my GMail account and emails fine at work.

However just an hour later, when I reached home and attempted to access http://gmail.com, I was greeted by a "Server Error" as follows:

<blockquote>Server Error

We're sorry, but Gmail is temporarily unavailable. We're currently working to fix the problem – please try logging in to your account in a few minutes.</blockquote>

Fine, I thought – just a small hiccup which the Google folks are working on. Over the next couple of hours I attempted to login every 15 minutes or so but to no avail. By then it was past midnight and I needed to catch up on some sleep, so I decided to head to bed and hoped that things would be resolved by the next morning (i.e. today).

I woke up earlier today, and unfortunately my expectations were dashed. By then I sensed that something was terribly wrong, as the Google folks rarely took > 12 hours to fix such a problem. I accessed the Google Accounts page (http://www.google.com/accounts/), and saw the following message:

<blockquote> The account you attempted to access has been deleted. You may click here to sign up for a new account.</blockquote>

A nightmare come true?! I tried logging into my Google Account via https://www.google.com/accounts/Login but was presented with an invalid username/password error.

I tried to reset my password, and my suspicions were confirmed when I saw the following:

<blockquote> There are no accounts in our system with the E-mail address usermame[put at-character here]gmail.com which you entered.</blockquote>

Has my Google account really been deleted? I use it religiously and it is my primary email account. I have over 300mb of CRUCIAL data in my email, none of which I have backups for.

I tried to send an email to my GMail account from another email account, but the email bounced.

Any ideas as to what I should do? This is an emergency for me. :/

Garett Rogers [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

Wow, that sounds really bad.

Have you been using any greasemonkey scripts, GDrive or GoogleFS with your Gmail account?

It could be that if you were using any third party extensions that violate the terms, they could delete your account without warning

OREO [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

that sounds scary... makes me want to back up my gmail files now... seems kinda odd though.. did it happen to anyone else?

Bob [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Garett Rogers, I don't use any greasemonkey scripts whatsoever. I always thought they were kinda dodgy for some reason anyway.

Neither do I use my GMail account for anything other than the reading and writing for regular email. Not even for the storage of personal files.

I'm in a fix and desperately need access to my account. I still see the "Server Error" message when I visit http://www.gmail.com.

Bob [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

I would be immensely greatful if anyone could put me in contact with a GMail representative.

As we speak, emails sent to me are being bounced. :/

I'm hesitant to create a new account as I have hopes of an account recovery – and the creation of a new account might hamper the process.

Jeff [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

I think someone hack into your gmail account and delete it. It sounds horrible...

Bob [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

AFAIK it's not possible to unregister Google accounts. . . or is it?

I seriously do hope no one would would be as cruel as that.

Bob [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

And i have reason to believe that it isn't really an issue of my account being hacked. How do you explain the "Server Error" messages I'm experiencing on gmail.com? When I tried to login from a fresh computer, I can view the login page fine, but I still get an invalid username/password error. Only a couple of minutes later will the server error message pop up, and i'm not sure what triggers it.

Hope I made myself clear enough.

Once again I would be very greaful for a GMail representative contact. I desperately need my account back up and running.

Bob [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

I've attempted to contact the GMail team via http://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/request.py and directed them to this thread.

I hope something good comes out of this.

Jeff [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Good Luck Bob..>:)

Bob [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Thanks Jeff.

I wish someone could shed some insight as to how this could have happened. :-/

Ludwik Trammer [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

I've written to Gmail Team about this thread too. They ignores most letters, so maybe when more people will write about that it'll help...

Groban [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

Thank you very much Ludwik. I really appreciate you support, and any publicity that this thread receives. If anyone else could pass along the link to this thread to a Google rep, I'd be immensely greatful.

GMail is a fantastic service, and I'm sure most of you can identify with me under my current circumstances.

Bob [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

(Groban = me, it's a nick I use.)

Ludwik Trammer [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

I added it to digg: http://www.digg.com/links/GMail_Horror_Story

Bob [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Thanks Ludwik, every little bit helps.

Again I strongly don't believe that my account was hacked, particularly due to the perculiar server error message I received when my account mysteriously disappeared.

I just cleared my cookies, and I can visit the gmail.com page fine. Of course, I still am unable to access my account.

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

I will contact Google's Kevin Fox asking him to take a look here, and I'll post it to the front-page. Scary indeed.

Bob [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

I'm completely and utterly thankful for your assistance, Philipp.

James [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Bob I hope you can get this issue resolved. Please keep us up to date if there is a resalution, be it good or bad. Here is hoping it is good.
Oh and for those who dont know french Caro said "I hope that Philipp will be able to help you Bob! I cross the fingers! I am very horrified at it!"

Eric Senterre [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

That's a very scary story! Could probably make a movie out of it!!

But for the rest of us, what can we do to keep an efficient backup of our important GMail account informations ?

Is there any other services that can be "more reliable" ?

It make me think to go back to an old POP/IMAP software, maybe on my USB Key so I can really travel with it, just like GMail.

Bob [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

James: I certainly will.

Thank you one and all for your support.

I too am hoping for a prompt resolution!

Asiago [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Did you really expect to be able to store 'CRUCIAL' data reliably on a free service? I'm not saying Google did the right thing, but if you have data that important, you should be backing it up yourself or at the very least have a QoS agreement with your provider.

Rob [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Let me get this right. You actually use gmail for important emails????

Let me restate that.

You actually use gmail for important emails????

Jeff [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Bob trusts Google...:)

obvious [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Google Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043
phone: (650) 253-0000
fax: (650) 253-0001

John [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

I'm sorry, man.. you get what you pay for. Do you really think Google can back up all of that data? I think not. If the hard drive your account was on goes kerplunk, your data is gone, bubba.

Bob [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

To those heading over from digg:

I understand that I should have backed up my email and documents locally using Google's pop service. I suppose I fell victim to Google; where I completely trusted them and their services without any precautions or doubt.

If anything, hopefully some of you have learnt from my experience. Google products can and will faill you sometimes.

I know I've learnt my lesson.

Thanks for the feedback anyhow.

Andrew [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

GMail is beta, that means, it's most likely not going to be stable. Why would you put you're crucial data on a beta server and not backup. Sigh

nightfox [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

What's your OS? Maybe there are keyloggers/spywares in your system..

Another Google User [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Well,

I headed over from Digg, but I'm not gonna say that to you – I too use gmail as my primary email. I have any other account I own forwarded to it. I'm watching this thread to see how this plays out. I'm hoping google comes up with some kind of viable resolution.

Jeff [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

We trusts Google that's why we dont backup our files....
The question is should we need to backup our files if there is GDRIVE from Google?

Dave [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Well... it is still in Beta form...

Gmail fiend [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

I use it as my primary email, but nothing in it is important. I move anything to a backup or print it

tom [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

This is one very good reason to use the pop3 access provided by gmail to back up your email. Something that I do at least once a week.

D [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

OMG.

I have gmail account too. But I use POP3 service and download every email. So that I have one copy on my HDD as well as one copy on server.

Thanks for your information. It is worth to keep in mind.

Digg effect [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

My god thats awful.

I hope they can sort it out

Ben [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

That sucks, hope you find out what happened – please do let us know!

Ironhide [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

certainly doesnt bode well for googles supposed GDrive concempt the ndoes it ? If they cant keep your Gmail data asecure what makes them think that people will trust their online storage solution when it arrives? Google needs to look into this for you. You should be able to trust that your info is safe on their system if they want people to use it and other products they put out.

Rob [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

No Offense Jeff,

Jeff Stated

"We trusts Google that's why we dont backup our files....
The question is should we need to backup our files if there is GDRIVE from Google?"

But why do you trust someone you dont know? The service is in beta and its free. Do you really think they CARE if they loose your emails???

You get what you pay for...

Ihave no pity for people that do this type of things. I backup all my impotant data daily,weekly and monthly. to 3 different places. Ive lost a HD and I was back up and working within 4 hours.

Bob [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

nightfox: I primarily access my account from two systems, with one using Windows XP and the other using Windows 2k.

The personal Windows XP system is loaded with anti-virus software, anti-spyware software, etc. It's kept secure to the best of my ability, and I'm fairly certain that I don't have any malware or spyware loaded.

As for the Windows 2k system, it's located on a secure government network. The techies keep a very close and watchful eye over it, and I'm confident that no loggers were installed there either.

Again, thank you everyone for your comments of support (and critcism).

yah [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Some people have said it, but seriously...you have "CRUCIAL" data on GMail?? It's a BETA SERVICE. Use it like one. There's no reason you should have data that's not backed up elsewhere on GMail, and they are in no way responsible for your loss. Beta, man...sheesh!

Rob Chuah [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

I am using gmail as my primary email account as well. And I'll be losing contact to a lot of my contacts if this thing happen to me.

I gotta start running POP and backup all my gmail now....

Ghostein [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

Bob,

I am really sorry about your situation.

I cannot imagine the trauma you are going through, I really hope that the issue is just a minor glitch and is fixed quickly.

As to the comments from Asiago and Rob, no e-mail is important when everything is working perfectly fine, but when things don't go as planned what you once thought as not important is important.
Its like the cliche "junk is something, which only after you rid it becomes treasure".

For thoughts about backing up your e-mails, so that we don't have a rude awakening is to use portable thunderbird (available from:
http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/email/portable_thunderbird)

Thanks.
Ghostein.

gerry [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

this is troubling for those of us who save a backup of our primary e-mail account(s) on gmail by auto-forwarding to their gmail account. i have about 1.5gb of message on gmail – it's my backup. guess i'm looking for an alternative solution.

Joe [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Google is the one advertising the service. If they fail to perform that service, free or not, they are responsible for it. If they cannot perform their duties when they have promoted a service to the public, then they should not provide it. Important emails or not, the service should be reliable as advertised. Because it is free is unimportant, Bob has sustained damages because his email was valuable to him. The problem is that Bob has no backup (Luckily, I use Gmail account and I have no problems, but I don't have backup either), so how can Bob prove what he had? I would think that there has to be some backup to your account file somewhere in Google. Also, I question the Google "Don't Be Evil" motto. I don't like companies that its hard to get a response from. Isn't it evil not to respond to your customers problems? I would ask everyone to email Google and see if we can get attention to this problem. At the very least, Google deserves to give Bob an explination regarding what has happened.

Jim [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Bob,

Please don't think most Digg users are as unsympathetic as some above^^

I'm gutted for you.

Free or Not, Gmail is providing a service and as such has a duty to help you restore your data. What is the point in them providing an email service if they can just ditch all your mail?

Good Luck,

Jim

Tony [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Stop picking on the guy. Just because it says beta it has always been reliable. maybe the first few days of its existence i doubted its reliability but jesus it's Google ... ya know? I don't even back up my email from Google and I use it for literally everything. After reading this I will probably start backing it up but seriously stop picking on the guy. A buddy of mine works at Google I'll ask him if he can help or if he knows someone who can.

Saying the same thing over and over and over about backing up his files and how he should of done it isn't helping. Neither is calling him names. Don't you think he already knows he should have backed it up?

People who state the obvious = tools

C. M. [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

WOW

I would never trust a online provider to be my only accesspoint for my email. I have a gmail account, but use my laptop (a Mac) to download and back up my email. Most of the time I find it easier to use Apple Mail to send and get my email than I do logging in to their web interface.

Because I use Apple Mail I can sync that mail with another Mac and in turn have a second backup. When all is said and done I have a copy on Gmail, my laptop and my desktop.

Redundancy! it is something you do for any form of data considered "crucial" "critical" or otherwise "important". Remember you are dealing with computers, they are the point of failure.

Bob [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Again, I repeat, I *never* violated any of GMail's terms of service.

If a Google rep would like to confirm this, they are more than welcome to. They have my alternate email address (which I used to create a support ticket).

This isn't in any way a publicity stunt. It's a real-life crisis I'm in, and while the purpose of this thread was to obtain advice and more information on how to resolve my problem, I hope it simultaneously serves to remind one and all of the vulnerability of services, especially those in beta.

Again, thank you very much for your words of support.

Sorry man [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

I use the GMail account as my primary account. I jumped early on with the service and I have set forwarding rules from other accounts to GMail. I have a lot of semi-important files there. I love GMail. It is the only true replacement for the HoTMail of the pre MS glory.

I am aware, though, that GMail is in BETA. It is my own fault if everything goes to limbo tomorrow.

BETA also means:
GOOGLE guys will not loose time providing support to one of the gazillion users they have only because his account disappeared.

Sorry to say it, but if nothing comes out of this 48h from now, it is time for you to move on.

Aubrey [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

I use Gmail for all my email too. *gasp*

Am I being dumb?

Vern [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

I think he gets the point, everyone has their first encounter with a major mistake. Let this be his first, while I think everyone telling him isn't going to fix it, just let it pass, hopefully you google helped you with something if not well.. hope you can get some of your emails back from people who sent it. Good luck.

Jason King [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Would everyone just STOP mentioning about what Bob "SHOULD" have done. It's over with now. He's already stated that he is aware of his oversight. STOP MENTIONING IT!! It's not helping the issue at hand. If you can contribute to helping Bob get his email back, please help, if all you are going to do is bash him over the head, don't bother.

Bob, I've been using GMail for about 5 months now and I've recieved the "server error" message you are speaking about, but I've always been able to get back in. I truly hope you get back what you need.

shawn [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

He understands all that guys, your comments aren't helpful. Provide solutions instead of telling him what he should have done, 10 people already did that...

highpass [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

i want to moan too.

bla bla beta service bla bla get what you pay for yadda yadda sheesh jesus ffs etc

that's just great, but doesn't help the poor guy at all does it.

i'd suggest using a pop mail client to backup your emails once a week or so, just as others have suggested, if you're insistant on using the www interface.

Bill Gates [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

It would appear that this guy's account has been deleted. I really doubt that Google has a bug in their software – beta or not. <cough>

For those of you saying "it's beta dude!", I would remind you that you are simply giving into the great evil power that is Googlenosis, and further propegating the evil.

Hell, If Hotmail were to delete someone's account, you'd be all over us like fleas on a camel.

And Bob, email tech support with the other account we all know you have. I'm sure they'll fix it, or tell you why they won't.

Ari [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

You probably got hacked and someone deleted your account via the accounts page.
They should make that a 4 day long process so the user is notified if their account is 'marked for deletion'

puduk [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

I am extremely sorry for you Bob. Too bad. Please keep us updated about the response from google. I will pray for you.

And please ignore my earlier comment. I apologize for typing illegible cra*p. I went hysterical and kind of over-reacted. I realize this is a public forum, and people from all around the world, speaking all languages visit this. I should not act like an a*ss.

highpass [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

ha looks like a few of us posted similar things at the same time ;)

rsd [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

"Some people have said it, but seriously...you have "CRUCIAL" data on GMail?? It's a BETA SERVICE. Use it like one. There's no reason you should have data that's not backed up elsewhere on GMail, and they are in no way responsible for your loss. Beta, man...sheesh!"

Yes, some people have said it, so why say it again?

Will be interesting to see how this plays out

Bob [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Bill Gates: i've already done that.

If any Google rep stumbles upon this thread and would like to take a look, my ticket number is #49434563.

Once again, thank everyone for your words. Point taken and lesson learnt.

DigitalBrian [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Never use a free service for important data

Paid accounts = Right to support
Free account = Right to take a hike

It is sad, it really is.

you can always try www.30gigs.com for a backup email account, works great.

Misterio [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

So what's your excuse for not backing up these "critical files"

It sucks to have gotten hosed like that – but really, what did you expect?

Narlzac85 [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

You can only hope it was a hiccup in the system and that google, being the mass storage empire that it is, would have a mirror of their system and of course be running everything in at LEAST raid1. One of the largest computing powerhouses in the world shouldn't be caught dead without a backup.

moses [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

OMG..really feel sorry for you man..hopefully google's rep will contact you soon.

Keep us informed.

The Goon [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Ya know, whenever a forum gets "dug" all you guys do is come in and talk trash. He made a mistake, but do you have any idea how many people use gmail for "crucial" data? Leaving posts like newbcake, Rob, and yah serve no purpose. Lets just hope this guys gets his stuff back. This could be a true test to see if google has adiquate backups of their systems. If not, I certainly won't be using GDrive.

/pd [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

Bob, could you recap on incident /ticket #49434563 and your expereince on resolution ??

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

John writes,

> you get what you pay for. Do you really think
> Google can back up all of that data? I think
> not. If the hard drive your account was on
> goes kerplunk, your data is gone, bubba.

Nah. It's very, very likely Google makes backups of active accounts. E.g. they store web pages in 3 different locations, so *two* drives can go kerplunk before anything happens. As for inactive Gmail accounts, now that's a different question... might well be that sooner or later all backups are removed too.

midnight [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Amazing can computer do this..
What next, my free hotmail where I keep my business ledger..

Anonymous [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Though I like gmail service, I stopped trusting them. That's one reason why gmail is not my primary account. I know you can't trust any online email services. My main reason for using webmail is not to be trapped in an ISP jail.

sam [PersonRank 3]

18 years ago #

Good luck. With Google's data storage goals, I bet they have backups of their servers and will be able to restore your account. I hope.

DiscoLoke [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

I've been a digg member longer than most of these fools. I also use gmail as my prime account, since I am in College and it's easy to check what the boss wants done from anywhere. I pray to God, Google fixes your problem. Question though, how would I go backing up my gmail messages without resending them to me? Any idea anyone?

Free or not nobody expects gmail to fail like that. Free stuff doesn't excuse you from having to perform up to your expections.

[Removed personal attack against personal attackers. -Ed.]

Anyhow I contacted Google also on your behalf and pasted information and weblink. Good luck, keep us updated.

Sorry man [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

I think some people are missing the point when speaking of Google's ability to help.

I am sure that if it would be in one of the support policies that Bob's account would be back before you could say "Did you backup that?"

The point here is that they do not support reviving of accounts (be it if they disappeared because of the system glitch or because an account got hacked and closed on purpose).

Bob's data still exists somewhere. This is not a technical problem but rather one of procedures and service agreements.

Bob [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

/pd: Sorry, I don't understand your question?

Nelson Muntz [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

ha ha!
*points*

Ron [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

All systems fail at sometime or another. Whether it's and outside source or some other failure.

Everyone go backup everything today. ;)

Joe [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

I agree with The Goon. How many times has this already happened to Gmail users that we know about? If you're Google and you want to promote hosted applications as the future of the internet versus desktop, you better be able to provide reliability. However, I agree that Google has got redundancy in backup. They have to have Bob's account somewhere. If they don't, someone did hack in and delete it. If that is not the case, they should have the info and be able to restore it.

cristian [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

i don't buy it. probabily someone stole your username/password and deleted your account.

good luck getting it back dough.

jose [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Have you tried to retrieve your mails using POP. Sometimes I just can't login to my account via the web interface, but pop works perfectly fine.

dave [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

This happened to me a while back but didn't think much of it. After a week or so I got an e-mail back from Google saying it was lost during "maintenance" and let me re-register the address as a fresh account.

SjN [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

I too was getting that error yesterday when visiting GMail. But fortunately All of my accounts are working fine this morning. All I can say is make sure that you use forwarding in the future. If you have an old POP account, clean it up and forward any GMails you get to that account. Everyone gets burned like that. Take it for what it's worth – A lesson in backing up and press on.

Another thing I am curious about- Have you tried to create a new account using your original ID that was deleted? Did it successfully get created?

Sorry about the loss,
SjN

Riyad [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Bob this really is horrible news, if it's any consolation because of this thread I've just backed up all my mail. So you *are* helping others be more aware of their information and backing it up. I guess that's a very thin silver lining that doesn't help you at all though :(

toby [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

oh no,,, this is suck!

joe [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Is that really Bill Gates?. lol

Smackers [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

I just stumbled across this thread and I realized that all of us who are talking smack don't practice what we preach (Backup emails...)

Andrew [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

NO BACKUPS?
BWHAHAHAHAH!!

nmr [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Google please help this guy, restore the glory of GMail back to the golden years! Something like this CAN make a difference. I'm a little dissapointed, it doesn't matter if its still in BETA practically everyone uses gmail. I back up my things through pop but thats not the point. I think the CEOs of Google would definitely do something, they were techies too.

Chris [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

gmail is in beta, but that don't mean we can't trust it. google has a good history of very stable beta releases of things.

but at the same time, if something screws up, they use the beta as an excuse

Bob [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

SjN: I've thought about it, but I don't want to risk it, as that might eliminate any possibility of Google being able to restore my account.

Bill Gates [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

har har google shall fall!

Wintrode [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Bob,
   Sorry that this has happened to you. I hope everything gets resolved by Google, as I'm sure that they can at least restore your account to some level. Like you, Gmail is my primary account for all of my e-mail. I use it to consolidate numerous accounts.

   As a result of this incident, I think I will now be making regular backups via POP3. To be honest, when I started using gmail, it was not my main account or e-mail access method, but with it's ease of use and great features it has become that for me, and thus I never really thought about backing it up, as it was no my primary means of access. Now that your incident has brought my attention to the fact that Gmail has indeed become my main email application, I need to address the backup issue immediately.

Once again, sorry that this happened to you, but hopefully many people will learn something from it, as I hope I did.

Ralph [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

I also came over here from DIGG.

I had, repeat had, GMail but shut it down last week. I had many login problems and the staff at GMail was utterly useless. I did set up an account over at Yahoo and I’m very happy over there now. I’ll take the less free storage space because I was able to interact with real people at Yahoo through e-mails and on the phone over AND get all my questions answered. Where as I’m still waiting over a month now for a return phone call from anybody at Google.

Sorry to hear of your problems but it may be just a fluke or the start of something worst to come. I suggest that you either use the POP3 method, or some other method to back you stuff up from now on. And most important of all, GET AWAY FROM GMAIL ASAP!!

C [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

Gmail is still in beta, surely it's not wise to store "over 300mb of CRUCIAL data" inside a Beta Application??

michael [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Yeah – I use Gmail for crucial data. You're not alone by a long shot on that one. I'm beginning to rethink that. Google is generally very reliable hence the interest in this thread I think. I wish you the best in getting your info back!

joe [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

lol Bill Gates

Joe [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Here's and idea. Setup and Yahoo account too. Forward all Gmail to a Yahoo account. (For those of us who love Gmail.) What are the chances that both will fail?

cliff [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

This exact thing happened to my friend's Yahoo account. The awful part was that he had over 300 contacts in his address book, none of which were backed up. Yahoo's customer support could do nothing other than say they were 'sorry'

Jeff [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

DigitalBrian and others that seem to need to dogpile on this poor guy, grow up and get a life, ok? He didn't make a mistake. Google advertised this as an email service that you can store your emails forever, etc, etc. If you don't realize that for Google *BETA* doesn't mean the same thing as BETA means for most companies.

Google BETA is like 1.0 for most folks. [Removed personal attack. -Ed.]

Bob: I really hope this works out for you, I use gmail as a backup to my private email account (which I run on my own server), and it would suck if I lost it all. Hopefully this is just a glitch and they can recover your info for you. I know how much loosing your email history hurts. Someone hacked my yahoo account, and changed the reg info so I can't recover it. Yahoo was no help at all so I lost about 5 years of history. This is why I run my own email server now.

G.G. [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Hope everything works out for you.

Just a suggestion,
You can set up Gmail to automatically forward a copy of everything to another email address. So open up a secondary Gmail account and have your primary Gmail account forward copies of all mail to it.

Vincent Clement [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

"Any ideas as to what I should do? This is an emergency for me. :/"

How about contacting Google support:

http://mail.google.com/support/bin/request.py

FfejL [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

[Removed personal attack. -Ed.]

Google puts a four letter word at the top of the screen, and you totally buy into it. Gmail has been available for well over a year, and it's been open to anyone who wants to sign up for months. It has millions of users. It's not, by any definition of the term, a Beta. What, exactly, will change when Gmail "launches" as a 1.0? Not a damn thing – except those four tiny letters in the upper left will dissapear.

In the meantime, Google gets to hide behind the "beta" label and let performance continue to degrage, blow away people's valuable email, and provide not a whiff of support for those millions of users. Guess what, that saves Google money, and that's the only reason to leave the service as "Beta."

But so long as idiots keep giving Google a pass on this practices, they'll keep doing it. Like I said, morons.

Bob, I hope you get some satisifaction from Google, and that you get your mail back. Please keep us all informed

RI [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

BACKUP, BACKUP, BACKUP! Trust no one, not even GOOGLE!

www.hiifii.com [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

Lol thats dangerous.
Lucky that Gmail is not my primary email :)

JFSIII [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #


   The number of idiots posting here is staggering.

   Rob, you really think that *you* know to backup your hard drives, but *Google* with 200,000 servers hasn't figured that out? One hard drive goes down and now you can't find search results or email or maps or....

   It sounds like a major administrative issue or one HELL of a hack. It's one thing for all the emails to be gone (select all, delete) but how do you drop an entire account?

   Bob, you didn't do anything wrong. Unless you actually took the comments in this thread to heart.

Bob [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Vincent Clement: Thanks for your suggestion. That has been done already.

Zulu [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Shit happens!!!

Digital Dirt [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Due to the intrinsic untrustworthiness of digital storage I print out all my emails and carry them with me.

You may want to consider doing this. So far I've accumulated 1.5 metric tonnes of paper.

As for a backup – I photocopy all the mails and receive and put them in another lorry that sits 50 metres behind the first lorry.

Needless to say this isn't the best solution. Searching for mails often takes months and hiring the lorries to carry all that paper is costing a fair bit. Still at least I know where my important emails are and if I need to do a 'Backup' my local corner shop loves it.

It's 10p a copy.

Bill Gates [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

Use www.live.com and the future will be bright!!!

yow [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

i remember having my gmail account innacessible for 4 days ... then it recovered ... but it never said my account was deleted, i just couldn't log in from any computer

www.hiifii.com [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

Never use things which are in BETA.
Beta is a Warning – Just Test them

Gnascher [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

GMail is Beta.

Sorry if this disappoints any of you who thought it was more than that ... but it isn't.

It really sucks that you depended on a Beta application for a mission-critical function ... but shame on you, really.

One of the cardinal rules of computing is 'always have a backup'. Gmail provides a POP interface, it would be very easy for you to use Thunderbird or any other favorite client-based email app to maintain a local copy of your emails.

If Google was ReallyNice(tm) they'd dig through thier backup tapes and find your emails ... they're probably in there somewhere, but they are not under any obligation to do so ...

Geo [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Hey Ralph, how much is Yahoo paying you to write that???

Eric [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

This has happened before.

It happens when the someone higher up on your invite tree pisses Google off via spamming or whatever. They remove all the accounts below them, anyone they've invited and on down.

Account shouldn't be fully gone, it's there, but they're not telling you.

=D

eric.martindale[put at-character here]gmail.com

David [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Dude you are in luck. Google doesn't delete any account ever. It also has thousands of backups of everything everywhere. Maybe your username was deleted but Google hasn't deleted anything in years just contact them.

Dave [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

You can backup up your email to your PC using POP3. Too late for you, of course, but well worth doing even if only to give you a source of archive email if Google goes down.

Joe [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Is Eric right? They would delete every invitee's account? Where is the don't be evil motto? If one person is a problem, let's eliminate their account and everyone associated with them.

Phil [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Digital Dirt:
Shouldn't you really reconsider geographically separating your backups? You are still at risk of losing everything in case of flood, fire, etc.

Erik [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Sorry Bob. For those of you out there that want to backup your gmail, here are instructions: http://labnol.blogspot.com/2005/11/gmail-inbox-backup-with-microsoft.html

Bob [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Thank you very much for your words of encouragement/advice/constructive criticism again guys.

Joe: I seriously doubt it, but what do I know? :-)

I'm keeping my fingers crossed tightly.

Sparky [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

What ip address do you get for gmail.com – go to a command prompt and type "nslookup gmail.com". Its a wild guess but I wonder if some malware has made gmail.com point to somewhere else on your machine (so you're not actually going to gmail....). A bit like the spyware search sites do. If so, check your lmhosts file...

Backup [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Sorry, but I can't feel much sympathy for this guy.

Trusting someone else with your data is a recipe for disaster. Pure and simple. If you don't back up your OWN DATA, you have no footing from which to complain when that data gets lost.

Moreover, storage space these days is so unbelievably CHEAP. It would have taken this guy what, two minutes to burn all these emails onto a CD that cost him a dime.

Jeff [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

This story has been posted on digg.com here:
http://digg.com/links/GMail_Horror_Story

Hopefully this will get some more attention for you.

Joe [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Shoulda hadda back-up. End of story

Bob [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Sparky: Thanks for the suggestion. I'm positive I'm accessing the authentic gmail website.

RobM [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

It *is* possible to delete your own Gmail account. Go to "Settings" then "Accounts", there's a link on the left side "Delete All Account Info" and "Delete Gmail Service".

Someone may have gotten your password?

I'm gonna make a pop backup of my email today, Gmail is also my primary account.

Jim Barr [PersonRank 4]

18 years ago #

That's why it's good practice to "backup" your Gmail account. Use any decent POP3 email client on your home or work PC such as Outlook or Thunderbird to periodically download all new Gmail messages. You will then have a parallel offline backup should you lose your Gmail account.

For example, I have an old, seldom-used PC that is always running Thunderbird. Twice per day, it downloads any new email. (You really don't need to set it any more frequent, because most prople only get a handful of emails per day, so twice should be sufficient.) Every week or two, I then go into Thunderbird, mark all the messages in the Inbox as read, and then I move them all to a folder. I then periodically backup the folder. The net result is that if my Gmail account gets deleted, sure, I'll be pissed, but I will always have a FULL backup of all of my email that's no more than 12 hours old.

The only caveat is that I don't think it backs up "sent" email...

-Jim

Justin Pfister [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

For awhile I used to use the POP3 feature to archive my gmail on my own Computers. It's getting to be a lot of email to back up now and.. it might be an interesting service to have a Trusted Third PArty to do Gmail Backup for you.. Philipp, does this sound like a possible project that might do well? It sounds like one to me. For $2-3/month. Or maybe for free it could back up your gmail.

Whomever [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Do you think this has anything to do with your post on Feb 27?

http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2006-02-27-n25.html

Pete [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Heh...

I use gmail as my primary address, and I have a few backup gmail accounts as well. I don't have anything critical in my email, most of it is sentimental value (photos of family, friends, emails from and to family, etc), the most important thing I have in there are phone numbers, email addresses and rl addresses of friends and family. If my gmail account goes poof, I'd be pissed, but in the end I'd get over it.

That said, I was reading with interest about Google's supposed storage service alluded to in a powerpoint presentation a few days ago. I might look less favourably on it if what happened to Bob goes unanswered and unsolved.

And to those who keep saying it's a BETA... duh, almost everything Google has going is a BETA. Thanks for that, Captains Obvious. Beta does not mean they can ignore problems... Beta is supposed to be a testing period, where problems are to be discovered and solved.

Bob [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

RobM: Thanks for highlighting that. I just discovered it too not too long ago.

If that was indeed the case, well, I've still learnt my lesson. And I harbour some hopes of Google being able to assist me.

Looks like backing up via pop3 is a decent solution which we should strongly consider, especially if we use our GMail account as our primary email address.

Michiel [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

I sympathise wholeheartedly with you, which I also do when one of my users (I manage some 250 user accounts and the support for those in our company) loses his data.

Inevitably they have never backed up, and inevitably they are converted to backup zealots when I have to tell them their data is lost forever. I always compare it with putting your hand on the hot stove as a child: it hurts, and (unless you are terminally stupid) you will never do it again.

I hope you get your data back. And that you back up your stuff in the future (speaking of which, how are your documents on that hard drive doing?)

Rui Moura [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

It would be helpfull if kiddies stop writing sh%t in here "OMG, WTF, You are lame!!!, etc" ...

Go say that kind of thing to digg coments and please keep this thread clean so Bob can be helped in a proper way ...

GMAIL POP [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Gmail supports POP... use that feature for your "crucial data", or just to make sure you have a backup of your gmail.

https://mail.google.com/support/bin/topic.py?topic=1555

winnabago [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

There are several suggestions for complete backup of gmail messages, does anyone have a strategy for restoring these to your active account? Would this entail sending them all (perhaps thousands of messages) back, in the process stamping them with your POP address? It's not desirable, but I can't think of another way.

Bob [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Michiel: Pretty well actually, with a twin copy on a couple of CDs. :-) Thanks for asking.

Slip Disc [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Google also reserves the right to modify, suspend or discontinue the Service with or without notice at any time and without any liability to you.

from: http://mail.google.com/mail/help/terms_of_use.html

It's bad that it happened but, listen to others. It's free and beta.

Mantari Damacy [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

OMG. My pen. MY PEN! Who stole my PEN?

Matt [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

I had my gmail account mysteriously disabled. One day I tried to login and it said your account has been disabled, contact a google representative or something like that. That was about 4 months ago, and I never had a response after emailing google like 60 times. It sucks. Sorry.

Joe [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

I guess when this happens more frequently and Google shares start dropping from all the bad publicity, then they'll be responsive. Smoke and mirrors. Google wants to point the finger at Microsoft to say they are the bad people, but Outlook doesn't just disappear from your desktop for no reason.

Jason [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Google has 300,000 plus computers running, hard drives are bound to fail, move on.

Ross [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

There is a very simple solution. Gmail allows you to forward all of your email to another account. So you have gmail forward all email to a yahoo account, bam, automatic backups.

Keith [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Yeah, I sympathize with you, but I have to side with those who have expressed bewilderment at your lack of backups. I don't doubt that the data is crucial for you, but really, how hard is it to turn the pop settings on and download everything to a usb key using portable thunderbird or something?

I do kind of the same thing--use gmail to store some important stuff--but at least every 100 emails I suck it all down to my laptop using thunderbird, then mirror the directory to an external usb drive on my desktop. takes about 5 minutes and if you were more motivated than I you could set up a script to do it for you.

learn your lessons...

Eek [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

"This story has been posted on digg.com"
Hence the cazzillions of comments flying in... including this one! ;-)

Horse has bolted and all, but like everyone says, Google Mail's POP3 service is excellent – even sends down your sent items and you can filter them to your sent folder. Very good. I recommend everyone uses it.

On a side point, using a Beta version of anything for "crucial"/commercial purposes is a bit dicey don'tcha think? I use Gmail for all of my personal correspondance because:

a) I don't much care if there's a security glitch (as there has been!)
b) Nothing is "crucial"

If it was I'd arrange a more robust account somewhere else where a system is not a self-confessed Beta Version.

Mike [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Wow...it's news like this that could really take a toll on Google's reputation. I know I definitely won't be using Google Mail...maybe not even when it gets out of whatever they call "Beta". If I were Google, I'd be doing some serious damage control on this issue as soon as possible. Good luck dude...

ryno35 [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

For those of us that have drunk the Google koolaid, that believe Google has the best and brightest, that like to believe data that resides in Google's flawless data centers is there for all eternity as it should be, for us, this is scary. I hope they come through for you Bob.

Scar [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

I saw the same Server Error Horror message -keeping me out for some minutes- two or three times on last two days, and I'm using it as primary account as well....I do regular backup using POP support, but this is really going to scare me...

dpneal [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

Bob,

If you've got Google Desktop running, it may have made copies of your emails in your cache. Thats what mine does, so i have local copy of everything.

Is this any help?

Dan

Connor2k [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

To everyone who is bemoaning Bob, I hope you never encounter a loss of information, because when you do, we'll point at you and laugh. As for Bob, I have been using Gmail since early beta and I have never experienced a problem, i hope you get your files back in the least.

And of course this lesson will hopefully be passed to all of us. It sometimes takes a tragedy for people to understand the consequences.

Bob [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Dan: Ah, I wish it was. I don't have Google Desktop running unfortunately.

Connor2k: Couldn't agree with you more.

Dennis [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Beta or not, free or paid, you ALWAYS have to back up important data. Always.

There are so many different things that could happen beyond your control. Or even beyond Google's control.

Oh, and verify that your backup works :)

lucky13 [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

This happened to a friend of mine on hotmail a few years ago. What happened was that he logged on, and then never logged off, for 6 months or something. He used the account all the time. But because he had not logged on for 6 months, some screwey program decided he had not used the account for 6 months. So his account was automatically deleted, and unrecoverable.

Of course, I think gmail makes you re-enter your password every day or so. So that should not be the trouble.

Of course, that's about what I expect for microsoft, but not for google. If that happened to a microsoft non-beta account, it wouldn't make top news at digg.

But maybe I should back up my emails too.

Good luck Bob.

Wil Brady [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Curious that while this thread is only 13 hours in existence there are some who talk as if what sounds to be a relatively uncommon occurence is rife across the gmail universe.

In slower days, it would seem reasonable to allow for some period of time longer than a nanosecond to get a problem resolved. Life ISN'T television, after all. You don't just change the channel and expect all forms of social injustice to disappeal.

How about cutting gmail and google a break here folks?

That said, I'm going to back up some of my more important mail on the gmail system

Tracy F [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

The only email that is safe is the kind that resides on your PC- & even then, it should be backed up--daily-- if it's important--to a 2nd HD or CD...

Really a bummer on your emails lost-

T

mirzmaster [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Many of the commentors here don't seem to realize what the general public, and even much of the informed IT community think of Gmail and the fact that it's a "beta" product. Considering the wide availability of this "beta" product, what's so beta about it? Not a single person I know that uses Gmail uses it for "testing" the service. They use it like anyone uses an email account, as a form of communication. The general public is not likely to keep multiple email accounts and is even more unlikely to employ a backup or redundancy scheme.

I think it's almost unfair to expect that of people. Of course making backups is the sensible thing to do, but often you have to learn the lesson the hard way. It doesn't mean you should be unsympathetic to people like Bob. Frankly, not everyone has the time/knowledge/willingness to backup every shred of electronic material in their posession.

Another thing that needs to be kept in mind here is that occurrances like this are probably quite rare (relatively speaking) and probably affect the other webmail providers as well. Not to say that it's not horrible that it happens, or that it should be acceptable, but it's just not entirely a surprise, and it's probably not isolated to Gmail. You probably just don't know about the other incidents involving Hotmail or Yahoo.

So before you deride Google for their shoddy service, keep in mind similar issues affect users of other webmail products. And before you deride Bob, keep in mind that he's only human.

Vishal [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

One of my friend had a similar experince with another google service "Orkut".
One fine day he lost all his contacts, friends, scraps everything. He wrote to google, they never got back. I just hope BOB does not meet a similar end to his woes.

Joeie [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

[put at-character here]mirzmaster:

Best comment so far. I wish all the "its BETA!!11!" fanboys would give it a rest.

Adam [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

dang people, for the upteenth time – im sure Bob is now painfully aware that a backup might have been handy here!! I hope you get some resolution, ive had my toes dipped in gmail since the start, have experience tons of problems with the service but nothing close to data loss. Keep us posted

Alan [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Well I am off to backup data from my Gmail account. I don't use it for my main account but there are emails that I would miss if the account got deleted :(

Good luck Bob

Matt [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

I don't sympathize with anyone who looses their data and then cries about not having a backup. They teach this in 5th grade computer class to ten year-olds... It's sad, but it's your fault.

Neil [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Interestingly, I had a similar situation a few months back which I think confirms that nothing will have been deleted.

I actually shutdown my GMail account when I separated from my wife – I didn't want that particular email addy any more. All mail gone...or so I thought!

Anyway, shortly afterwards I set up a new GMail account and for some reason was able to access my _old_ mails – the ones from my prior username.

I figured I'd just got lucky, and didn't press too hard.

But bottom line is, I don't think Google deletes anything. YMMV, of course, but I hope it works out for you. And as a result of this, I've just configured a POP backup....

Neil

Dan [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

If google is going to maintain their 'Saint' status they need to remedy this situation. Google can't stand to lose any more face lately. I use my gmail religously for all non work related emails. I take for granted that when I archive my emails that they WILL be there when I need them. Beta or not if I can't rely on google to keep my data safe then I can't use Google. It's that easy. I'm sure they will remedy this situation. As a stock holder in the company, I certainly hope they remedy this situation.

Gnascher [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

[put at-character here]Connor2k: [I hope you never encounter a loss of information,]

I have ... it sucks. I used to use Outlook for my email and let it store all my files in that stupid .pst file which I never bothered to make a backup of.

Well, one day, it got corrupted. Try as I might I couldn't recover it, and I lost about 2 years worth of correspondences as well as my contact list.

Since then, I have switched to Thunderbird which is better about how it stores email ... no single failure can lose all your data except a hardware failure. And I backup my email folders nightly using ntbackup, as well as having all my email forwarded to a GMail account purely for redundancy. (I rarely even login to my GMail account.)

If you use a computer ... and you have data that's critical to you ... back it up ... as many places as you can find.

Google Helpdesk [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

Hang on mate we are working on it :-)

pi3 [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

You got screwed... hope it doesnt happen to me although I dont store CRUCIAL data on something I cant touch.

def [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

sorry, but having unreplaceable data on a free service and no backups is just stupid.

Bob [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Heh, I seriously doubt a "Google Helpdesk" rep would post here.

User [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

Sorry to hear this. I hope you recover all your data. I also use Gmail as a primary account. I don't use it for the space, because I don't (and never did) trust Google. I have all my mail forwarded to another Gmail account which is then forwarded to a Hotmail account (ya, I know most of you hate Microsoft, but hey it works and I had that account forever). I am a crazy person when it comes to backups, two won't do it for me, a good number is 3 resources. Hope you get this problem fixed and I hope it doesn't happen to anyone.

Fikiman [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Dude! Horrible...
I use GMail all the time and it does contain some important stuff... but fortunately I use pop... GO BOB! I hope everything gets back to normal!!

Google Helpdesk [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

Bob,

We are really sad to hear this, we never imagined this could happen to someone. I am not from google helpdesk as you guessed, I just tried to make you laugh :-)

Good luck

andrew [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Very funny Google Helpdesk! My toes are laughing!

Dan [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

you got to admit the Google Helpdesk reply was Funny. A little levity never hurts.

Geust [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

http://www.gmail-is-too-creepy.com/

Might explain something^^

Pedro [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

What is scary about all of this is how credulous the commentators of this thread are. Who is "Bob" and how does anyone here know this whole "Gmail Horror Story" is true? I haven't seen anyone here pose that question, which is fascinating, given the sympathy and animosity directed at the original commentator.

colin [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

<b>I have over 300mb of CRUCIAL data in my email, none of which I have backups for. </b>

Then you, sir, are a moron. Why on earth would you have NO local copies of your critical data? THat's just asking for trouble.

JD [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

Bob,
I'm with Jim: Google's marketing of Gmail directly implies you can count on it. Ok, so Gmail is still "beta" so you almost have fair warning, but no one – google included – is treating it as "beta"...

JustAReader [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

Big Brother –

Wow, that's eloquent. Has Newsweek called yet to hire you for your pithy, insightful commentary?

:rolleyes:

greg544 [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Sorry that so many DIGG users are giving you a hard time. Most (50.1%) of the DIGG posters are jerks. One very nice feature over at DIGG is you can turn off the people you do not want to read.

As for the Gmail problem. I do not see what the BETA issue has to do with account deletion.

Either someone hacked the account and was able to delete it or Google deleted it because of a (real or unreal) perceived violation in the TOS.

Dan Atkinson [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

One can only blame it on the person who keeps their crucial data in a free email account.

Shot yourself in the foot there, mate!

Mr Backup. [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Hi,
I'm mister backup. Once my lesson is learnt, it is never forgotten. On a more serious note though, I lost a massive amount of data from my Yahoo account and thought I'd switch to Google Gmail. Hearing this though it looks like there isn't a great deal in it. I have 900megs at present in my account and you've inspired me to sort it all out. Bad luck.

notany@gmail.com [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Summary and some additional info

1. Gmail is beta, read the fine print.

2. Make backups wiht POP-access or forward all mail to alternate location,

3. gmail runs on GFS (Google File System). GFS is fault tolerant. It is designed to run on unreliable and cheap hardware reliably. Data is written on multible discs. GFS works similarly to RAID (Reduntant Array of Inexpensive Discs). Instead of RAID it can be understood as RAIC (Reduntand Array of Inexpensive Computers). However multiple disc failures can lead to loss of data. This is quite unlikely but according to law of large numbers, if there is enough usage this will happen to someone. It may be you.

4. Most likely your account is just deleted (hacking, google bug etc.) and your information may still be on the discs. If they can find it and restore it is different matter.

Graham Pollard [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Sorry to hear about this. Google should at least talk to you.

yahoomail [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Try Yahoo! Mail. You won't be disappointed :)

Julian [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

People are talking about backups – anyone know how to back up Yahoo mail?

Tech Support [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Computer users rule #2:

Never ignore rule #1.

roadkillrampage.com [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Why would you trust a web based app to be the only place store over 300mb of crucial data?

I am sorry that the data was lost, but come on use some common sense.

Google even says in their Terms of Service that they "may at any time and for any reason terminate the Services, terminate this Agreement, or suspend or terminate your account."

So...if you read the TOS why would you even think about haveing gmail be the only place to put crucial data.

Aubrey [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Will google finally implement a backup feature?

roger born [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

faint hope for those who lost their data on line.

it is a faint possibility that you could use the wayback machine to fine some of what you lost.

wayback.com

they seem to archive everything, except sometimes they are a few months behind.

can't hurt to try.

BTW, i make off site backups of all my important letters, and print them out too, as an additional archive. can't trust any email app or account anywhere. your emails are as likely to be lost on your home computer as they are online.

JustAReader [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

Hey, found this in the Google Terms of Service:

   In the event of termination, your account will be disabled and you may not be granted access to your account or any files or other content contained in your account although residual copies of information may remain in our system.

What's interesting here is that "residual copies" do exist....so, if nothing else, that's proof that your info likely isn't COMPLETELY gone. The question is whether someone at Google will take an interest. Hope this helps.

anonymous [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

I'm beta testing GMAIL for my servers. If they cannot be reliable to backup the extremely important data that is sent back and forth, including financial or security data, then that is very scary!

Efton [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

No, thats not it. Someone you know with access to your account, deleted your account. The thing you need to do is figure out who.

Ben [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

I believe the moral of this story is NEVER trust anyone else to back up YOUR data. I hope your data isn't lost but you should always keep important data in multiple locations.

good luck [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

mean people suck...
google is not mean....overwhelmed perhaps...

for those who suggest to pop3 backup your email to another gmail account ,,,,how is that a good idea? back up your precious data from one unrealiable place ...to another unrealiable place....hmmmm

i think most people are just effen mean and love to see someone else hurt...meanwhile they only started backing up their emails after Bobs mishap...

good luck..

andrew [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Efton how does that explain the server error which Bob encountered >12hours then when he went to the Gmail homepage?

ELZ [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

TOO BAD FOR YOU!! ITS UR OWN FAULT!! hahaha.. serve u right for nto backing up... i'm laughing down my pants now

Moulton [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

A good way to use GMail is as a pass-through filter.

Forward your mail from your conventional accounts through GMail to otherwise undisclosed depositary accounts on a secure server elsewhere.

GMail does a good job of filtering out spam, and you can access it from anywhere.

But the depositary accounts provide an archive that you can turn to in times of crisis.

Most of the time, I access my E-Mail via the GMail page. But if GMail doesn't answer, I can still read mail that has already been forwarded to my depositary account.

PasserBy [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

C'mon dude you are not supposed to trust a service that is still in Beta. Wake up!!!

Kachina Crowe [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

I think the laws of karma will enforce you "backup nazis" to encounter a day when both plan a and plan b fail.

"Oh noes! My secure third-party storage, my external hard-drive and my USB storage keychain-y thingy died!!"

It's not exactly likely, but karma is a powerful force.

Take care of yourself Rob.

Chad [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

All those posts to read, and he got Bob's name wrong...

Good luck Bob. Hope it turns out alright.

OBVIOUS GUY [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

what to do, how about instead of posting in a blog, you should've contacted google ASAP, instead of sitting on your ass whinning!!! if the data is so important THEN CONTACT GMAIL, WHINE AT THEM, YELL AT THEM, but dont post blogs about it and asked the averge joe what to do, contact the service provider and get it straightened out.

johnny come lately [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

well harsh

supernitin [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

GMail lets you download your mail to your desktop using pretty much any e-mail program via POP3. I have a local copy of every e-mail.

Kevin Fox [PersonRank 4]

18 years ago #

Bob: Please send Phillipp your gmail address and an alternate contact address so he can pass them on to me.

Oblivious Guy [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

Well, it appears that Obvious has issues.
   Good luck Bob. I'm gonna pray you get your information back. I know that it can be a nightmare to loose things so I hope that we get a miracle from the folks at Gooooooogle.

Eric [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Rule #1: Backup your data.
Rule #2: Backup your backups.
Rule #3: Store your backups off-site.

Oblivious Guy [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

Just As I finished typing.. Fox is here to help :)

   See miracles do happen. Good luck on your data.

coldsteel [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Lets see you use a "freebie" email account to direct important emails to. You dont use a pop client or any other backup facility to retrieve those emails to save on your own systems and then you complain when the "freebie" email account fails. You're a bleedin idiot – if you've learned from this then maybe you can improve to just the plain "idiot" stage otherwise one definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. .

Oblivious Guy [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

Alternate for the common folk
  
Rule #1: Back up you data
Rule #2: if You are a business
Rule #3: Grandma loves having indiscriminate data storage devices around the house..

It's fun..

andrew [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

How do we know whether "Kevin Fox" really is a Google Admin? Does the Google logo beside his nick signifiy anything? How can we contact you Kevin?

Joe [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

KEEEEEVVVVIIIIIINNNNN..... Let's see what you can do! Help Bob out if you can. Restore faith in us who love Google!

Nóri [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

How about trusting someone for once, in stead of being rude?

Ken [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

From the GMail Help Center:

Your search – backup – did not match any answers in our Help Center.
Please edit your search terms and try again.

Not good...

andrew [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Just being cautious.

Oblivious Guy [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

I have to agree with a post several dozen posts back.
   So many people have ripped into Bob that I'm sure he's gotten the point as to what he did or did not do.
   So if you are going to make a comment, be supportive or help full..

Otherwise.. go blow a goat.. cause it's annoying.

DoraLives [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Bob,

I'm still hoping something good will happen to you before all is said and done, but I've got a bad feeling about this.

Regards the crew that's bashing on the poor guy for whatever self-righteous reason: Grow some social skills, children. This kind of behavior is why nobody else likes you (except for your two other equally misanthropic "friends") and even those guys aren't really sure about you either. Learn to draw the best out of your fellow humans, and perhaps your fellow humans will learn to draw the best out of you in return.

Reaching further for some kind of silver lining here: This is what tipped me over the edge to go ahead and set up POP for my gmail, and I just finished downloading the lot of it to disk.

So thanks for providing my lazy ass with the required impetus, but I'm awfully sorry about what has happened and is happening to you.

Best regards, best wishes,

DoraLives.

Bob [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Kevin Fox: I have done as you requested.

Thanks a billion!

Thomas Damgaard Nielsen [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Well... Tough luck. Gmail is beta.
If your data was so crucial you shouldn't have trusted it to others in the first place.

James [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

These Digg folk are not to nice to you man, we should kick them or some thing. Any way I agree with this backing up of the important stuff we are here all to often in this thread now. But these people that are blaming the fact that Goggle is in BETA is absurd GMail has been in BETA for a very long time and there are good reasons for it. Being that most of you read Digg you should know this as there was a Blog posted a bit ago about that fact. Now you all who are harping on this poor guy should get off your high horse grow up and act mature and show some sympathy. Losing important data has happen to all of us at some time. Go complain on a site or thread that is meant for complaining or use the time it takes you to complain and help the guy by sending this link to Google. Any way Bob sounds like there is a little hope for you yet good luck and lets hope that on top of you getting your data back these people stop spamming here saying your dumb or stuff.

Josh Teague [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Why does everyone feel the need to say "shame on you" to this poor guy? Get over your ego, people, and show a little heart. Good grief.

Don [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Listen. You have a right to expect gmail not to do this, but you did not have a backup plan. Your computer, their computer. If you only have your files in one place you will lose the stuff. Have you backed up you contacts from your mobile phone? No? get cracking.

JD [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

I agree with James...You people are being mean to this poor guy. What if you made the same mistake? Would you be so mean? I think that we need to give Bob the kindness that we would want in a similar situation. So he didn't back up his data...I am sure the second some type of solution is found he will back it all up. I have learned this lesson before by not backing up a hard drive. It happens to the best of us. Good luck to Bob!
Remember it's all about sending out the good karma...

Robert [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

I'm sort of stunned by the person who questioned why Bob blogged about this issue in the first place. That is possibly the most reprehensible, ridiculous statement ever to be committed to paper (not literally, obviously, so those of you who feel like pointing out this obvious fallacy can go sit in a cage full of electric porcupines...in the rain).

What's the point of blogging if you can't use it as a personal medium to connect with other people and share your stories, regardless of what they might be about?

Unless, of course, the individual who said that is from China, in which case I really just have to forgive you, since you were probably forced to write that in an effort to spread anti-blogging propaganda.

Don't be stupid.

And sorry, Bob. I think my waning love for Digg has finally bitten the bullet with the ridiculous reactions here, post-Digg. Such a bitter, angry bunch. They make Nurse Ratched look like a Teletubby.

Don [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Hope you get your stuff back though. Get in touch with them. I find google very approachable.

Bob [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Once again, thank you everyone for your overwhelmingly kind words.

I've passed on my details to Phillipp of Google Blogoscoped, who will forward them to Kevin Fox of Google.

Hopefully an amicable solution results. :-)

Zoneman [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Too funny. "Yeah I know I should have had backups."

There's your story right there. Nobody is above the need for backups. If you go without them, don't complain when the inevitable happens.

Sorry for your loss Bob, but that's as far as it goes.

Sorry man [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

As my friend stated (in a separate chat we had a couple of minutes ago), regardless of Google's GMail terms of service they did advertise like never have to delete anything again... so, they might want to deal with this issue.

Good luck Bob and hope your data is back.
Regards to all the good guys trying to help and to the rest of the haters bunch:
"Grow up. Do not preach so much. Disconnect from the Net, and when you reach the age of, say 17 (in 5 years from now), come back and be useful"
Peace.

YuYu: www.peyups.com [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #


Might just be a hiccup. This might be related, something' weird happened to me earlier, while reading through the posts, I came across this link: http://www.google.com/cl2/ and tried to log-in using one of my less-used gmail accounts. I got an error page so I went back to the previous page. Now, I closed my browser, cleared the cache, etc. then tried to login @ http://www.gmail.com. Guess what? That’s right! I also got an error page. I tried closing and opening the browser figuring that it might be resolved by doing so but to no avail. Also tried loging-in to the different google services but also to no avail. Then out of nowhere, I just figured, why not try logging in using my complete gmail email add (username[put at-character here]gmail.com)? Got me back in!!!

Sam Alex [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Though this is bad for Bob, he and everyone else needs to realize Google Mail and all similar mail apps are free and come with no guarantee. If someone needs dependable mail then he/she needs to setup their own server for such tasks. In regards to GMail though, they do offer a NICE POP3 feature to allow any user to copy/move their mail to their personal computer. I do this, and though I use GMail for many things, if my account were ever deleted by accident, given I could recreate it without someone else snagging it, no worries.

So FWIW -

Sam

Erik [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Well I'm a google mail user using it for my personal mail
and am actually kind of surprised from this.
Thanx to Bob's suffering I have now set up a cronjob using
getmail (http://pyropus.ca/software/getmail/) to backup
my mail. Beta or not, gmail should have their own backup in place tho.

C [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

Bob, I wish you good luck and hope you get your mail back! Don't listen to the children here that only are here to feed their egos with insults.

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

Well, to those who are asking or suspecting something: we don't know if Bob is really Bob or if Bob is lying about what happened to his email account. I do know Bob's IP, and he's consistently posting with the same location from a specific place. The only name you know is true here is my own (try it: you can't take this nickname), so you know that this post is from me. And indeed, Kevin Fox replied to me telling me what he's told here, and indeed, Bob replied to me with the requested info which I passed on to Kevin.

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

I have some new information that makes Bob's story seem unlikely. I still cannot completely validate or falsify it though. For example, I've been told Gmails do not bounce, like Bob said, and also that there's likely no such message as "There are no accounts in our system with the E-mail address usermame[put at-character here]gmail.com which you entered" (both things spammers could abuse as they could find out which Gmail addresses exist).

Jamie [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

The irony of someone linking to a Daniel Brandt web site in this thread is lost to most Digg visitors I suspect :)

kettu [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

When you send mail from a gmail account to a non existent gmail account you do get a bounce message.

/pd [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

the actual err msg that gmail returns is

"This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification
Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:"

Krishnamoorthy Karthikeyan [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

There is one more person complaining about not being able to login to gmail for teh past 24hrs:
http://manadhinthedal.blogspot.com/2006/03/gmail.html

It's time for me to backup some important mails.

what.a.thread [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

been reading all these comments (ok, not all... there were repititive bashing posts i didn't bother to read). anyways, i hope this bob guy gets his e-mail (if it's his), and i'd like to thank /pd for entertaining me with bad grammar.

GO BOB!

Jesse [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

fishy

Tim Anderson [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Philipp

Actually you can get the message:

There are no accounts in our system with the E-mail address .... which you entered.

I just tried the reset password feature with a dud email address and got exactly that.

Tim

Blr [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

Hey Bob,

I'm guessing here but, it's very likely that your files on Gmail were on separate disks or even separate servers.

So a complete account deletion would have to be deliberated and not a bug or an accident.

You said you Gmail was fine while on your Work. So I was wondering if you are used to erase your cookie files upon logoff. Or at least hit the logoff link on gmail.

Maybe someone used your computer after you left work, and your browser was already authenticated with Gmail. So, this mean person just deleted your account...

BTW: I don't like the word impossible, but it would almost describe the possibility of google staff look for and restore your files.

You will get over it. Be strong...

Henrique Cintra [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

The best way to backup GMail data is to use a POP3 client (in a USB key, as someone said) and get all GMail mail, keeping the mail on the server.

I hope you can get your files back.

Tony [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Tip for all those using GMAIL for importamt emails.

Its in Beta so expect a bugs to happen and yes even Google gets it wrong.

If you do use GMAIL you should use the POP3 feature so you can download the important emails onto your hard drive.

Even better, pay for a service that will support your needs instead of being cheap and expecting the best of service. (not directing at you Bob).

To be honest you have lost this account and emails forever unless it pops up without them telling you.

Marinor [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

It's a good thing i use the POP3 with gmail and download all my messages, of course gmail is my secondary mail account. Its also the only one i can access at work so hey if that goes down just i'm stuck with my home and work address and no wait to communicate between them over an internet based one.

But Bob I hope things work out for you, and like many others have said i would recommend using a POP3 account from now on, or continue with Gmail and use the POP3 service they have.

I'm pulling for you buddy.

dennis [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Google is a 100 billion dollar company with the largest server farm in history, and GMail has a solid revenue model. Google promotes GMail as a replacement of desktop email, and offers it without charge in exchange for you allowing your emails to be read by Google bots so they can serve targetted advertising to you. Google has been in the news lately for their plans to extend this server-side storage model to all sorts of other data. If they expect this type of business to be successful, they'd better make sure their customers' data is really doggone secure.

Rachel [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Bob, the exact same thing happened to me. I was completely crushed, and completely abandoned by Google customer support though I emailed at least 15 times and supplied all relevant data.

My account was simply deleted. It was frustrating and I still have no idea how it happened. If you troll support forums a little, you can find instances of this happening sporadically.

Anyway, I have given up hope of recovering the invaluable contacts, info, and files that I stored on my Gmail account. Google has let me down forever .... : (

Let me know if you have any success or get a helpful contact at Google about this? thanks

Blr [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

For you guys spreading backup as if it was the ultimate salvation, and complaining about Beta products.

The only diference between a Beta and Stable is that Beta still is in development.

So when Micro$oft says it has an stable product, they are just telling you that no more features or functionality will be implemented.

And remember that Gmail is free, but it make a lot of money to google, so they have the same responsability as everybody else. And they know it.

Techie [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Gmail is a _product_ and so I am sure has back ups, but I wonder if it is justified for them to restore the account for someone who accidentally (or should I say foolishly) either deleted his account or left a computer unlocked with his account signed in for someone else to do the honors for him.

Gman [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

wow! I to also use Gmail as my primary with all email being forward to it. Now after reading this I got to rethink all this and back up my account.

I have now set up another 2 Gmail account that gets a copy from the primary Gmail account and one of the Gmail backup account forwards a copy to a Hotmail and Yahoo's account, plus I have also set up a pop which I run every couple of hours using with Thunderbird, inaddition to all this I download a copy of the email to a UBS flash drive.

Hopefully all this redundancy help me avoid the problem you experienced.

Blr [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #


Gman: You forgot to print it in a platinum disc hermeticaly sealed and sent to a distant galaxy.

Just in case earth disapears...

me [PersonRank 8]

18 years ago #

Similar (only much more frightening) story has been reported on this site half a year ago: http://blogoscoped.com/forum/10009.html

John Smith [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

This happened to me too. All the photos of my 1 month year old baby were in gmail, and now they are forever gone. :(

Brian [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

I would like to thank Bob for sharing his story. I would also like to congratulate him on the hi road he has taken towards such "look down their nose condescending intellectuals" who I am sure have never had a mental lapse in lives, although I am sure not having to deal with things like a social calendar, friends or girls clears them up to remain more focused than the rest of the world. Their condescending holier than thou form of impotent commentary not only speaks to a societal diarrhea that no form of Pepto can cure, but is speaks to a misdirected sense of entitlement to comment on others mistakes with an air of perfection that could only be achieved through a sever course of dillusionary self justification and, most likely, several blows to the head.

Dominoes [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

ALWAYS BACKUP! That's what I have learnt from this case.

forward,pop3... ...,whatever! ALWAYS BACKUP!

Good luck!

interesting [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

<blockquote>My account was deleted too. When I contacted Google they said that it was due to the illegal photographs that I was trying to store in my Gmail account. </blockquote>

[put at-character here]Harold Jamieson
If this is really true, this is very interesting, did they also read your mail?

ryan [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

dUdE u g07 h4X0R3d!

What service pack of Windows are you running? What kind of firewalls are you running? Whats your admin password?

Sam Davyson [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

To everyone who is saying:

"it is in Beta you silly man why on Earth are you using it for important emails"

Well just about all of Googles products are Beta. Flickr is Beta for heavens sake. Beta just doesn't mean unusable anymore. I think (and still think) Gmail is the best webmail service available be it in Beta or not.

Squelly [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

I'm getting the server error now too.

http://squelly.wordpress.com/2006/03/08/oh-no-google-horror-story-redux/

Kushtrim Xhakli [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

When Google release products from Beta, they only remove the Beta sign and they dont make any changes at all. If you got invited to use Gmail, you choose your own username, your own password and you click into Service Agreement which in this case Bob didn't violated they have to keep the responsibility for maintaining that account.

If you login as "demo" / "demo" they can delete that account, not if you use regurarly your Gmail and you put personal information when u register. I support Bob

sql [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

wow ... Hope you get those files back Bob :)

user where clue > 0 [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

perhaps you had the presentation where they "accidentally" released guidance so they felt they had to deal with you as an object lesson

CapeFearOyster [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

"Beta" is no excuse for this – if indeed it is Google's fault. Let's face it, "beta" has come to mean very little these days. If a service (free or not) is offered to millions of users for a couple of years and they are undeniably encouraged to use it "and never delete anything," it is beta in name only.

Anyone looking to let Google off the hook by crying "Beta" must be on their way through law school to be an ambulance chaser. Regardless of any EULA or beta designation, there are still certain responsibilities on Google's part once it begins to shoulder a burden that it advertises it wishes to shoulder, and encourages people to use the advertised service.

Even more, Gmail is a major underpinning of Google's business model. They would be fools themselves to hide behind a two year-old beta designation in such a case as this. If Google wishes to be seen as we think, and we are not to be considered fools, then Google should go out of its way to fix this problem ASAP.

And finally, we all know the data is there. Google admits as much itself in documents and press releases. Is that not why many of us have privacy concerns about Google? They do not throw anything away. If they did, why would the government wish to see only week-old, or even month-old, records? Those files will be around forever. Now, how about Google giving Bob his files back?

Yes Google, this is a test. Let's hope you have good sense enough to pass it. (But all that said, I am certainly glad that I use Gmail's forwarding and POP features to keep a copy of everything in at least one other location.)

chr0naut [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

I would think it in Google's best interest to ensure you had NOT lost data. What would it say about GDrive reliability?

Martijn [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

It seems that Gmail is completely down at the moment (at least for me down in France)

CHD [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

Completely down for me in California at the moment too.

Matt [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

I am getting the same server is down message but the funny thing is I can access it via outlook express. I guess just the web access is down. Weird

Si [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

Here in the UK too. Probably buckling the strain of everyone backing up their inbox via POP!

CHD [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

That's a good point. I plan on doing the same as soon as I get home from work. (It's 4:30pm here).

Spec8472 [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Also getting this not sure location is dependant.
Funny thing is, I've got another browser window open which works somewhat at the moment (chat, mail in the inbox)

california [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

gmail is falling apart.

Joe L. [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

on no............
I am seeing the same error now too as Bob did and as Squelly is now seeing.....
I am most certainly not doing anything wrong or illegal with my account, and I can tell it is effecting my account specifically right now.

I was using Gmail just fine in Camino on a Mac. Just finished writing a mail, hit Send and get the dreaded javascript "could not contact google, please try again in a few seconds". Kept trying, same message, same with "Save Draft". Copy the email out into a text editor, try to refresh Gmail home page, same JS error. Sign out, try to sign in again, and I see the "Server Error" page. Now just going to Gmail.com in Camino gives that error without even trying to sign in.

NEXT, I opened Safari, log into my WIFE's account – works great. Sign out of her account, try to sign back into my account (in Safari) and get the "Server Error". Go to Gmail.com in Safari, and get "server error" – won't even let me attempt to sign into any account.
Just did the "Reset Safari" which clears cache, history, cookies, etc and I'm not able to re-sign into my wife's account. But as soon as I attempt to use my name I get the Error and gmail.com reverts to the Server Error again.

Crap. this is not good. I find it almost impossible my account was hacked. I use a very long password that I've never used for any other account and never told anyone. What's worse, I was signed in all day, and this seemingly occured in the span of about 5 minutes after I opened an email and started a reply.
I see Phillip has determined that the original Bob story may or may not be a fake. I can assure anyone reading this that what's happening to my account right now is most certainly not fake. I can provide anyone interested who may be able to help with my account name and several places I've publically published my name. My other Google Services seem to be working (personalized home page, search history), but i'm definately locked out of Gmail....

G. [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

Getting the same "Server Is Down" message on one of my Gmail accounts right now. I can still use GTalk and see that I have new messages via the notifier...

beta_sucks [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

same here in edmonton ...

Neil [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

same here in the us

Chicago [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

Getting server is down message here, fortunatley i backed up early today after reading this post

Joe L [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

glad to see others are having the same problem (well, I'm not GLAD you're having the problem, but you know what I mean).
Actually, it looks like POP access is still working. I just opened up Mail for the first time in 2 months, and I have a couple thousand emails coming down right now, but still no web access

G. [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

Even though this sucks and is a little scary, I highly DOUBT we can all be getting our accounts permenantly hosed...

Neil [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

my google home page is working though

Measure [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

I'm getting a server error as well. I've heard that our emails are stored on at least three hard drives apiece, for triple redundancy, so I'd be surprised if all data was lost.

But It sucks to have one of my major email accounts unavailable.

Chicago [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

Note: I can still pull my message off via POp through outlook.

Cristian [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

Same here, in Michigan ... cannot log using the web interface but can see messages coming via the notifications in Google Talk.

will [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Spain gone too

CHD [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

Measure, where did you hear that our emails are stored on at least three hard drives? That would be great if it is true, I just hadn't heard that before.

G. [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

Wouldn't it be great if Gmail was just temporarily down for some of us so they could roll out some new features (e.g. CL2)?

Doubt that's happening...

Measure [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

I heard the triple redundancy thing awhile back in an article about the challenges involved in setting up webmail. Triple redundancy was discussed as necessary to prevent loss of data in routine hard drive crashes.

I don't remember now if the article was specifically about Google or web services in general.

ChessPlayer [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

France is down too. Cannot log in.

"Server Error

We're sorry, but Gmail is temporarily unavailable. We're currently working to fix the problem – please try logging in to your account in a few minutes."

Joe L [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

Didn't mention earlier, but I'm in Germany, so same problems here. I'm locked out of my account, but I can log into my wife's (only after resetting the browser though).

I think all data that Google stores is at least triple redundancy. They have several major data centers that are practically mirrors of each other, I think. Helps with load balancing and sending results from the closest location and stuff. It's impossible to imagine to me that our Gmail data is not backed up/mirrored on at least 3, if not half a dozen servers.

Josue R. [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

I can confirm the "unavailability" of Gmail too, i'm in the US – Florida.

Hey guys & girls, dont worry yet, i'm sure we'll get our emails back from Gmail. Atleast some of us can access it via POP.

Maybe, just maybe.... call me crazy here.... but since the leak of Google Calendar, Google will take the initiative to update Gmail & release Google Calendar altogether tonite.... like i said i may be crazy but hey one can only hope, can't you?

Chicago [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

This sucks for me, since I just recently got the "gbuy" through google base and it all goes through gmail. So I wonder if that'll be affected to.

Jt [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

if this was April 1st i would say its a bad april fools joke, i got the same problem

Kose [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

I get the same error... : (
This is terrible...

G. [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

The only alarming thing about this, is that the guy "Bob" who originally posted this problem has been unable to access his Gmail for over 2 weeks. He's writing all about it on Google Groups here:
http://groups.google.com/group/Gmail-Users/browse_thread/thread/555998d63356d7bd

Measure [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

My gmail is back up!

G. [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

Me too. Woohoo.

ragggan [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

My account is working now.... Texas

Felipe [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

It is working in Brazil too...

Kose [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

It works!!!
yeah!

Jt [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

WOOT! FIXED scared me for a sec

Michael [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

UK here, and Gmail currently fine although all of google was down for me Tuesday night.

Steve Jobs [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

It says my account is deleted now!

James [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

I am getting a 502 server error now... But I can log on to my account and Google personal just can't get in to GMail.

Matt [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Back for me too

Bob [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

G: That person posting on Google Groups is NOT me. The only place I'm consistently posting about this issue is here on Google Blogoscoped.

Philipp said: "I have some new information that makes Bob's story seem unlikely. I still cannot completely validate or falsify it though. For example, I've been told Gmails do not bounce, like Bob said, and also that there's likely no such message as "There are no accounts in our system with the E-mail address usermame[put at-character here]gmail.com which you entered" (both things spammers could abuse as they could find out which Gmail addresses exist)."

Phillipp: I strongly urge you to review your facts. As pointed out by /pd, emails sent to invalid GMail accounts DO BOUNCE. /pd even pasted the exact error you get, which is similar to the one I received.

In addition, I invite you to attempt to recover the password of an invalid username. You will be presented with an error just like I described above.

There is no reason why I would want to tarnish Google's image.

I still am unable to access my GMail account.

joann [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

One should *never*, can I repeat *never* use webmail for their main email. To do so is simply taking your life into your own hands. You've learned a harsh lesson.

I apologize and I don't mean to be rude, but you have noone to blame but yourself. It's one thing using gmail for something that isn't important, but if you want to keep it, if it's "crucial", you need to have an account that downloads to your machine locally using netscape, thunderbird or outlook. At least then, you can copy the mail to a cd or second harddrive. and have it.

Phil defer [PersonRank 3]

18 years ago #

Just use eg thunderbird and pop.gmail.com:995 you won't loose your mails :)

Bob [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

hmm...

anonymoustache [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

After reading all of this I decided to download thunderbird and grab all my mail but it seems to be only downloading 390 emails and there are actually 3723 (1475mb) in my account. Anyone know how to force thunderbird (or any other client) to get every single message?

G. [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

Sorry Bob, didn't realize the guy on Google Groups wasn't you. I really hope you are able to get your account working again, cause I know how precious they are. Sorry bro.

Allen Day [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

This happened to me about a year ago. I did eventually manage to get in contact with support. It took me two months to get to the bottom of it, each correspondence taking at least 1-2 weeks for a response. The final conclusion, after providing personal details, information on mail in the account, and even the person who invited me and who I invited – was that it was indeed my account but "for my protection" it would remain closed.

Perhaps I'm a fool, but I promptly opened a new account and to this day trust them with my data. I'm still a bit upset and wary – I use pop3 to download my mailbase each week just in case. . . but still useing.

Bob [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

I've tried registering my GMail account again (with the same username), but was told that the username is not available.

I am completely bewildered as to how and/all of this could have happened.

Kevin, any word on my account?

Philipp has my alternate email, as does Google. I'm *very* anxiously waiting for a response.

ChanKaiShi [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

After reading this story I thought about downloading all data to my Outlook for backup using POP3 but now Gmail do not do any forwarding or POP access

http://img366.imageshack.us/img366/2120/clipboard014we.jpg

Even after downloading all emails to Outlook I'm not sure how to add them back to Gmail once they will wipe out your emails. I do have mine Outlook2Gmail program http://www.gregandtania.com/outlook2gmail to do something like that but this is not very trivial for average Gmail user I would assume

Bob [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

I've just tried to call Kevin Fox at his office at Google, but as to be expected, he was not at his desk (It's ~1830h there in California).

Kevin, if you'd like, please email me your contact number and we can discuss this over the phone.

Allen Day [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

I opened a new account altogether. To this day my user name is "not available".

anonymoustache [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

[put at-character here] ChanKaiShi

Hmmm, that image you linked to is a worry. Can't imagine why you're getting that "forwarding disabled" message. All of my forwarding is still working. As for pop, I hope you've tried clicking the "Forwarding and POP" button, that's where you setup POP...

Cougar [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

Forwarding is disabled on my account as well. The 'forwarding and pop' tab is empty and each of my filters have a red 'forwarding is disabled' message.

Bob [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Attempts to contact Stephanie Hannon and Keith Coleman (both of which are Gmail product managers at least according to the Google Blog) have failed.

Cougar [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

It seems to be working again now.

anonymoustache [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

Crud. I just logged in to one of my other gmail accounts to check that all the forwarding I'd setup was still there, and it is, but I noticed some emails in there that hadn't actually been forwarded. Not good.

Eric Wilson [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

I hate to 1. Doubt it. It is possible this guy is lying. We can't discount that completely.
2. One in a million accounts failed isn't too bad. Hopefully Google will be able to eventually restore it.

3. After reading posts, I need to find out who invited me just in case. I got my invite like June or July 04 from one of those online request sites. Spent hours requesting.

Eric Wilson

Bob [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Eric Wilson: I have absolutely NO reason to lie.

Like I said, I invite any Google representative to investigate my case and validate my claims.

high sage [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

I think gmail's recently had *quite* a bit of downed service! My wife in california's account was unavailabe with the same error you originally got, and mine was as well today, for well over 2 hours, too.
I have 3 google accounts, that forward all emails to the other two, so I have built in 'redundancy' and archiving in this way.
I use gmail for one reason.... I don't have to delete things, and i don't have to store a gazillion messages on my local box. I'm 4x more efficient in both respects.

Joe L [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

"it seems to be only downloading 390 emails and there are actually 3723 (1475mb) in my account."

Just keep hitting "Get Mail". They seem to send it in batches of a few hundred.

anonymoustache [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

Thanks Joe L, that's what I did and it does seem to be working.

The other thing that concerns me is that a lot of the important stuff in my gmail account is actually in the sent mail rather than the inbox. I don't suppose anybody knows of a way to synchronise with sent mail or even just all mail do they?

I realise this isn't the right spot to be asking these questions but I'm sure there are a lot of gmail nerds looking at this page right now...

Joe L [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

when I download my POP mail, it get's all the Sent folder mail too, but it just dumps it in the inbox. This works good if you use Mail or Thunderbird or whatever in Conversation or Thread view.
But if you want it all seperated, you can just make a client filter/rule – "anything from myaddress[put at-character here]gmail.com, move to Sent folder"

Google Helpdesk [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

Good morning Bob,

Any news yet? :-)

Bob [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

None as yet. I'm in contact with yet another Googler, but at this point of time, I haven't received any news with regards to my account. Needless to say, I am still unable to login.

[Fake Larry Page] [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

I and Sergey are watching with keen interest. Some of those b*itches on Digg buried the story there, but many of us are still watching to be sure that GSupport comes through and does the right thing.

cherub325 [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Seriously concerned...... Good Luk Bob!

James [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Good day again Bob. Sorry to hear that you still have not had you issue resolved. If you read earlyer, I too had a scare. But all is well about 30 minutes later it was working again.
Well I hope that you do get this resolved. If there is any thing you would like me, or any of us here that care, to do to help out, let us know.
When I wake up, I will check in and see if this has been resolved. I hope it is. If not though I will talk to some of my people and see if we can find out any more information. Good night and good luck.

Bob [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Thank you for your words of support and offer of assistance James. Where do you work at, by the way?

Keffer [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Gmail is in beta ... not a final version. Don't blame them ...

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

> Phillipp: I strongly urge you to review your facts. As pointed
> out by /pd, emails sent to invalid GMail accounts DO
> BOUNCE. /pd even pasted the exact error you get, which
> is similar to the one I received.
>
> In addition, I invite you to attempt to recover the
> password of an invalid username. You will be presented
> with an error just like I described above.

Bob, sorry, I could now validate both cases – the bounce and the error message. Like I said before, I couldn't falsify or validate the info yet, but now I did. You are completely right in your descriptions.

Bob [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Philipp Lenssen: Thanks for confirming my case.

I have yet to hear anything – it's been over 48 hours.

Still harbouring some hopes though.

Bob [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

I just received a reply from Google, and their response was extremely unhelpful:

=============

From : <mail-support[put at-character here]google.com>
Sent : Thursday, March 9, 2006 9:06 PM
To : <snip>
Subject : Re: [#49645415] Account Status

Hello,

Thank you for your report.

We have investigated this issue, but because the results were inconclusive, we're not able to provide further assistance.

Gmail takes the privacy and security of our users very seriously. For this reason, we can't reveal any further information about this account.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused, and thank you for your cooperation.

Sincerely,

The Google Team

=================

Surely I deserve a better response than that?

Ludwik Trammer [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

Oh, what a shame, Google! I think Phillip should add this to the front page.

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

That's bad.

Mikosia [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

Bob, same thing happened to me and several other people I know (12 hours ago) and right now everything's ok!

A friend of mine told me that many Gmail servers just go down yesterday but they are up and running today.

Perhaps, you should try to login once more and tell us what happened.

Bob [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Mikosia: Nope, no change. I've been trying to login all day in hope of a miracle.

Mikosia [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

Ok, something more: Have you recently used or installed Gmail notifier?

Bob [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Mikosia: Nope, I've never installed or used any kind of notifier.

Jeff [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Bob,

Really sorry to read the reply from The Google Team.

The Gmail Information Minister [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Your email is fine. The infidels are saying that it is gone and you need to back it up. Believe me, you need not backup your data. Yahoo! mail forces are comitting suicide at our login screen. Everything is fine, there are no email deletions going on at all. We investigated an email deletion but the results were inconclusive. Trust me!

John Cowan [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

I can't believe how many posters here are jumping up and down about "It's beta, of course Google is not responsible!" or "It's free, of course Google is not responsible!"

The fact is, every product or service that has anything whatever to do with computers comes, in my 30-year experience of the field, with a fearsomely comprehensive legal disclaimer that boils down to "We are not responsible for anything we do, you are responsible for everything you do." Beta or gold, $0 or $1000 or $100,000 – it matters not. I do the selfsame thing for the open source software I write and release.

That being so, we have to fall back on the oldest measure of trust: reputation. And that's something that isn't measured by the presence or absence of magic keywords like "beta" and "free".

/pd [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

Attn Forum users : Please post comments on this thread
http://blogoscoped.com/forum/22775.html

Phillipp, it would be good to lock out the comments here!!

tia

/pd

Christoph Wagner [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

Wow, just read this, I'm really sorry for you bob!
And I really, really hope you get you account including all the mail back.
ATM I'm just backing up all my Mails over pop, just to be sure.

Michael [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Here's a quick tutorial on how to backup your Gmail account using Outlook, just in case anyone needs it. Best of luck to you, Bob.

http://betapundit.blogspot.com/2006/03/how-to-use-outlook-to-backup-your.html

Talou [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Google is beta, yes, but!
Unless they want to gain an awful perception from users and in particular their favorite public (geeks), they will do anything not to generate such bad buzz : strengh of blogs and diggs is too important...

They have to fix this, or it'll make noise!

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

Thread is continued here:
http://blogoscoped.com/forum/22775.html

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