Google confirms 'email not found' bug breaking new Search Console and GA4 service accounts

Google has officially acknowledged a widespread bug blocking developers from adding new Google Cloud service accounts to Google Search Console and Google Analytics 4. 

This glitch seems to have popped up around April 23 and is effectively freezing new API integrations. It is pretty bad for digital agencies trying to onboard clients right now, with sprint deadlines actively slipping as teams lose access to crucial data routing tools.

The failure happens at the very last step. Anyone pasting a fresh service account email into the permissions tab is hitting a hard block. The system simply spits back an error reading: “Failed to add user: email not found.”

Early on, users flooded a Google Analytics Community thread looking for a workaround.

A product expert there initially suggested standard troubleshooting steps to clear the hurdle. According to his early replies, users just needed to ensure they copied the email address without any hidden spaces and correctly verified the IAM setup in Google Cloud.

But as the days dragged on, it became glaringly obvious that user error was not the culprit. Developers were waiting well over 48 hours, hoping for normal DNS or IAM propagation delays. They verified site ownership via HTML upload, confirmed the GSC API was active, and checked their JSON keys.

The keys validate perfectly and grab OAuth tokens without issue. The Google user interface just outright refuses to recognize the generated email addresses.

When one frustrated developer pressed for an update nearly a week after the initial thread opened, the product expert said that there were no updates, confirming that the only thing they know is that Google is looking into it.

To stem the flood of duplicate complaints, Product Experts finally escalated the problem into a single pinned tracking thread.

They made it clear to users that tweaking settings will not help. The failure is completely out of their hands. It is a recognized bug on Google’s end.

At the time of this writing, there is no timeline for a fix. We’ll keep an eye out for any further developments and will update the article accordingly.

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