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Google Home and Chromecast outage: Here's the official fix

Google says you may want to reboot your device -- and you may need to call support.

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Sean Hollister
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Sean Hollister Senior Editor / Reviews
When his parents denied him a Super NES, he got mad. When they traded a prize Sega Genesis for a 2400 baud modem, he got even. Years of Internet shareware, eBay'd possessions and video game testing jobs after that, he joined Engadget. He helped found The Verge, and later served as Gizmodo's reviews editor. When he's not madly testing laptops, apps, virtual reality experiences, and whatever new gadget will supposedly change the world, he likes to kick back with some games, a good Nerf blaster, and a bottle of Tejava.
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The Google Home family.

 Chris Monroe/CNET

Did you enjoy your Slack outage this morning, perhaps with an extra helping of memes? Google has confirmed its Google Home smart speaker and Chromecast streaming sticks are also suffering an outage this morning, and it appears to be worldwide.

The outage began early this morning, with confirmed reports as early as 6:20 a.m. PT.  As of 2:49 p.m. PT, Google told CNET that it had identified a fix -- one that'll roll out automatically over the next 6 hours, but you can try rebooting your devices to get it sooner. 

CNET can confirm that many of our own Google Home devices were completely kaput as of this morning, throwing errors like these:

  • "There was a glitch. Try again in a few seconds."
  • "Hmm, something went wrong. Try again in a few seconds."
  • "Your Google Home isn't set up yet. To get started, download the Google Home app on a phone or tablet."

That last one is what my own personal Google Home said, but I didn't have to start from scratch -- after Google rolled out the fix, I just unplugged it from power, then plugged it back in, and things were back to normal.

Earlier today, users (including some of us at CNET) were no longer seeing the option to cast video or audio to our Google Chromecasts, even though a Roku Premiere+ on the same Wi-Fi network did show the option.

But again, unplugging and replugging the device seems to fix the problem, following Google's fix.

Not all of our Google Home devices were having these issues -- one in Marietta, Georgia, was working fine -- but many were. 

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Update, 2:27 p.m. PT: Google now says some users are back online, and that it's working on a broader fix.

Update, 2:55 p.m. PT: Google says it has a fix: "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."

Update, 3:29 p.m. PT: Added that the fix appears to work.