Since it's a tech support question about Google, you can just post it anywhere and they'll find it, right?

August 19, 2009 5:55 AM

I deleted 267,000 messages from my gmail account and now, when I log in, I see a Temporary Error (500) / Numeric Code 93 message. Emails sent to me are bouncing. It's been five days.

Now... there's some irony here, given that I'm a php / javascript developer on another Web Based Email product. I've broken (and fixed!) so many things... so, it's hard not to see this as a little karmic retribution.

Fair enough. Users, I feel your pain! Still, I'd like to get this up and running again ASAP.

.... I think what happened is that a monitor at one of my old jobs went crazy and just started emailing a ton. I mean, it's tough for me to tell, since I can't get back into my account.

I logged into check my email the other day and was like, "I'm close to quota? WTF?"

So, I just deleted all 267,000 messages that got dropped into that folder / label. At that point, it pretty much locked up, gave me the ajax "Error..." top popin, and hung.

At first, gmail would display the message index. Now, it just hangs after the redirect from auth and hits that 500 error state. The numeric codes are usually 93 or 67.

I've reported this several times through their "Oops!" form and posted a thread to the google discussion forum, but I haven't heard anything back.

My gmail is not a paid apps account -- although right now, I'm wishing it was. I'd gladly pay $50 / year for real support, since I'm totally at a loss as to who to contact for help here.

Any suggestions / tips / insights into the gmail support process would be appreciated...

posted by ph00dz to Computers & Internet (14 answers total)

Have you used POP or IMAP for Gmail previously? If so maybe you can still access your account through that interface, just not through the web interface? The Gmail support page has a search engine for help queries. The error message you gave appears in a number of recent threads there, although I can't see a clear answer as to how to resolve it. You can post a question in the Gmail help forum on that site as well.
posted by inflatablekiwi at 7:17 AM on August 19, 2009

Sorry - I see you've already posted to the help forum....hopefully the IMAP or POP login might work for you?
posted by inflatablekiwi at 7:20 AM on August 19, 2009

Response by poster: Yeah.... no POP / IMAP either. Fails instantly.
posted by ph00dz at 7:38 AM on August 19, 2009

Start making noise on social networks about how much gmail is pissing you off, perhaps you can get someones attention at google and expedite resolving the issue.
posted by zentrification at 9:13 AM on August 19, 2009

Any details given in the bounce message you get when trying to email yourself?
posted by meta_eli at 9:46 AM on August 19, 2009

Response by poster: Basically, I just get "Delivery Status Notification (Delay)" messages back from [e-mail] for the first two days, followed by a "Delivery Status Notification (Failure)" message on the third day.

Not much more to work with than that:
Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently
posted by ph00dz at 10:34 AM on August 19, 2009

Can you still use your Gmail credentials to login to iGoogle, Picassa, Youtube, or any other Google services? Maybe try logging into iGoogle and seeing if you can use its Gmail widget to view your email.
posted by inflatablekiwi at 12:01 PM on August 19, 2009

Response by poster: Yup... can log into other google services no problem, including their forums to post messages. My account isn't locked -- something is wrong with my email itself, presumably on a pretty deep file system level.
posted by ph00dz at 12:29 PM on August 19, 2009

Is it possible and feasible for you to open a new Gmail account and start fresh?
posted by mmw at 1:33 PM on August 19, 2009

Response by poster: I suppose so... but that's not really what I'd call "tech support," mmw.
posted by ph00dz at 1:58 PM on August 19, 2009

Response by poster: For what it's worth, when I try to access my email through iGoogle, it gives me a 503 error, numeric code 17.
posted by ph00dz at 3:50 PM on August 19, 2009

Response by poster: Don't get me wrong -- I totally appreciate people's suggestions in this thread -- but it's kind of weird that no one really has any insight into how to get help out of google, given that gmail is such a major email provider. Are they really that opaque?
posted by ph00dz at 5:18 AM on August 20, 2009

You've probably already tried this, but in case you haven't, http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=46346
posted by cybertaur1 at 8:48 AM on August 20, 2009

Response by poster: So... I dunno if my reporting the problem every 24 hours helped, of if was posting here or to various forums or whatever, but my gmail seems to be back, albeit a little dodgy still. No word from google about what happened or why.

I'm still close to quota so I feel like I've gotta be kinda careful about how to proceed, but we'll see...
posted by ph00dz at 5:01 AM on August 22, 2009