Gmail back online after thousands shut out

WASHINGTON – Gmail is apparently up and running after a glitch in the server disrupted the system Tuesday afternoon, leaving thousands without access to their accounts.

Google issued a statement saying less than 2 percent of its users worldwide had been affected by the glitch, though it’s not entirely clear when the issue will be totally resolved.

At 1:31 p.m., the Gmail team followed an acknowledgment of the outage by telling users, “#Gmail should be back for some of you already, and will be back for everyone soon. Thanks for your patience.”

Many trying to access their email accounts were getting a server error and were prompted to restart their browsers.

Social media lit up in the wake of the outage with thousands of tweets about the inability to access Gmail.

Google’s App Status Dashboard, an official website that offers performance information for Google Apps services, claimed that Gmail’s status was down.

WTOP’s Megan Cloherty contributed to this report.

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(Copyright 2012 by WTOP. All Rights Reserved.)

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