Google confirms that there is an issue with Google Mail, will provide more info shortly

It appears that some users are having issues with Gmail right now and are unable to access their accounts.

Upon visiting the Google Mail status page, you can see that the issue has been verified and is being worked on currently. The message on the page reads:

4/17/12 9:42 AM
We’re investigating reports of an issue with Google Mail. We will provide more information shortly.

If you’re trying to access your hosted Gmail account, you might find this error:

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The outages are being reported on Twitter rapidly, with some people taking this opportunity to make light of the situation and ponder moving to another service:

Gmail is down. SETTING UP A HOTMAIL ACCOUNT BRB

— Forrest Kobayashi (@forrestkoba) April 17, 2012

If you came to twitter to find if #gmail is down. It is.

— Sarah Evans (@prsarahevans) April 17, 2012

It goes without saying that many companies are suffering from a serious halt to productivity due to this issue. Sure, it’s only been 30 minutes so far, but with all of the time lost from people asking one another if their email is down alone, money is being lost.

UPDATE: Google has provided us with some more information, including how many are affected:

4/17/12 10:18 AM
Our team is continuing to investigate this issue. We will provide an update by 4/17/12 11:18 AM with more information about this problem. Thank you for your patience.
This issue is affecting less than 2% of the Google Mail user base. The affected users are unable to access Google Mail.

UPDATE 2:

4/17/12 10:24 AM
Google Mail 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.

A Google spokesperson has issued the following statement to us:

We’re aware that some users are experiencing an error when accessing their Gmail. We’ve implemented a fix and users should be able to access their mail shortly. We apologize for the inconvenience. Thanks for your patience.

UPDATE 3: Gmail is back. Feel free to thank Google for nearly an hour of free-time.

4/17/12 10:46 AM
The problem with Google Mail should be resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience and continued support. Please rest assured that system reliability is a top priority at Google, and we are making continuous improvements to make our systems better.