By Sajal Kayan

Gmail, the free webmail service run by Google is currently inaccessible.

On attempting to access the email service www.gmail.com, users are greeted with “HTTP Error 502 Bad gateway” error. The error message reads “Server Error. The server encountered a temporary error and could not complete your request. Please try again in 30 seconds. ”

Earlier today, we noticed that for about 30 minutes, Google News (news.google.com) was not accepting any new stories, apparently the Gmail outage occurred just as the Google News issue was fixed.

On attempting to refresh the emails using the official gmail apps for Symbians(on Nokia E71), we get the following error :”Unhandled Exception. Close Application?”

Anxious users can check the current status of this Gmail outage at http://www.google.com/appsstatus Google has posted the following notifications :-

At 3:53 PM (EST) : We’re aware of a problem with Google Mail affecting a majority of users. The affected users are unable to access Google Mail. We will provide an update by September 2, 2009 3:53:00 AM UTC+7 detailing when we expect to resolve the problem. Please note that this resolution time is an estimate and may change.

At 4:03 PM (EST) : Google Mail service has already been restored for some users, and we expect a resolution for all users within the next 1.2 hours. Please note this time frame is an estimate and may change.

Both Gmail.com and Google hosted email users are affected by this outage. However, the emails are still accessible via POP and IMAP.

The news of one of the leading email services has caused a stir in twitterverse. Some comments:

@BreakingNews : Google’s popular e-mail service Gmail went down this afternoon. The cause was not immediately known.

@michellemalkin : Gmail is still down. But do not complain too loudly. Last thing we need is an Email Czar…

@GLBcsn : i think Gmail is taking a nap

@felix85 : Gmail down.. i feel so ..helpless

Google has acknowledged the problem in an official blogpost by David Besbris, Engineering Director.

Edit 5:19 pm (EDT) : Both gmail.com and Google Hosted is working for us.

Edit 5:24 pm (EDT) : At 5:13 pm (EDT) Google posted the following update :-
We are continuing to investigate this issue. We will provide an update by September 2, 2009 5:13:00 AM UTC+7 detailing when we expect to resolve the problem.

Users can access their email via IMAP or POP. You can find instructions for how to do this here.

Also, at this time, Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook (applies only to Google Apps Premier and Edu customers) is not available.