Google Talk, the instant messaging service of Google, is facing a massive outage in India and other parts of the world.
Google in a statement at 1610 hrs said, “We are investigating reports of an issue with Google Talk. We will provide more information shortly.”
Minutes later, the company acknowledged that the outage has affected majority of its users.
“We are aware of a problem with Google Talk affecting a majority of users. The affected users are able to access Google Talk, but are seeing error messages and other unexpected behaviour,” it said.
Later in the evening, the company again assured that it would provide timely updates on the situation.
“We will provide an update by 1720 hrs on Thursday evening, detailing when we expect to resolve the problem. Please note that this resolution time is an estimate and may change,” it said.
However, the issue could not be resolved by then either.
Another update by the company, at 1820 hrs said, “Our team is continuing to investigate this issue.”
At 1920 hrs, Google was still not able to resolve the problem and it said that it would inform on the situation at 2020 hrs.
Users posted their grievances via Twitter and Facebook saying that their Google Talk contacts have disappeared while others noted that messages are not reaching the intended recipients.
Partly restored
Google Talk has been partially restored after going offline in India and other parts of the world for hours together.
“Google Talk service has already been restored for some users...We expect a resolution for all users in the near future. Please note this time frame is an estimate and may change,” Google said in an update at 2020 hours.
It is estimated that there are thousands of Google Talk users in India.
However, half an hour later, Google said the problem with Google Talk should be resolved.
“We apologise for the inconvenience... If you are still experiencing an issue, please contact us via the Google Help Centre,” it said.
Social media was abuzz with messages about Google Talk issues today