Home smart speakers and Chromecast are two of the most sought-after products from Google. While one provides users with hands-free help around the house from an integrated Google Assistant, the other has subdued the need of a smart TV to a certain level. Everything seemed to working fine until both devices were hit by a worldwide glitch, which rendered them unusable. Google, however, has now fixed the issues and both the products are reportedly working fine.
Users took to Twitter to vent out their anger, only to find other frustrated victims. Google acknowledged that they were aware of an issue affecting some Google Home and Chromecast users and said they were investigating and working on a solution. However, the company did not share the nature of the issue that caused the problem. The @madebyGoogle Twitter account also responded to some customer complaints with apologies, but failed to share info about the nature of the outage and the time it would take for Google to fix the issues. As reported by TechCrunch, Google asked people to remove the plug for two minutes and then reboot the individual devices as well as the WiFi routers.
In the case of Chromecast, users complained that the Chromecast icon disappeared from streaming apps like Netflix and YouTube. Meanwhile, Google Home and Home Mini device owners said that upon spaeking the “Hey Google” wake-up command, the device responded by saying, “there was a glitch, try again in a few seconds” or “sorry, something went wrong, try again in a few seconds.”
Later, Google later said that “the outage was caused by an issue with one of the backend systems that supports Google Home and Chromecast” and said that “the company is working to prevent this from happening in the future.” Within hours, Google issued another statement saying the issue has been resolved.
“We’ve identified a fix for the issue impacting Google Home and Chromecast users and it will be automatically rolled out over the next 6 hours. If you would like an immediate fix please follow the directions to reboot your device. If you’re still experiencing an issue after rebooting, contact us at Google Home Support. We are really sorry for the inconvenience and are taking steps to prevent this issue from happening in the future,” the company said.