September 12, 2025 – A widespread outage struck Google Maps today, leaving millions of mobile users around the world unable to access reliable navigation or load maps. The service disruption, which lasted for several hours, affected both Android and iOS users, causing frustration for commuters, delivery drivers, and travelers relying on the app for directions.

The problems began in the early afternoon, Eastern Time, with users reporting that the app failed to fully load map data, provide turn-by-turn directions, or calculate routes. Instead, many were met with an error message stating, "Google Maps can't reach the server."

Downdetector, a popular outage-tracking website, recorded a massive spike in user reports, with over 4,000 complaints flooding in at the peak of the incident. The outage map showed significant concentration in North America, Europe, and parts of Asia, confirming its global scale.

Crucially, the web version of Google Maps (accessed through a desktop or mobile browser) continued to function normally throughout the event. This pointed to an issue specifically related to the mobile application programming interfaces (APIs) and Software Development Kits (SDKs) that power the app's core functionality, rather than a complete collapse of Google's map servers.

Google acknowledged the issue on its Google Cloud Status Dashboard, stating, "Our engineering teams are actively investigating an issue with the Maps SDK and Navigation SDK. We are seeing indications of recovery and will provide more information shortly."

By late afternoon, Google confirmed that the service had been restored for the vast majority of users. The company has stated that a full internal investigation is underway and that a detailed analysis of the root cause will be published once it is complete.

This incident marks the most significant outage for Google Maps in recent months. It echoes a major disruption to Google Cloud services in June 2025, which had a cascading effect on popular platforms like Spotify and Snapchat, highlighting the world's growing dependence on centralized cloud infrastructure.