The Google Search app stopped working for a few hours last night. Google fixed the problem in the middle of the night, but by then hundreds, if not thousands, of complaints had flooded support forums and social media.

This affected a “large number of users searching with the Google app on Android,” Google confirmed. When loading the Google Search app or one of its widgets, the message “Google keeps stopping” appeared.

Here is one of the many screenshots I saw in the Google Search support forums:

The problem started around midnight yesterday and took a few hours to resolve.

If you scroll down to that time period, you can see the non-stop complaints about this issue on the Google Search support forums. There’s also this huge Reddit thread of complaints.

9to5Google was, as far as I know, the only other site that reported this issue.

Google wrote:

There is an ongoing issue with delivery in Google Search that is affecting a large number of users searching with the Google app on Android. We are working to determine the root cause and the next update will be within 12 hours.

The timestamp was 2:07 AM ET, but I believe the problem started a few hours earlier.

Google said the issue was fully resolved at 4:11 a.m. ET.

If you have noticed a drop in your Android traffic from Google during this time, this may be the reason.

Forum discussion on Google Web Search Help and Reddit.