A global Gmail outage that began at 1.16am AEST this morning has affected millions of users across the world.
Nine hours later, at 10.45am AEST, the company was still claiming that the service had been restored for "some users" as it did four times earlier after the initial announcement of the breakdown of the service.
The first message at 1.16am said there were indications that the issue only affected Google for Work Gmail users.
Subsequent messages did not clarify whether this was correct or not.
{loadposition sam08}About 40 minutes later, Google said it had identified the root cause of the issue and was implementing a "potential fix".
A third message was sent out at 2.40am, claiming "Gmail service has already been restored for some users, and we expect a resolution for all users in the near future. Please note this time frame is an estimate and may change."
This was repeated twice, at 4.10am and 5.40am. The extent of restoration of services was encapsulated in the words "some users" and not specified to any greater extent.
Update: At 8.20am and 10.45am, Google posted the same message it posted at 5.40am: "Gmail service has already been restored for some users, and we expect a resolution for all users in the near future. Please note this time frame is an estimate and may change. Delivery of messages sent to affected users during the issue may be delayed."