Google Discover not loading for some on Android due to sign-in error

Abner Li | May 19 2020 - 2:10 pm PT

Discover provides a feed of personalized articles that are usually relevant to your interests. A sign-in error where no stories load is plaguing Google Discover on Android today.

The scrollable list of cards, content suggestions, and weather is accessible to the left of the homescreen on some Android devices, and available for everyone in the Google app. Over the course of today, a number of reports have emerged about being unable to load the feed of stories.

This issue presents itself as a crossed-out cloud icon and “It looks like there was an error signing in to your account” message. There’s a big blue “Try Again” button underneath, with this error showing up after several seconds of Discover trying to load itself.

On our end, we only have the issue on one device running the latest beta version of the Google app (10.11) released yesterday. That Pixel 3 happens to also be on the latest Android 11 developer preview. None of the steps we’ve taken get around the sign-in error, but we’re able to get Discover to work after signing in with a different account.

Everything else powered by the Google app is operational, including Search, Assistant, Snapshot, and Collections.

Most other reports about the Google Discover sign-in issue are coming from Pixel owners, but there are a handful of Samsung and Motorola users encountering the error. Steps like signing out and logging back in (to the same account), or clearing the Google app’s cache are not successful. Hopefully, the issue is resolved via a server-side fix.