It occurs each occasionally when a narrative in your Google Uncover information feed will mysteriously take you to Google’s 404 (Not Discovered) web page—regardless of the story being very a lot stay on the time.
BleepingComputer has been observing this habits over the previous few weeks at random on Android gadgets, and we’re capable of determine the reason for the issue.
This is how one can nonetheless learn your favourite tales, and even workaround the bug that has often bothered some customers previously.
Google Information (or Uncover) tales not discovered
From time to time chances are you’ll faucet on a narrative served by Google Uncover or Google Information Showcase on an Android system. Besides, the story takes you to Google’s clunky “Error 404 (Not Discovered)!!1” web page.
(BleepingComputer)
This occurs in some instances, although the story is in any other case stay on the information outlet:
https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/information/uk-world-news/easyjet-ryanair-tui-jet2-rule-27346395
Additional, we seen that the story writer had not modified the authentic URL of the story at any level for an error like this to have occurred.
BleepingComputer has noticed this habits with the Google app on Android gadgets at random, which makes it exhausting to breed.
Different customers appear to have additionally seen the glitch:
In actual fact, not one of the hyperlinks shared by these customers on social media or with their buddies (equivalent to through WhatsApp) will work—these result in 404 pages, although the tales they meant to take you to, are up.
Why does the difficulty happen?
While you faucet on a narrative served by Google Information feed, the URL it is taking you to appears like this (taking the Liverpool Echo story above for instance):
https://play.google.com/newsstand/api/v3/articleaccess?url=https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/information/uk-world-news/easyjet-ryanair-tui-jet2-rule-27346395?gaa…
This hyperlink is purposeful and may be examined by copying-pasting it in an online browser. It ought to take you to the web page proven beneath:
The primary a part of the URL, that makes use of Google Play’s play.google.com area, is actually a “redirect” service taking you to the specified information story.
The bits on the finish following a query mark are a protracted string of GET parameters, that we have now discarded from the view, as these serve no purposeful functions on the subject of the redirect and are purportedly getting used for monitoring and analytics.
The issue arises when a number of Google accounts are signed onto a tool.
Every time, a number of Google (suppose Gmail) accounts are logged in on a tool, the URLs for Google providers get “rewritten” with an account identifier.
For instance, Gmail Desktop customers might have seen the mail.google.com/mail/ URL turning into mail.google.com/mail/u/0/ when they’re utilizing a number of Gmail accounts concurrently (the ‘/u/0’ half denotes which account is presently within the consumer’s view).
Equally, the URLs for these information tales, in some instances, get rewritten with an account identifier:
https://play.google.com/u/0/newsstand/api/v3/articleaccess?url=https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/information/uk-world-news/easyjet-ryanair-tui-jet2-rule-27346395?gaa…
And this causes the redirect service to interrupt, displaying you a 404 (Not Discovered) web page for the story as a substitute of Google Play’s servers honoring or ignoring the account identifier parameter (“/u/…”).
We submitted bug reviews to Google, through the “Ship Suggestions” button on a number of events that we witnessed the difficulty nevertheless it stays unclear if that has helped with the remediation of the difficulty.
What are you able to do?
We tried clearing the cache for each Google and Google Information apps on Android system, however the error would recur on random events.
Going to the Google Play retailer and guaranteeing we had the newest model of every apps (and tapping “replace” when not) appeared to yield minimal enchancment and didn’t fully eradicate the difficulty.
A workaround we have now recognized is, for Google Information/Uncover tales that present a 404 web page, customers can merely return to their information feed display screen.
You may then faucet on the three-dots subsequent to a narrative, on the underside proper nook, and choose “About this supply & matter.”
This can now present you the story as an natural search consequence on Google Search that can proceed to usually.
In fact, an extended workaround would contain utilizing Google Search to sort and lookup the story’s headline.
A bug like this may not happen often and be exhausting to breed, however given different customers who’ve reported experiencing it, BleepingComputer is sharing this data in hopes that it makes your Google Information journey a tad smoother.