Google Classroom has never been used globally as in these recent few years. This service for online education with both clients for students and teachers has had a lot of ups and downs over time. When it works, it works well but when it doesn’t — it fails everyone involved. Some users report that Google Classroom is not working for them and we have a few solutions to suggest. Check them out below.
Table of contents:
- Check the network and Classroom status
- Clear cache for Classroom
- Reinstall the app or try with the incognito mode on the web
- Remove your Google Account and add it again
Why does Google Classroom take forever to load?
There are a lot of reasons why Google Classroom might not be working, if we exclude network issues, users, pretty much, have their hands tied. Sometimes the platform (both app and web client) just won’t work. Maybe the servers are down or the client has a bug.
On the other hand, what you can do on your side is check the network, clear the cache, or reinstall the app. Consider using the Incognito mode on Chrome or remove your Google Account and add it again.
1. Check the network and Classroom status
Start with the network. Continuous loading, both on Android/iPhone or web clients, points towards network issues of sorts. Although, based on reports, most users haven’t had any connectivity issues and the only app/service that wasn’t loading is Google Classroom. Still, you can restart your PC/smartphone and router, reconnect, and give it another go.
Also, make sure to disable VPN or proxy (adblockers like Blokada on Android, too) if you want to use Google Classroom. On the web (on Chrome for desktop or other internet browsers), disable ad-blocking extensions and try again.
In addition, check the server status of Google Classroom because maybe the service is temporarily down and that’s the reason why Classroom is not working. And, considering that the online classes took over during the pandemic, there’s a good chance that the servers are overburdened. You can check if Google Classroom is down.
2. Clear cache for Classroom
The next step you can try is clearing the cache (or cache and data on Android) from Google Classroom. We already explained how to clear cache and reset permissions for particular websites. Along with that, we recommend sticking to the Google Chrome browser with Google Classroom as it seemingly works best on Chrome. Not the first time that Google’s service works much better on their native browser.
In regards to Google Classroom for Android, you can navigate to Settings > Apps > Classroom and then open Storage. Once there, tap Clear data and restart your smartphone.
Open the app and check if you can join the class. If Classroom keeps loading, reinstall the app and give it another go.
3. Reinstall the app or try with the incognito mode on the web
On Android, you can reinstall the app from the Play Store and give it another try. Although we can’t confirm this, some versions of the app perform much worse than others and the Play Store rating for Classroom speak volumes about how the service declined over time. So, reinstall the app and try using Classroom again. To do so, navigate to Play Store and locate Google Classroom. Tap Uninstall and restart your device. After that, open the Play Store once again, locate Classroom, and install the app.
For web users, we recommend using the Incognito mode in your browser. Yes, you’ll need to sign in every time you use Classroom in the Incognito window but, strangely enough, this workaround worked for so many users. You can open a new incognito window by pressing Ctrl + Shift + N.
4. Remove your Google Account and add it again
Finally, you can remove the Google Account on your phone and add it again. After that, sign in again and open Classroom. Check if Classroom is still not loading or if your classes load without issues.
Follow these instructions to remove your Google Account from your Android phone:
- Open Settings.
- Tap Accounts and select Manage accounts.
- Select your default Google Account and tap Remove account.
- Confirm and restart your device.
- Add the Google Account in Settings > Accounts > Manage accounts and open Classroom.
You can do the same for Google Chrome on your desktop but the aforementioned Incognito mode workaround already deals with that. Also, make sure to report the problem to Google or in the app.
And, on that note, we can conclude this article. Thank you for reading and don’t forget to tell us if you managed to address the problem with the instructions we provided here. Have an alternative solution? Tell us about it in the comments section below.
Editor’s note: This article was initially published in March 2022. We made sure to revamp it for freshness and accuracy.
