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Google 'frantic' about Personalized Home Page glitch

By Juan Carlos Perez , IDG News Service , 04/26/2007
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Google's Personalized Home Page service, which lets users turn the Google Web site into a customized portal, is suffering from an apparently significant technical problem that is reverting some of the home pages to old versions or to their original default settings.



Buzzblog: Google's Personalized Home Page service restored


Angry users have lit up discussion boards on Thursday, complaining about the problem and expressing frustration at the possibility that they have lost the time they spent customizing their pages, while lamenting the hit on productivity the issue has caused them.

"I had four tabs stuffed with content on my personalized homepage. Dozens of RSS feeds, half a dozen bookmark gadgets, friends blogs, all my web presences, dozens of other gadgets. I spent weeks tailoring [it] so it was just right for my very intensive

Internet needs," a user wrote on a Google discussion group. "Now it's all gone."

The problem apparently affects a portion of Personalized Home Page users. It's not clear how many or why. Google didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

A Google official posting to one of the longer threads about the problem wrote in a message at 12:25 p.m. ET that Google is in "frantic-chase-down-this-bug mode here at the Googleplex, and I hope to have more info for you soon."

The official, posting under the name Google Guide Jaime, acknowledged that Google engineers are in the dark about the cause of the problem.

"It's possible that changing your homepage theme might cause the problem. So, if you still have your homepage intact, please avoid changing your theme until further notice," he wrote.

Alarmingly, he also acknowledged it's not clear whether users will be able to recover their customized pages. The first problems were apparently reported at around 6 a.m. ET on Thursday.

The problem is the latest in what seems a regular stream of technical glitches and availability problems affecting Google's online services. In the past six months, Google services like Blogger, Gmail and Google Apps have all experienced significant technical issues that have left users fuming.

The problems highlight one of the risks of relying on hosted applications providers, which offer to house software and its data for individuals and organizations. Google is one of the biggest cheerleaders for this software provisioning model, which many see as a viable option to the traditional approach of having users install applications on their own PCs and servers.

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Comments (9)
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not mineBy Anonymous on May 1, 2007, 8:21 pmI'm still hoping for a restore

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Service appears to be restoredBy Paul McNamara on April 27, 2007, 6:41 amAt least in most corners of the globe: http://www.networkworld.com/community/?q=node/14600

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I started to get redirected to Belguim at the same timeBy Anonymous on April 27, 2007, 3:30 amMy plain old google search page (google.com) started redirecting to Belgium (google.be and in Belgian) at this same exact time (early AM Pacific time). After...

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Backing up...By Anonymous on April 27, 2007, 1:54 amI use the personalized homepage as well. It's taken me a while to set everything up, and losing it would be unplesant if not terribly tragic. But I have at least...

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VizURLBy Anton on April 26, 2007, 9:59 pmI use Google Apps but have not been affected by this issue. VizURL.com I have a different way of organizing my favorite sites. It is based on drag and drop logo...

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