If your favorite app suddenly stopped working on Thursday, you weren’t alone—and no, it wasn’t your phone or your signal. A major outage tied to Google Cloud caused a cascade of issues across several widely used apps and services, hitting users across the country just after lunchtime.

According to PhoneArena, the root of the problem was a networking issue on Google’s cloud infrastructure. And because many of the world’s most popular apps rely on Google Cloud behind the scenes, the effects were felt almost instantly. Think: Snapchat not sending, Discord not connecting, and even basic tools like Google Maps and Drive acting up.

While the disruption didn’t seem to affect T-Mobile’s actual network or mobile service, plenty of T-Mobile users noticed apps crashing or freezing—especially those who rely on cloud-based tools to message, work, or navigate throughout the day.

The issue was caused by something Google describes as “packet loss,” which basically means data had trouble getting where it needed to go. Thankfully, Google acted fast, deploying a fix within hours. Services slowly began coming back online throughout the afternoon.

Social media, of course, lit up with complaints and memes, while companies like Snapchat and Discord confirmed the problems and promised updates.

Outages like this are a good reminder that what powers your favorite apps isn’t always visible—and it doesn’t always live on your phone. Much of what you do online travels through cloud infrastructure, and when a big player like Google stumbles, the ripple effect is massive.

Everything now appears to be on the mend. Still, if you noticed odd behavior from your go-to apps yesterday, at least now you know: it wasn’t your carrier. It was the cloud.

Source: PhoneArena