January 4th, 2008
Gmail Slow and “Still Working”: Enough Is Enough!
Raise your hand if you’ve seen the dreaded “Still Working” error as Gmail takes half an hour to complete even the simplest functions.
That’s what I thought.
I love Gmail. Search and threaded conversations have changed the way I use email, making me much efficient than I ever could have imagined back in the dark days of Outlook.
But in recent weeks, Gmail has been routinely slowing to a crawl, making you want to gnaw your hand off while waiting for an email thread to expand, or a search to execute. Gmail’s scratch-your-eyes-out slowness has been attributed to the release of Gmail 2.0. It also seems they’ve been rolling out new features with live upgrades — which nobody but Google could even imagine attempting.
I’m willing to cut most web services a fair amount slack if they go down or slow down once in a while — it’s real a challenge to reproduce the always-on, always-available application experience of the desktop. But Google has more servers than god, so my expectations are just a little higher.
One reason why Google search still dominates is that it’s so consistently FAST. Clearly Google hasn’t set the same bar for its other services.
Google probably knows that my searchable email archives — including sent items — make switching from Gmail a tough proposition. It’s the kind of practical data lock-in that Facebook dreams about.
So while I can’t — nor do I really want — to switch from Gmail, I can take some small satisfaction in shouting from the rough tops.
Enough is enough!
Memo to Google: You want to slow your web services to a crawl, give me an offline client and you can do whatever the heck want.
Topics: Google
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Strange - I haven’t had any problems.
Doug,
It comes and goes, and the experience is by no means universal. But I know from other Gmail users that I am not alone in tearing my hair out.
I thought the plum for Google Gears was the eventual offloading of your data, synced with the GServers.
Since GMail is blocked for me at work, I haven’t been pressing that as a “must.” I use GMail to be my backup solution, with other accounts forwarded there.
Anyone else know the roadmap dates for integrating Gmail with Gears?
I’ve been unable to open the Settings view in Gmail since the switch to 2.0. I eventually switched to Gmail 1.0 and am grumbling about the lack of colored labels but happy that I have full access to my settings again. Gmail 2.0 was pushed out the door too early.
Since the Gmail update about a month ago, my Gmail has been freezing a lot. In fact, it’s so bad that I’ve reverted back to the old Gmail version which you can find at:
http://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=1
For my personal gripes, see
http://schlerplotti.typepad.com/quantworks/2007/12/url-for-older-v.html
I never made the switch to Gmail, because Eudora has amazing searching and filing and template and m,ultiple address capacities built right in, is faster by orders of magnitude than any web-based mail client, and doesn’t share my data with Google and whoever might hack it.
However, it is getting a bit tired as I have pushed it far beyond where it ever planned to go (tens of thousands of messages stretching back to 1996) and it seems Qualcomm has stopped supporting it.
Also, even though it’s slower, I do prescreen my mail in mail2web and ditch the obvious spam–I don’t want that crap even coming into my hard drive.
Shel Horowitz, award-winning author of Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First and six other books
I find an imap client more responsive at busy times of the day. You might want to try:
http:www.mozilla.com/thunderbird/
Karp: verb [v] ~ (at sb) (about sth) to keep complaining about sb/sth in an annoying way
ceedee,
Thank you for the predictable “you are a dumb user” response.
I use Gmail for the second-to-none search capability and the threaded messages. If I have to switch to another UI because the service underperforms, then the service is failing.
Web services is like any other kind of service — the user is always right. If the user has a bad experience, it’s ALWAYS the service providers fault.
Google is #1 in search because they strive to for perfection in the user experience. They are having some hiccups now a different service, and since it’s Google, I’m demanding the same high standard.
I’m also tearing my hear out, or, at least taking a deep and frustrating sigh from time to time.
I haven’t seen this problem, but I have three g-mail accounts connected to my new publishing business and I am frequently “signed out” suddenly in the middle of composing an email and regularly switched from one account to another in the middle of pulling up messages, even though they each have separate passwords. When my new company’s website is up and running next month, I’ll be shifting my business accounts from g-mail.
Scott have not been noticing said problem. Very well stated in your response above,”since it’s Google, I’m demanding the same high standard.” We absolutely need to and I respect Google for being savvy enough to offer many avenues for feedback, some automatically generated even. Google’s currency is maintained excellence, if that stops time to put a fork in it.
Just to cut them a minor break, it still does say “Beta”.
How long should I wait before giving up? The “still working” is slowing my business and personal email use of gmail.
Scott, you definitely are not alone… I actually came across your thread in my hunt for why my interactions with gmail as of late have seemed so sluggish. I too hope that this issue is resolved quickly. I love Gmail and will likely continue to use it (and complain) even if things don’t get better, but I miss the old days of “click->BAM*!”
*BAM=DONE, COMPLETE, LOADED, READY FOR NEXT COMMAND…
Ugh. Im glad you broached this because I have been having problems also.
If you end up switching to something else, please let me know…I’ll follow.
I’m having the same problem. In my case the “freezing” of gmail happens when I try to open it (in addition to sluggishness during use). I’ve noticed the problem going back six weeks. Let me know if you get any feedback.
Same problem. “Still Working” is still not working. Seems to be getting worse as days go bye. I had started to move all my mail to gmail…rethinking that now.
Looking for some sort of help/pattern. I use my gmail accounts from pop, imap and web UI. You don’t notice the slowness using outlook/mail.app until you send your mail. It takes for ever!
On the web UI however this is much more agonizing, because it freezes during the ‘Still working’. The chat drops out and so on.
They have immense storage, but it seems all my mail is sent through a third-world country. It blows.
Oh Jesus Mary and Joseph, I don’t know how many times I have bumped into your site, after looking desperately for someone as desperate as myself with the “still working” thingy.
My issue with that dreaded sentence seems unstoppable, to a point that I can’t use Gmail to send documents.
Having checked some problem-solving sites, all I get is a “Clear your cache”… Jesus Christ, I can’t be clearing my cache everytime I want to do the simplest thing with my email account.
I’m really considering leaving Gmail behind. Seems the amount of affected users is not big enough for Gmail to look for a practical solution. Will I have to go back to Hotm—… Arrrgh, I don’t even want to think about it.
Writing this useless complaint has been better than therapy for me. Greetings from Northern Norway and have a nice week!
I can’t agree with you enough. Hair is gathering around my pc…I’m literally pulling it out. I haven’t actually been able to reply to an email (without replying to an existing email from that sender). So the ‘compose’ button for me is now defunct- that’s been the case for over 3 weeks. No gchat and as for attempting to search for old emails…pointless. Whilst other people may have full service- some gmail users are obviously still suffering…and you know what…it’s really not good enough. Gmail really need to sort this out.
Ignoring your email user’s complaints is why Gmail will fail and Google stock will be in the toilet, sooner, rather than later.
I still use the old version and no relief there either. I have lost countless hours of productivity because of how gmail freezes, signs me out…consistently fails.
Google is saying f*ck you to its customers and the only way to beat ‘em is to leave and boycott their advertisers.
I’ve started having the same problem: very slow Gmail to the point now where the only thing I CAN do is click on ‘compose’ a new message, pop it out into a new window and send. I can’t read any old/new messages. The old version of gmail does not work at all.
This is a HUGE problem as I rely on Gmail for my work — outlook smtp is blocked in Tunisia.
Where is GMAIL with the solution?
Mike Reynolds’ work-around(comment #5 above) seems to be working thus far for me. I too was starting to lose my mind over this because gmail was driving me totally nutso and none of my friends were having the same problem so they thought I was crazy.
Yes, slow all the time - takes forever to load after logging in. Can’t imagine why they can’t work the problem out instead of continuing to add more “new features”.
Per the comment from Mike Reynolds above I switched to the “Older Version” and it works just fine now. To make the switch just click on the “Older Version” link at the top right of the main Gmail page.
When I searched Google supoprt for this problem, one post was for making changes to McAfee Security. While I don’t have McAfee Security, I do have McAfee SIteAdvisor. So just for kicks I turned it off and my sluggish Gmail immediately sped up to a more normal speed.
I can confirm, it’s indeed very slow! I’m trying to edit some filters and it gets stuck all the times as soon as I click [Next Step]. Also operations like delete, archive also make it hung forever saying “Still Working”.
I’m using Firefox 3.0, Firebug disabled but few other addons on.
Yup! And the problem is getting worst by the day with no solutions in sight.
I just installed Mcaffe Total Protection and it killed my Gmail. After turning off every setting I could find in the Security Center, I finally went into the Addon’s section for the IE options. I disabled Site Advisor, and voila. Everything works again.
Same here - very very verrrrrry slow. Don’t want to use a client, but man I spend half my day with the “waiting” page loaded….driving me crazy
@Shane - I had Mcaffee and it blew chunks - also ditched and system is so much better now. Gmail still slow though
Use the Older Version using Firefox or Google Chrome. I happen to notice that IE loads a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooong time. Sometimes an eternity of waiting.
Hi,
I have the same problem and it’s driving me nuts.
I first thought this might be due to me having multiple windows with gmail loaded open or due to me having them open for days on, but I am now convinced that while this might contribute, it’s not the sole reason.
Also, while having gmail be the only thing open in a separate, different browser process might help, it’s rather impractical for everyday use.
I have tried this with Firefox, Safari, and even Chrome. Same story.
I have discovered one surprising thing that often helps: Hitting the browser Reload button. After that, the next action is usually very fast.
This makes me suspect it’s not a problem at the google servers directly but something in the state of the scripted gmail code running in my browser that’s getting tangled.
Still, I expect a results in 1-3s after a click. While a 5-7s page reload is better than “Still working” for a minute, it is by far not good enough.
Hey, Google, I’d be willing to PAY for a fix!
Anyone know of an alternative to gmail with similar features (threads, labels, fast search) offline or online?
Best,
David.