The Google Search App stopped working last night (Saturday night) for a few hours. Google was quick to fix it in the middle of the night but by then, hundreds, if not, thousands of complaints flooded the support forums and social media.
This impacted a "large number of users searching on the Google app on Android," Google confirmed. When they loaded the Google Search App or any of its widgets, a message would pop up that says "Google keeps stopping."
Here is one of many screenshots I saw in the Google Search Support forums:
The issue started at about midnight last night and lasted for a few hours until it was resolved.
You can see the non stop complaints in the Google Search Support forums about the issue if you scroll down to that time frame. There is also this massive Reddit thread with complaints.
9to5Google was the only other site reporting on this issue, as far as I can tell.
Google wrote:
There's an ongoing issue with serving in Google Search that's affecting a large number of users searching on the Google app on Android. We're working on identifying the root cause. Next update will be within 12 hours.
That was given a timestamp at 2:07 AM ET but I believe the issue started a couple of hours prior.
Google said the issue was fully resolved at 4:11 AM ET.
If you noticed a dip in your Android traffic from Google between that time, this may be why.
Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help and Reddit.
