Search engine outfit Google said that it has fixed a problem with its contacts system that caused many users of its Gmail service to have trouble accessing their online e-mail.

According to an announcement on the company's Gmail "Help Center" site, an outage in the contacts system used by Gmail prevented the e-mail system from loading properly. Users across the United States, Canada and India reported problems with Gmail.  A deep throat in Google said that that the company's own corporate e-mail account was down.

Google said that all mail sent on the system was safe. However, there would be some minor delays in deliveries. The system was completely down since about 11PM last night GMT. It is not clear why there were no back-up systems in place.