Google Drive for Windows crashing after self-updating to 'Backup and Sync', official fix now available

Google starts rolling out a fix to address crashing issues with Google Drive.

Google Drive
Google Drive for Windows crashing after self-updating to 'Backup and Sync'

Google has recently drawn a lot of flak for breaking a bunch of products with its buggy updates as Google Drive client for Windows has joined the party, following the infamous OTA downgrade for the Nexus 6 that temporarily crashed the Apple Pay feature. It is now being reported that a broken build of Google Drive is being pushed live.

Google Drive issues with Backup and Sync
Google Product Forums

Meanwhile, hundreds of users have been flooding Reddit and Google Product Forums with complaints about the unusual behaviour of Google Drive sync client for Windows wherein it's self-updating to 'Backup and Sync'. Consequently, any attempt to launch the program is allegedly throwing the error message: "Backup and Sync is disabled for this account."

Folks at Android Police have confirmed that their home server running Windows 10 Pro was recently updated with the latest version of Google Drive. It is now evident that the new build was not meant for public release as it involuntarily throws up a warning message saying, "Do not leak!" whenever you click the Google Drive icon in the taskbar.

Google Drive error messages
Google Drive error messages Twitter

Google Drive is powered by automatic updates that cannot be disabled or rolled back to the previous release and this could prove to be a costly mistake on the part of Google, although the company has started rolling out a bug-fix update for all affected users in a phased manner.

Here's what Google has written on the G Suite Status Dashboard addressing all affected users about the impending fix being rolled out to their computers:

Google Drive service has already been restored for some users, and we expect a resolution for all users within the next 12 hours. Please note this time frame is an estimate and may change.

We are deploying an updated client now. The Windows client will automatically update with this fixed version within the next 12 hours. Alternatively, affected users can download the updated version of the client from https://www.google.com/drive/download/. Affected Windows 10 users may be required to sign in to their Google account within the client.

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