Is Google Calendar down?

It looks like a global problem

Google Calendar appears to be down for TechRadar's UK staff, flitting in and out of service. We have word that the service is experiencing issues worldwide, from contacts in India and Spain too.

Reported cases are rising

Downdetector is reporting a surge in user-generated reports of Google Calendar issues since 9am GMT (1am PST / 4am EST). Only 16 reports in the view so far, but 0-16 in the space of 20 minutes shows something is picking up.

Users are taking to social media

People are cottoning on to the service being down, though the official Google Calendar Twitter account has yet to post anything about the issues.

Be free, workers!

Some are taking the outage on a lighter note, such as Twitter user @jerelleaj, who celebrates that they must "have nothing planned for today". Performance review? What performance review?

Partial functionality?

You may find that you can enter the Google Calendar, and only see a few events out of your usually-packed schedule. I'm able to see my own events, and things I've confirmed attendance to – stored locally – but my work calendar of everything else going on in the company is absent. Sorry boss.

I was able to use a Google Calendar event to jump into a Google Meet video call, so you may be able to briefly gain access for an important meeting if you keep trying. We tend to switch between half-filled screen and full-on error message every time we refresh the page, though.

Reports continue to pour in

Downdetector is now reporting a whopping 2,960 issues – and the real number is likely to be far beyond that, given that the site relies on user-generated complaints.

Users commenting on the website say that Calendar is "down for Romania as well", "Not working in Czech Republic", "Unable to sync in India", and "Down in Denmark." France and Greece appear to be affected too – is anyone left out?

A Google in denial

No official word from Google yet, and the Google Workspace Status Dashboard shows Google Calendar as working perfectly fine. Read the room, Google.

Mobile users appear to be fine

Some light recon shows that the Google Calendar issue is limited so far to those on desktop, using either MacOS or Windows. Anyone trying to access Calendar on their mobile app, for either Android or iOS, should be fine – though do drop us an email if you're experiencing any related issues not covered here.

Is Google Calendar live again?

Some of us are seeing our Google Calendar functionality restored in full, so we're very hesitantly celebrating – but others are continuing to have issues. Some of our writers are being asked by Google to complete a CAPTCHA as a security measure too – but still not being able to access Calendar once they've done so.

It looks like a fix may be in the midst of being pushed through, but we're not entirely out of the woods yet.

What does the 500 error code mean?

What is that ominous 500 on your computer screen? As the support site for Wix tells us, "The error code 500 is a general response from the server that something has gone wrong. The problem could have happened when the server requested resources, or it could be an issue with outdated or corrupted cache and cookies."

Given the problem is so widespread, it seems like a server issue, so there's little affected users can do but wait.

Is Google responding to the issues?

It's been almost an hour since users started reporting issues, but no official word from Google, or acknowledgement of "Service Disruption" on its Status Dashboard. We're sure work is happening behind the scenes to address the issue, though.

Is it over?

It's been quite the ride, but regular Google Calendar functionality appears to have returned. Some TechRadar writers are reporting the service is still working "slowly", but you should be able to use, view, create and RSVP to events as before through the Google Calendar browser app. We're seeing user reports on Downdetector steadily decreasing after an initial spike too.