Google Cloud's Massive API Outage: A Null Pointer Exception's Ripple Effect

2025-06-14

On June 12th, Google Cloud and Google Workspace products suffered a widespread outage due to a surge of 503 errors in external API requests. The root cause was a new feature in the Service Control system lacking proper error handling and feature flag protection, leading to a null pointer exception that triggered a cascading failure. A policy change containing invalid fields activated this flaw, resulting in a global service disruption. Google swiftly mitigated the issue, but some regions (like us-central-1) experienced prolonged recovery due to infrastructure overload. The incident highlighted issues in Google's error handling, feature flag usage, system architecture modularity, and monitoring and communication, prompting a commitment to implement comprehensive improvements to prevent recurrence.

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Google Cloud Service Status: Comprehensive Monitoring

2025-06-12

Google Cloud Platform has released a real-time status monitoring page for all its services. The page lists the operational status of various services, ranging from Compute Engine to AI Platform. Users can easily check the availability of services across various regions and multi-regions. Contact support if you encounter an issue not listed here. FAQs regarding service status information and interpretation are also available.

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