An automatic software update on Google platform unintentionally shut down the entire system leading to momentary hysteria in some of their major markets globally. The tech giant has tendered an apology to its users for the major international outage on Tuesday.

A spokesperson for the company said the team had “worked quickly” to address the fault and services were back running as normal.

“We’re aware of a software update issue that occurred late this afternoon Pacific Time and briefly affected availability of Google search and Maps,” they said.

“We apologise for the inconvenience. We worked to quickly address the issue and our services are now back online.”

The outage was quickly reported by technology platforms.

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The realtime online platform Downdetector reported users had registered problems with Google explorer, the world’s dominant search engine from 2.12am BST (9.12pm EST, 11.12AM AEST.As of 11.38AM, there had been 4,113 confirmed reports of Google outages.

Users said sister platforms Gmail, Google maps and Google images were also experiencing problems. Both rely on Google’s search engine to operate.

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Network intelligence company ThousandEyes Inc reported Google outages were affecting at least 1,338 servers globally across more than 40 countries including the United States, Australia, South Africa, Kenya, Israel, parts of South America, Europe and Asia including China and Japan.

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry