The trouble some Northwestern students experienced with their @u.northwestern e-mail accounts over the weekend was due to a connection issue between the custom NU setup and Gmail, which runs the system, a senior NU Information Technology official said Tuesday.

NUIT and Google identified the cause of the problem as a link in the NU e-mail setup which allows students to connect directly to the NU directory, said Wendy Woodward, director of technology support services at NUIT.

“It’s worked just fine for several years now, but Google is constantly improving their services, and it looks like something they did on Friday created the hiccup,” said Woodward, who classified problems with the Gmail-based accounts as “very rare.”

Some students who tried to log into their accounts over the weekend were only able to access it in its “basic HTML” version, which does not allow instant messaging, formatting of messages or other services.

The problem was not system-wide and seemed to strike randomly, Woodward said. Some students had trouble at some times over the weekend but not at other times.

NUIT temporarily removed the link to the NU directory and is working on a long-term solution, Woodward said.

“NUIT apologizes for any inconvenience this event has caused and remains committed to providing quality services to students,” she said.

All NU students are eligible for the @u.northwestern.edu system, except for those in the Kellogg School of Management and Feinberg School of Medicine.

– Brian Rosenthal