Having trouble accessing shared albums in Google Photos? You’re not alone

Not millions, but billions of people rely on Google Photos to store their memories, so it would be a huge problem if something went wrong with the service for some reason. Unfortunately, that seems to be the case at the moment, with a number of reports emerging of an issue that is preventing users from accessing old shared albums on the desktop.

Several reports have appeared on Google’s help site, IssueTracker, and on Reddit about an issue with Google Photos. The issue in question seems to cause some users to encounter a 500 error when trying to access their shared albums when visiting them on the desktop. Even well-known whistleblower Evan Blass (aka Evleaks) was affected by the issue, claiming that some shared albums had disappeared or become inaccessible.

The issue doesn’t seem to only affect the web app, though. On Reddit, a user says he tried to open his shared albums in the Android app, but got a “Failed to load album” notification. This user says he cleared his app data and logged back into the app, but only found two of the 10 albums he should have. He also mentioned that he cleared his cache and logged into the desktop version, but to no avail.

Fortunately, affected users report that their photos are still there; there is currently only an issue with the shared albums feature. Furthermore, the issue does not seem to apply to newly created shared albums.

Some Reddit users have pointed out some commonalities between the affected users – each affected user is said to have a Pixel 9 or Google One 2TB subscription. It’s important to keep in mind that this could just be a coincidence.

This issue reportedly occurred around August 23. Since then, the tech giant has not yet acknowledged the problem. Android Authority has contacted Google for comment. We will update this article as soon as new information becomes available.

Thanks to Jonathan M. for the tip!