So for some reason today at about 12:35 PM my Google Account was disabled. When I try to login I get the following error:

"Sorry, your account has been disabled. For more information about Google Accounts, please consult our Help Center at http://www.google.com/support/accounts/ ."

What is odd about the situation is that, one of my computers has a cookie so that my Google Personalized homepage is still running on one of my computers and I can click through the multiple tabs, but when I try to log in to check my email it gives me that error again.

I asked other people I know that use Google Accounts and so far one of them said their account also was disabled.

Anyone else experiencing this problem?

I'm just wondering if with possibly big changes in GMail, new labels, AIM integration, etc. something was broken in the migration process.

Oh how frustrating this is.

I have blogs/email associate with the google account...what if my google account has been disabled? Scarry....

Yeah, I think in the future (if my account isn't restored) I am either not going to use GMail and run my own mail server or create a filter to forward all mail to another secondary location any time I am sent an email.

What's the worst is that I have at least 5 email addresses that forward into my Gmail account, so I now have to dig up the login information for the others and change all the settings.

Try this support post from Google:
http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=61805

The biggest feature they lack is the ability to get a dump of your data.

I would also pay quite a lot of money per year to get a premium account that ensures that it will not get cancelled, suspended or has a GOOD option to restore access with getting phone support or whatever.

"Try this support post from Google:
mail.google.com/support/bin/an ... "

I've already contacted them through the form. I just feel like its gonna take a week or two to get a response and I can't be without my account that long.

Very frustrating...

Same thing happened to me today 12/5/07.. identical to what you describe. Personalized home page loads but no further account logins.

My account was disabled tonight too for no reason!

My Account has been disabled too.... Really do not know for what reason. I have given this email id to all my colleagues and have updated the same in all the job sites.... Really do not know what Google is doing. Is there any way this issue can be resolved.

Crap! I've been using gmail since 04, and I just convinved my wife to stop using outlook and start using gmail this weekend. With IMAP suuport I was easily able to get her old email into gmail and last night BOOM, "Sorry, your account has been disabled." What the freak is going on!

one thing. Save the first few emails you sent and received on your gmail account. They seem to like this info when restoring accounts.

This is seriously not good – gmails reputation is taking a huge hit for this...

wait for 24 hours, you'll be fine then
i guess your IMAP settings are a lil bit too aggressive

Account disable happens if you use pop3 or imap access more agressive than a given value. I was once disabled for the same reason, support said it's because of the heavy pop3/imap requests, like a DoS attack and google servers do automatically disable those accounts causing this traffic. Wait, after 24-72 hours it'll be back.

any ideas how to contact google- I've spent hours developing the webpages and telling people about it! please help!

<<In most cases, accounts are disabled because of a perceived violation of either the Google Terms of Service or product-specific Terms of Service.

Google reserves the right to:

   * Suspend a Google Account from using a particular service or the entire Google Accounts system if the Terms of Service or product-specific policies are violated.
   * Terminate your account at any time, for any reason, with or without notice.

If your Google Account has been disabled, please review the relevant Terms of Service before attempting to create another account. For specific product guidelines, please visit the homepage of each Google service you're interested in for a link to its Terms of Service.>>

http://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=40695

Maybe they should also include what exactly you did.

Try your luck by logging into Gmail mobile for a smartphone.

I think it is time they increase the threshold that they consider are potential DoS attacks. It would be a disaster for me (and many I believe) if one day in the morning you wake up and found that your Gmail account is 'suspended'.

Imagine you want to deliver a presentation using Google Docs and while you log in in front of the audience and they are amazed that Google can actually host your documents and access it online, then it says:

"Sorry, your account has been disabled. For more information about Google Accounts, please consult our Help Center at google.com/support/accounts/ ."

How embarrassing. I would agree with Ionut that clear reasons for 'suspension' or banning is given to the user at least they know what is going on. Just like AdSense would tell you they banned your account because they found invalid clicks in your account (though they don't tell you when, where, how), they still tell you *why*.

We've talked about this before under the heading of 'what do you do if you get locked out of your account?'. It's the same problem. There's no way to get a response / resolution to Google account problems in a reasonable period of time.

Stories of people getting accounts suspended without explanation or a course for resolution makes me very worried. I'm thinking it would be wise to switch my 'main' GMail account to a Google hosted domain – at least that way I can pay for 'premier' and get some real support if the sh*t hits the fan. Has anyone here actually tried getting support for GAfyD? Is this a realistic solution?

Joseph

How do I do that?

Maybe this is it:
"Please note that uploading an excessive number of messages to your Gmail account via IMAP may lead to being temporarily locked out of your account. If this happens to you, please be aware that these lockouts are temporary and you should be able to re-access your account shortly."

https://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=81312&topic=12815

Open a Hotmail Live account and forward al the e-mail by default to yout Live account. Now you have proof and backups :)

Yes, I tried GAfyD premium support, got a response after ~12 hours.

I know some of you may laugh at this question but has anyone ever tried phoning Google for help with this?

Right out of the blue while sending a email to a mailing list I'm a member of my account was disabled ([email address]). Aside from personal family/school emails the only thing I use my email account for is posting to some mac and linux mailing lists so I can't possibly imagine why Google would want to disable my account. I have a sent a inquiry to google regarding this event and unless I here back from google (not holding my breath) I guess I'll just have to chalk this up to a glitch in the gmail beta program. However I also wonder if one or more accounts were causing some form of trouble on the server I was on that triggered a mass disabling of accounts on the server the account was on as such I would like to know, has anyone else's account been disabled tonight? Very weird...

Best Regards,

John Musbach

John

That Diggs link doesn't work

My email account and gpc website have both been disabled. I use the email and the website for my children's elementary school PTA. This is ridiculous!!! I have nothing on my website or in my emails that violates their TOS!!! No pictures! No identifying information! NOTHING!

Yet if you go to my website it displays a message which implies we've done something sinister: "This site has been disabled for violations of our Program Policies. If you feel this disabling was in error, please visit our contact page to let us know. Contact Us"

Google has not responded to emails. I'm at a loss.

Jasper Wammes wrote: "Open a Hotmail Live account and forward al the e-mail by default to yout Live account. Now you have proof and backups :)"

Well, if I had access to the emails I would be all set. I can't log into my gmail account. I can't forward emails from my gmail account. I can't download emails to my Outlook from my gmail account.

It's like it doesn't exist.

Nice try, though. I think I'll open a Yahoo! account and abandon gmail all together. I've already registered a new domain for my website. I'm a programmer, I don't need gpc to build a website.

The Google idiots don't realize that with NO COMMUNICATION WHATSOEVER, people are going to abandon them.

B'bye Google.

I'm quite scarred, now I REALLY want a backup of my mail.

"Yes, I tried GAfyD premium support, got a response after ~12 hours"

Yeah, that's not reassuring.

The number one issue Google need to deal with if they want people to acutally rely on GMail and other Google apps is support. 12hrs for a response is worse than my ISP and I consider my ISP support to be pretty bad.

I've said it before but it bears repeating, we need a way of calling Google, identifying ourselves as us (like you do with your bank) and getting answers / resolutions to account problems. Without that how is anyone going to trust the business to a Google account?

I've been offline for 2 days traveling away from the internet (yes, places still exist where it's difficult to log in). I got back to town this morning and found that my gmail account had been disabled. I don't do anything exotic at all with my gmail account, just a few regular e-mails/day. Worse, I'm in the middle of a business trip to South Africa (I live in the US) and a lot of my contact info is in my gmail mailbox. Yikes. I can't believe this is happening...

IFYI just called. they say they are aware of the problem and they are addressing it-

Judging by the Google Groups posts this looks pretty widespread today, seems to be mainly new accounts.

Big thread here:
http://groups.google.com/group/Gmail-Problem-solving/browse_thread/thread/530927a08717557d/42f90d55ac9e6ff9#42f90d55ac9e6ff9

I've had my gmail account locked down before. It was VERY annoying. Since then I've set Gmail to autoforward all mail to a separate yahoo account.

screenshot:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thelastminute/465229700/

This happened to my friend today after I got him to switch over to gmail in the last few days. I told him how reliable the service was and that I have had it for years. And then the pull this, I look like a jackass.

This is about GMail but off the current disabled accounts topic...

I don't know if it is something I did but my favicon in GMail is the normal red envelop with a yellow windows update shield with exclamation mark in the bottom right corner when I'm logged in. It is the Google G favicon with the same update thing in the bottom right corner when logged out.

Anyone know anything about this? They in the middle of an update perhaps?

how could it be based on frequency of pop3 requests? blackberry's BIS setup has a default one-click for gmail – which means it's logging in and checking about every 20 minutes 24 hours a day...

To those whose account was disabled, what is your location, operating system, browser?

According to the last posts in the thread I posted above there are two bits of information:

1) Phoning Google now tells you 'the Gmail team are aware of this issue and are working to resolve it.'
2) A bunch of people who were disabled last night are back online. So try again and let us know how it goes!

I have had my account disabled since last night and have not heard anything from Google. I don't use any of these fancy options, just read my emails on the web interface.

Out of fairness, how good is Yahoo or Hotmail/Live mail support? I mean, we're here slamming GMail (and they deserve most of it), but there should be a fair comparison.

Anybody using other FREE webmail services, how is their support? Better? Worse? About the same? We need information to make informed decisions about who to leave our data with, especially since email accounts are one of the major forms of online identification and data storage.

Philipp
Would this be good enough for a real blog post? Which free web mail product has the best customer service?

i woke up to this problem. i cant get into google docs or google calendar, and my google reader is on-again/off-again.

i contacted google using my work email, and they responded within an hour:

"Hello,

Thank you for your report.

We apologize for any inconvenience you may have experienced. The issue you described should now be resolved. If you continue to experience difficulties, please respond to this message, and we'll investigate further."

unfortunately, even after clearing caches and cookies, using 3 different browsers on 2 different computers, my account is still disabled. i've replied ... did that about 2 hours ago ... but havent received another response, nor is my account working yet.

my gmail account is 3 years old and i've done nothing different with forwarding or querying the account than i've been doing for years. i just have a gmail notifier on my menubar, gmail manager in firefox, and thats it.

> Would this be good enough for a real blog
> post? Which free web mail product has the
> best customer service?

You mean like this? :)
http://blogoscoped.com/support/

Might be interesting to repeat this...

google's competition is trying to hack them

i had some emails returned becuase google had reports of security issues with the ip address, domain was iwon.com and the next day i couldn't log in, used the reset password feature and then i could use gmail

Philipp Lenssen wrote: "To those whose account was disabled, what is your location, operating system, browser?"

Long Island, XP, IE6

I've cleared my cache... still not working! Going on 18 or so hours now.

Okay, I'm back. Everything is restored – gmail, gpc. Phew! That was stressful!

I'm back online too.

Wow...I've been freaking out all day because of all the stuff on my various google services; I just see I'm back 'enabled' again. Whew. Time to do some back ups!

I'm back too – very stressful. what's a good way to back up googlepages other than just in word?

GooglePages provides a sitemap with all the created pages and uploaded files:
http://YOURSITE.googlepages.com/sitemap.xml

Then use the tips from this page http://enarion.net/google/sitemaps/stylesheet/ to convert the xml to html.

Then you can try DownThemAll for Firefox to download all the pages + files.
http://www.downthemall.net/

I think the UI design of Google for preventing Dos attacks is poor. I see that Google considers that "aggressive" usages of IMAP/POP3 look like DoS attacks, assuming the attackers are using stolen accounts.

Apparently the Google engineers were too lazy to think of a comprehensive solution friendly to real users. Google should have come up a solution like this:
1. Upon suspicious DoS attacks, suspend the account involved.
2. When the user log on, prompt the user about the suspension of the account and explain the reasons.
3. Issue the user an authentication challenge to verify the web connection is done by a real human. After the user answers the challenge correctly, restore the account.

These simple steps should make the service more friendly, and resolve the issues quickly, and save a bit human resource of Google.

Do you agree?

Hey, Google, can you hear this?

<<The Google idiots don't realize that with NO COMMUNICATION WHATSOEVER, people are going to abandon them.

B'bye Google.>>

Google has commented (from http://groups.google.com/group/Gmail-Problem-solving/msg/c870f460a29c4f54):
"Hi everyone,

I understand that some of you have had a frustrating experience with your accounts being inappropriately disabled. Our team is aware of the problem, and our engineers are continuing to investigate. Thanks for
bringing this to our attention.

Gmail Guide"
I'd rather they investigate and fix ASAP then post frequent status updates which would slow the process down.

Also, How about you ask for a refund, you seem to feel that Google owes you something – unless of course you're not paying for a BETA (as in, not stable) product that comes with no guarantees – something that you agreed to when you signed up.

Added an update to the post. Google says:

<<Our goal has always been to keep Gmail free of people who abuse the service and to keep Gmail inboxes free of spam. We've been targeting a large network of spammers to keep them out of the Gmail system and accidentally disabled access to some other accounts. We've restored access to these accounts. We know how important Gmail is to our users, so we encourage them to report any issues to the Gmail Help Center (http://mail.google.com/support/) so we can investigate and assist them.>>

Still without my Google Account... Anyone else?

Hey Google I'm not a spammer.

Hi

How many Gmail accounts can we have?
I have around 5 emails.
Is that alright?
Thanks

Regards

This is horrible. Thank's for the advice w second mail account for backup. Being one of Googles loyal early adopters, it is embarrasing finding I've invested a lot of trust, time and critical information, storing in an on-line service out of my control. I will address this issue and immediately creating a more robust model. Google: beware of user drain if this would happen again.

Chetan Man : i know of a girl who has over 50 accounts!

and she has mailed google support once and even mention that to them.
They replied to help her solve her prob, and didnt mention anything about all those accounts.

Thanks a million for this info. I noticed earlier this week that one of my accounts (which I don't use often) had vanished. Another one had a password question that I recognized but couldn't provide the right answer. I wondered whether those accounts had been hackered or if I was going crazy, but I've just tried to log in again and everything looked normal, except for one of the accounts that showed a welcome message as if it was created today. Very weird. It's a shame; I won't trust Google as much as I used to.

This IS horrible, but even in looking at the Gmail Group this affected a very small percentage of users. Me? Not so much. And given the lack of outcry on the intertubes I would say that almost all people weren't affected.

I lost my Hotmail account once. It was the reason that I went to Gmail. My account was locked for no good reason. Well, I guess the reason was that I was constantly up against my storage limit but I don't know for sure. I am not involved in any nefarious activity at all so any guess as to why would be a good one. Never got that one back.

I also was locked out of my Yahoo account. Tried for several months to get it back and then gave up. Then about 2 years later I got an email at my alternate address restoring my access. No reason was given and I still have access to that account a year or two later. I never used it for anything but Yahoo fantasy sports.

Gmail has been good to me since October of 2004. I use IMAP everywhere except for my laptop (web access only). One computer that downloads all of my messages via POP access. My contacts are local in Thunderbird. My documents that I do have in Docs are all local as well and the online versions are downloaded after any revision. Copernic Desktop Search helps me find the one I want. I love me some Google but I loved my dog too, right up until the point that he bit my daughter.

Philipp
Yes! Please repeat it but with online products and services! Especially the free ones!

dualsub
Thanks for that. I've had exactly one issue with either of my two Google Accounts and it was resolved quickly, years ago. I think I'll download Thunderbird and use it to back up my GMail messages.

I manually back up my Google Docs (I know, so last century) and Picasa pictures, but I'm thinking of moving to Flickr as I have a Yahoo account I don't use enough ;-)

Maybe Google should educate users more about how they can backup their data. Most generally trust online services to "just work", when they don't it can seem to stop your life.

Account still disabled.

I received an email saying the issue has been "resolved" but things
have still not changed for me. (Yes, I have followed all steps listed
above, don't need a link to the troubleshooter or report form that
seems to do nothing)

Google trust factor is dwindling very quickly.

71.42% uptime for the week, great job Gmail.

71.42% uptime for YOU John. I (and an awful lot of other people) have had 100% uptime for many many months. I understand that you got hooked by a really nasty event but let's keep this in context.

Outside of a very limited number of people the service is rock solid and has been for a long time. If you feel the need to move on then do so, but there are a few of us that are perfectly happy and with our data backed up just in case.

Oh I know, that's just my frustration speaking out.

I have most of my email backed up, I'm just more concerned for the emails that are currently bouncing. And not to mention the other Google Services that I used that are now gone.

For 20 full hours, my GMail account was "disabled", beginning just before 10 pm Thursday evening.

Say its my philosophic training, but I was "stoic" about it. Then, the next afternoon around 4 pm, my account was restored.

I guess e-mail should be backed up, but during that 20-hour period I thought most about my contact list. Hmmm, maybe a backup GMail acvcount with that kind of info. What's GMail's relationship with cookies on a local computer, if any??

BUGabundo:
Then I am safe!
Cheers mate

Looks like it might be happening again. My account is now locked out as well.

I havent been able to log into my account for a couple weeks now.

When I try to log in I get the "wrong username/password" error, but if I try to email my gmail account, it says that email does not exist. I am not getting a disabled message at all.

What do I do???

I only correspond a couple emails every now and again, I never send emails out to more than one person at a timer EVER, and I only log into gmail through firefox.

I've been locked out. it says

'username and password do not match'

i've tried everything...emailing google, trying to get a new password sent to my secondary account, but nothing. This is very frustrating. has anyone else had this message? any advice?

thanks

I have the same problem. My account has been disabled.

I've been locked out all day, too.

I have also be sent offline by Google today.

Surprisingly, I have two gmail acocunts, one of them I use as a login to my blogger account. This blogger account is disabled by Google.

I have some adsense ads on this blog, but the adsense account is different and that is working fine. I don't think that I'm involved in any fraudulent activity in adsense. Neither do I have a lot of mails coming on this account (Rather none comes, I have only 3 mails till today and I have sent none).

Can anyone tell me what may be the reason behind disabling my account?

So for some reason today at about 12:35 PM my Google Account was disabled. When I try to login I get the following error:

"Sorry, your account has been disabled. For more information about Google Accounts, please consult our Help Center at google.com/support/accounts/ ."

What is odd about the situation is that, one of my computers has a cookie so that my Google Personalized homepage is still running on one of my computers and I can click through the multiple tabs, but when I try to log in to check my email it gives me that error again.

I asked other people I know that use Google Accounts and so far one of them said their account also was disabled.

Anyone else experiencing this problem?

I'm just wondering if with possibly big changes in GMail, new labels, AIM integration, etc. something was broken in the migration process.