Google Meet outage leaves many unable to join calls; netizens ask ‘is corporate world fine?’

Google Meet, the tech giant’s prominent video-calling app, created trouble for many as thousands of users were unable to join meetings on Wednesday. According to Downdetector, over 981 people had faced issues joining meetings by 11:49 am in India. Several users rushed to social media to express their frustration, while some corporate employees reacted with amusement.

One user wrote on X, “google meet crashed before my will to work did”. Another posted, “Google meet is down for everyone in my org but not for me.”

A third user wrote, “Google meet is down!! Why every big tech is going down this month?”

“Can't open google meet. i've never been more free,” wrote one user, while another posted, “What happened to the Google meet and chat???”

“Google meet is down ?.....I can join the meet but my rest of the team is facing issues,” an X user posted.

What problems are users facing?

Users reported being unable to access their meetings, often getting stuck on blank screens or continuous loading wheels. While some could click “join now”, the page failed to progress, and many couldn’t get past the spinning icon at all, according to posts on social media.

Is there a way to join calls?

A few users said that switching to Safari or using the Google Meet mobile app allowed them to join briefly, though the workaround wasn’t reliable. For many others, the outage made it impossible to connect during critical work calls, they noted.

Recent tech outages

This incident follows a major outage last week at web-infrastructure firm Cloudflare, which disrupted several platforms, including X, Canva and ChatGPT.

Although the issue was eventually fixed, Cloudflare’s chief technology officer, Dane Knecht, acknowledged the lapse, stating that they “failed” their customers “and the broader Internet when a problem in Cloudflare network impacted large amounts of traffic that rely on us".