Frequent users of Google's Gmail service likely noticed a problem yesterday with the normal operations that saw emails to be delayed for several hours. The culprit was an outage that affected nearly one-third of all Gmail users. The company has announced that it has restored its mail service to normal operations following the outing on Tuesday.
The issue reportedly affected up to 212 million users according to TechWeekEurope. The outage lasted from around 9 a.m. and lasted until about 6:30 p.m. The company did not give specifics as to what the issue was, instead it merely took the opportunity to apologize and measure the scope of those affected by the issue.
"Between 0554 and 1530 Pacific Time today, 29.1 percent of messages received by Gmail users were delayed," Google said in a statement on the Gmail status page. "The average (median) delay was just 2.6 seconds, but some mail was more severely delayed. However, this issue did not affect users' access to the Gmail page or other functionality."
Google announced early yesterday that the problem had been fixed but staggered reports later into the night saw people still experiencing delays on their e-mails. The issue was eventually resolved for good late Monday evening.
"We apologise for the duration of today's event; we're aware that prompt e-mail delivery is an important part of the Gmail experience, and today's experience fell far short of our standards," Google said in a status message on Tuesday.
Gmail has a total user base of around 425 million users. This means that the problem, which reportedly hit 212 million users, made up about half of the company's users.
Did you experience the Gmail issue that plagued half of the company's users yesterday? Tell us your experience. Comment and share your thoughts in the comments section below.
