It occurs each from time to time 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 dwell on the time.
BleepingComputer has been observing this habits over the previous few weeks at random on Android units, and we’re capable of determine the reason for the issue.
Here is how one can nonetheless learn your favourite tales, and even workaround the bug that has often bothered some customers prior to now.
Google Information (or Uncover) tales not discovered
Every so often it’s possible you’ll faucet on a narrative served by Google Uncover or Google Information Showcase on an Android machine. Besides, the story takes you to Google’s clunky “Error 404 (Not Discovered)!!1” web page.
(BleepingComputer)
This occurs in some circumstances, regardless that the story is in any other case dwell on the information outlet:
https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/information/uk-world-news/easyjet-ryanair-tui-jet2-rule-27346395
Additional, we observed that the story writer had not modified the unique 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 units at random, which makes it laborious to breed.
Different customers appear to have additionally observed the glitch:
The truth is, not one of the hyperlinks shared by these customers on social media or with their mates (similar to by way of WhatsApp) will work—these result in 404 pages, regardless that the tales they meant to take you to, are up.
Why does the difficulty happen?
Whenever you faucet on a narrative served by Google Information feed, the URL it is taking you to appears to be like 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 useful and might be examined by copying-pasting it in an internet 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 now have discarded from the view, as these serve no useful functions as regards to 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 (assume Gmail) accounts are logged in on a tool, the URLs for Google companies get “rewritten” with an account identifier.
For instance, Gmail Desktop customers could have observed 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 at present within the person’s view).
Equally, the URLs for these information tales, in some circumstances, 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, exhibiting you a 404 (Not Discovered) web page for the story as an alternative of Google Play’s servers honoring or ignoring the account identifier parameter (“/u/…”).
We submitted bug experiences to Google, by way of 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 machine, however the error would recur on random events.
Going to the Google Play retailer and guaranteeing we had the most recent model of every apps (and tapping “replace” when not) appeared to yield minimal enchancment and didn’t fully eradicate the difficulty.
A workaround we now have recognized is, for Google Information/Uncover tales that present a 404 web page, customers can merely return to their information feed display.
You possibly can then faucet on the three-dots subsequent to a narrative, on the underside proper nook, and choose “About this supply & subject.”
This can now present you the story as an natural search end result on Google Search that can proceed to usually.
In fact, an extended workaround would contain utilizing Google Search to sort and search for the story’s headline.
A bug like this may not happen incessantly and be laborious 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.
