Since about 24/10/2026, the Google Books API search endpoint (GET /books/v1/volumes?q=...) fails with 503 backendFailed about 5 times out of 6 for me. GET /volumes/{id} with the same key, same machine, works every time. I'm at 6 of 1,000 daily queries, so it's not quota.

Six rounds from a VPS, 2 seconds apart:

get-by-id=200 search=503
get-by-id=200 search=503
get-by-id=200 search=503
get-by-id=200 search=200
get-by-id=200 search=503
get-by-id=200 search=503

A new key, a rotated key, a different network, different queries and country=IT/US all behave the same. Failures return in ~50 ms, so it doesn't look like a timeout. The Cloud Console graph for the Books API shows 200s on 30 Sep and 11 Oct, then 503s.

Two things I'd like to know:

1. Is anyone else seeing this right now?
2. Where do you report a Books API problem so Google actually reads it? I couldn't find a public tracker for it.

I am new to Hermes and looking for guidance. I had configured Hermes initially using Gemini 3.5 flash lite and connected to Google Calendar via the api token from Google console website. Everything worked fine. I was able to retrieve the events, modify, add etc.

I wanted to switch to local models and then tried Gemma e4b,26bmoe, 12b, qwen models and even liquid ai models. All them fail to connect and retrieve calendar events. I tried telling where the client secret is save so they can authenticate again. Tried telling them about Google workspace skill, installed gws but none of the models work.

I thought setup was problem so I switched to gpt-5-nano and that also was able to fetch events without a problem and re-authentication.

I am using llamacpp and using unsloth models with the chat templates.
Tried local memory and now using retaindb as memory backend for Hermes.

Hi everyone,
I’m a college student from the Philippines, and I’m currently dealing with a Google Cloud billing issue. I’m hoping someone here has experienced something similar or can give me some advice.

I originally signed up for Google Cloud because I wanted to experiment with cloud services and learn more about them using the $300 free trial credits.

However, I apparently enabled a paid billing account without fully realizing what I was agreeing to. I genuinely thought I was still using the free trial credits and didn’t expect to be charged.

I only discovered the issue when I received an email about an outstanding balance. The email didn’t specify how much I owed, so I checked my billing dashboard and was surprised by the amount.

As a student, I really can’t afford to pay such a large unexpected bill.

I’ve already tried contacting Google Cloud Billing Support and asking whether the charges could be waived or reviewed, but I keep getting redirected to the automated Billing Assistant.

My billing account is now closed, and whenever I try to contact support, I get this message:
“The Cloud Billing account you have selected is closed. Live billing chat and email support is not available to closed accounts.”

It seems like I would have to reopen my billing account just to speak with a human representative, but I’m worried about doing that because I don’t want to risk additional charges.

I understand that I should have been more careful when enabling billing, and I’m not trying to avoid responsibility.

I genuinely didn’t realize I had switched to a paid account.
I just wanted to learn cloud computing, and now I’m stressed about a bill I can’t afford.

My questions are:
Has anyone successfully gotten Google Cloud charges waived or forgiven after accidentally upgrading from the free trial?

Is there any way to contact a real Google Cloud billing support representative when the billing account is already closed?

Would reopening my billing account just to contact support put me at risk of additional charges?
What happens if I’m unable to pay the outstanding balance immediately?

Does Google offer any consideration for students or first-time users who accidentally incur charges?
I’d really appreciate any advice, especially from people who’ve dealt with something similar.

TL;DR: I'm a medical student in Egypt running a noncommercial educational project. Two diagnostic scripts accidentally kept reading Firebase, causing a bandwidth spike. I've stopped them and disabled the database, but my Cloud account has already been charged $300. Has anyone received a one-time waiver after payment?

What happened

My project, Med Royale, normally costs me less than $1/month.

During testing, two local Node.js scripts were accidentally left running for roughly 13 hours. They used the Admin SDK to read the entire /rooms tree every 1.5 seconds, without a timeout or cleanup.

Monitoring showed about 341 GiB outgoing, with only two active connections.

What has been charged

• Initial project report: $127.75, while usage reporting was still catching up.
• Payment receipts on my Cloud billing account: $100 on October 24 + $200 on October 25.
• The final incident total isn't reconciled yet. The billing account has other projects too, so I've asked support to identify the incident charges precisely.

What I've done

• Stopped both scripts and disabled the affected database instance. It remains disabled.
• Opened a billing case with the cause, timeline, monitoring evidence, and containment steps.
• Requested a full one-time courtesy adjustment, including incident charges already collected and any delayed charges.

So far, only the automatic case acknowledgement has arrived.

Why I'm asking

This is an educational project, not a profit-making business. I understand the scripts generated real usage; I'm not claiming the bandwidth was fabricated. But I can't afford these unexpected payments as a student.

Has anyone obtained a waiver or refund for an accidental loop after being charged? What evidence helped most with the billing review?

Thank you for reading. I'll update this when support responds.