Earlier today while I was composing an email, Gmail tells me i've logged out. Odd, because I didn't click on the 'signout' link since I was busy writing an email. So I refresh the page and it gives me this message
"Our system indicates unusual usage of your Gmail account. In order to protect Gmail users from potential harmful use of Gmail, this account has been disabled for 24hrs
If you are using third party software that interacts with your Gmail account, please disable it so that its use complies with the Gmail Terms of Use.
…"
Oh crap, my account has been locked for 24 hrs at the whim of some Google Bot. The only third party application I have is the Google Notifier developed by Google themselves.
What did I do wrong? Nothing.
I check back 15 mins later and my account is magically unlocked! No abracadabra or Open Sesame though. I go back 30 mins later, its locked again! Luckily, I have my Gmail setup for POP access. So I can use MS Outlook to send and receive emails. So a word to the wise, if you have a critical Gmail account, enable POP access if Gmail decides to bail on you for some reason then you use Outlook or Thunderbird to send/receive email(remember that Gmail is classified as Beta).
Currently, Gmail seems to working fine. Which brings me to issue: Why is my account being disabled for 24hrs by a bot. No human looks at it? I know it is too much to ask, but this is an email service and its critical for many people. Its not some RSS reader, or some random service which they can disable. Losing email for 24hrs can be down right fatal, and in my case losing it to a random bug is downright pissing me off.
Get your act straight Google.
Rushi's Ramblings 
I faced the same problem with yahoo once . My account wasdisabled for more than 2 days . Got it back after writing several mails to customer care .
I for one am sick of Google and their lil lock down monkey. Not to mention that the speed of downloads sucks now..it used to be great. Guess this is what one gets for FREE huh..I like the size of the email accts…
too bad we keep getting locked out.
Well, I found myself in lockdown sector 4 for all of the business day yesterday. Not until about 6pm did my account let me in again. Ok, good, I thought they fixed the bug, or found out I’m not some terrorist. I don’t even USE gmail last night when it starts working, other than to read a few emails that were sent to me. I sent NONE…. This morning? Back in lockdown sector 4. Sheesh! Who’s in charge there? I know it’s beta, and I know it’s free, but there has to be a level of responsibility that google inherently takes for offering the service in the first place, and frankly, they aren’t being too responsible about it. Billion dollar company, and this is what we face. Hotmail has worked for YEARS without anything even close to the “beta” test that google has been in for well over a year. Does it really take this long to release a NONbeta version?!?
I also have POP set up, and also got locked out. I was downloading [for the first time] my e-mail from Gmail to Outlook. Isn’t that the whole point of offering POP access? Well, I came into work this morning to learn that I was locked out. Threre’s nobody to contact to get it turned back on. And, here’s the worst part:. I can’t access the account via POP anymore. Therefore, the statement about enabling POP to ride out the “lockdown” is no longer going to be a solution. I can’t access my e-mail AT ALL and I have no idea when it will be reinstated. They must have upped their security and disallowed POP when the account is locked down. I even get the “lockdown in sector 4” notification in my outlook send/receive window.
I finally signed up for facebook, and now, each time I go into facebook, my gmail locks up. I wonder if its facebook that is the problem…
It is really annoying though.
What happened to google, they used to be cool, now they are all corporate like google. and are ACTING EVIL.
*they are all corporate like yahoo*
[…] different folder parameters. After a while of doing this, I got the dreaded “Lockdown in sector 4” message from Gmail. It did not lock me out of my web interfaces, but it did prevent me from […]