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[Update: Fixed] Partial Gmail outage causing ‘Address not found’ error when sending emails

Google suffered a massive hour-long outage yesterday morning. This afternoon, Gmail is seeing some widespread “Address not found” issues that prevent certain emails from being delivered.

This issue primarily manifests as some messages not being delivered and users receiving an “Address not found” error shortly — around 30 seconds — after sending from Mail Delivery Subsystem mailer-daemon@googlemail.com.

Your message wasn’t delivered to example@gmail.com because the address couldn’t be found, or is unable to receive mail.

Google says a “significant subset of users” are affected, and we haven’t been able to use Workspace accounts to reach personal Gmail addresses. However, the reverse exchange does work, while emails to other people in our domain do resolve.

Gmail suffered a similar “disruption” yesterday evening involving the same “Address not found”/”550-5.1.1” problem. It was resolved in just over an hour.

The web and mobile clients do load, though Google warns of “error messages, high latency, and/or other unexpected behavior.” Other functionality, like opening messages and searching, does work.

We’re aware of a problem with Gmail affecting a significant subset of users. The affected users are able to access Gmail, but are seeing error messages, high latency, and/or other unexpected behavior. We will provide an update by 12/15/20, 2:30 PM detailing when we expect to resolve the problem. Please note that this resolution time is an estimate and may change.

Google acknowledged the issue at 1:29 p.m. PT and hopes to provide an update in one hour.

Update 1: Google is still investigating the issue and will provide an update by 3 p.m.

Update 2: “Gmail service has already been restored for some users, and we expect a resolution for all users in the near future.”

Update 3: Google fixed the issue after two and a half hours: “The problem with Gmail has been resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience and continued support.”

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Avatar for Abner Li Abner Li

Editor-in-chief. Interested in the minutiae of Google and Alphabet. Tips/talk: abner@9to5g.com