Wow - accessing my Gmail account from work this morning brings up the following:
Our system indicates unusual usage of your account. In order to protect Gmail users from potentially harmful use of Gmail, this account has been disabled for up to 24 hours.
If you are using any third party software that interacts with your Gmail account, please disable it or adjust it so that its use complies with the Gmail Terms of Use. If you feel that you have been using your Gmail account according to the Terms of Use or otherwise normally, please contact us at gmail-lockdown@google.com to report this problem.
Natural reaction is one of stunned outrage - my Gmail account is my main non-work account now - I'm pretty dependent on it. I'm not running anything like GMailFS, I don't think I am even taking an Atom feed from my mail account. Google didn't warn me - they've just stopped my email for up to 24 hours. Emailing them gives an automated response:
Hello,
Our system has detected unusual usage of your Gmail account. For your protection, we have temporarily disabled all access to your account.
If you suspect that the unusual usage of your account has been caused by a third party, we recommend that you change your password and secret question once you are able to log back in to Gmail. You should be able to access your account again within 24 hours.
If you are using any software that automatically logs in to your account, or automatically sends and receives messages, we ask that you disable the software before accessing Gmail again. Please note that the use of such third-party software is not supported by Gmail.
Sincerely, The Gmail Team
I'm still sitting here stunned - checking it again just to make sure it's not some kind of system glitch rather than an automated withdrawal of service for some unspecified reason. Whatever - as soon as it comes back, I'm sucking out all my email, and unless there's a really good reason I can't see that I'll ever go back again - my email is just too important to me for someone else to deny me access whenever they feel like it. But suddenly I find myself not trusting Google and the people at Google.
[**Update Lockdown over - I can access my email. No explanation of why the lockdown occurred yet - waiting to see if I get one. Still planning to get my data out of Gmail when I get home and revert back to my previous solution. I posted some more on this here.
Bru asks in the comments if there's been any explanation: nope, nothing. Not a peep out of Google - disappointing.
I noticed that Jason Calacanis got hit by the same problem, although he thinks it might have been firefox going into a mad refresh loop.]
Technorati Tags: gmail, gmail lockdown
Any news? Still no explanations?
Hi Bru - nope nothing at all from Google. Still looking for a nice webmail alternative...not quite so easy after using Gmail, unfortunately..
This just happened to me too.
Found anything better yet? I agree, how can we trust that this won't just happen again at any time in the future?
happened to me too. this sucks! anyone find out a way to fix the problem!?
I have the same problem, and gmail keeps doing the lockdown thing again and again. Very tiresome. I wrote a protest and got a very sharp and rude answer : If I were not satisfied, I could go to H... , as gmail was free and I should be gratefull and not complain. What did I think I had to be Whining about? afterall no ones life was depending on me getting access to my mail. I could just scram, when I could not see that is was an HONOUR to get such a great service :-/ Now I am tired of them and only needing a very large alternative, then I am taking his advice and gone
They got me with the same thing also. I really became dependant on them, since I spent so much time informing everyone of my new e-mail at google. I even set up my old yahoo with a vacation response to alert people to my new gmail account. Now I have to go through the trouble of letting people know to go back to my yahoo account. Yahoo may not have some of the cool things as gmail but at least in the seven years I've used them, they are reliable. I can only think of a couple of times that there was a server problem that stopped the e-mails and they were resolved very quickly. How frustrating this gmail is....
Bear
It has happen to me twice, but the first time it resurrected itself, the second time after 20 minutes of waiting the message about unusual usage appeared. That has to be rubbish as I am only trying out the programme and the only unusual thing that I had done was to use it to email 5 pictures from Picasa which is, after all, Google's own programme. That only raised my personal archiving to 7Mb. What would I be thinking now if that figure had been 700Mb
Happened to me too, but it was linearly dependant on mass emailing. We use gmail as a backup for a fax to mail service. When we need to distribute (legitimately) a fax to a list, we compose an email and send it to the fax server. Gmail accepts up to 100 recipients, but after a few email, it locks you out.
same o same o i switch from hotmail for almost the same problem now it seems fruitless to go anywhere or better yet maybe go every where and not depend on any of them anybody got a stamp..
It must be Firefox. I had my connection up last night. I can still access my mail by Thunderbird. Can't be thunderbird problem because I haven't used thurderbird in the time that the lockout started.
i want to report that my account was lock-down for up 24 hours. i want to know why because i have been using the account in compliance with the terms of use. Would you please unlock my account immediately ?
chana erbkamol
Hmm - I'm not really in charge Chana - you need to send an email to the Gmail support team. Read the message that appears in your browser.
What is this??? Need to access my account ASAP...need for school!!!!!!!
Same thing - no unusual usage on my part. No GreaseMonkey, no outside software links, no large emails. No answer from Google either.
Gmail is proving itself very unreliable - this is incredibly frustrating and discouraging. I now have the same issue as all you who have to go back to Hotmail or Yahoo accounts. This has definitely never happened with any other mail services.
Since I uninstalled the Greasemonkey GMail script, I've had no problems, so I'm staying with Gmail for a while.
However, Yahoo are about to make their new AJAXy interface (from the Oddpost boys) available, so if that cuts the mustard...
I have been locked out of my account as well. Can't understand why, I use this e-mail only at home.
Ok I am not sure why I got this 24 hour lock down ...but I have done nothing wrong. I am a person that does work at her home and without my gmail account I am unable to get my files to work on. If this continues I will be forced to remove my self from gmail and go with another mail option.I hope this can be fixed before the 24 hours that was told it would be locked for....ty
Our system has detected unusual usage of your Gmail account. For your protection, we have temporarily disabled all access to your account.
If you suspect that the unusual usage of your account has been caused by a third party, we recommend that you change your password and secret question once you are able to log back in to Gmail. You should be able to access your account again within 24 hours.
If you are using any software that automatically logs in to your account, or automatically sends and receives messages, we ask that you disable the software before accessing Gmail again. Please note that the use of such third-party software is not supported by Gmail.
Sincerely, The Gmail Team
Our system has detected unusual usage of your Gmail account. For your protection, we have temporarily disabled all access to your account.
If you suspect that the unusual usage of your account has been caused by a third party, we recommend that you change your password and secret question once you are able to log back in to Gmail. You should be able to access your account again within 24 hours.
If you are using any software that automatically logs in to your account, or automatically sends and receives messages, we ask that you disable the software before accessing Gmail again. Please note that the use of such third-party software is not supported by Gmail.
Sincerely, The Gmail Team
I NEED MY ACCOUNT IT'S BEEN 2 DAYS NOW THAT I DO NOT HAVE MY ACCOUNT UNLOCK
CAN SOMEONE DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT
Our system indicates unusual usage of your account. In order to protect Gmail users from potentially harmful use of Gmail, this account has been disabled for up to 24 hours.
If you are using any third party software that interacts with your Gmail account, please disable it or adjust it so that its use complies with the Gmail Terms of Use. If you feel that you have been using your Gmail account according to the Terms of Use or otherwise normally, please contact us at gmail-lockdown@google.com to report this problem.
I don't understand why am I locked out.
Jash
I've been locked-out of all my Google accounts for over 2 days. It is completely unaccaptable and I'm very frustrated. The minute i get back in I'm removing all my data and building my own email client on my on server. It's such a shame as I used to be the biggest fan of Gmail.
I just got the lockdown message...very frustrating. I enabled POP and just downloaded 1.3GB (over 10,000 emails) into Outlook Express so that is probably why I got the lock down. Pretty lame how they don't give you a warning and just shut down your email!!!