Google Apps Script Instability – “Exception: Service error: Drive”

[dung nguyen]

I’ve been running a Google Apps Script for a long time without issues, and there haven’t been any recent changes to the code. However, lately I’ve been frequently encountering this error:
Exception: Service error: Drive at ******(****:14:25) at ******(******:99:9) at *****(*****:17:9)   

The script structure is still solid, and it usually works again if I rerun it, but the error keeps appearing intermittently.

Has anyone experienced this issue before? What could be the root cause, and is there a way to resolve it permanently instead of relying on reruns?

[Ashley Beck]

My company has also been having this issue with all of our Apps Script submissions since yesterday morning (27 Apr 2026, approx 8am PST).  

We have multiple Apps Scripts that run from inputs given in a spreadsheet, then make copies of files based on the entries.  This is not working for us now.  Smaller input files worked yesterday, but today not even that is working.  Every execution fails, throwing a 403 error with "Exception: Service error: Drive", when before our scripts were executing without issue.

Does this possibly connect to the current AppSheets outage?

[Bennett, Scott]

I had a similar issue when our tech department changed the settings in the Google Workspace Admin Console.  It was location filtering apps script and that was causing it.  Not sure if that is what is going on here.

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Scott Bennett

[Michael O'Shaughnessy]

Ah yes!  It is good to know I am not alone!!  I took the opportunity to finally learn about "exponential backoff".  With the help of Gemini I created this document:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mCwgm347zpgQ57_qRQntzJOkNCpgYPsWLjCXyTML8us/edit?usp=sharing

I have folders containing over 100 Google Docs that need to be saved as PDFs in another folder before being sent to parents.  I kept hitting the service error.  So, I worked out the "expoential backoff" and it was great to watch the logs when it hit the drive error and then reported "successful on 2nd attempt"!!!  I was able to finish my task with out pulling my hair out!!

The key step is in the "while loop".  If you have coded at all you will understand what it is doing.  

If you want to dig into this more check out Bruce McPherson's page at: 

https://ramblings.mcpher.com/gassnippets2/exponential-backoff/

I hope this helps!

Thanks,

Michael

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/google-apps-script-community/CAL7%3DANFuSS1jnAR2oE1SqKP%2BgH-w54xsK4Cos-sWN5WFFMWe2Q%40mail.gmail.com.

[Gaurav]

Share your file. I can help you.

Regards

Gaurav Arora

7228022709

 

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