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Google applications including YouTube, email and Docs have suffered a rare service outage, with users unable to access many of the company's services.

The outage started shortly before noon UK time, lasting more than half an hour before services were restored.

Users around the world reported problems with Gmail, Google Drive, the Android Play Store, Maps and more.

Google's search engine, however, remained unaffected by the problems affecting its other services.

Google said the problem hit its authentication system, which is used for logging in and similar functions and lasted about 45 minutes.

Users were still able to access the websites' landing pages in "incognito mode", which does not store a log of the users' browsing activity.

The brief outage had a significant impact on the company's millions of users, many of whom rely on Google services for basic work apps such as email and calendars.

Users of Google Docs could continue to work if they had synced documents offline but were unable to use any online features.

The outage also affected Google-connected smart devices such as Home speakers - leading some users to complain on social media of being unable to switch off some lights in their homes.

It also had a knock-on effect on other apps, with players of the smartphone game Pokémon Go, for example, reporting being unable to log in.

Despite the widespread outage, Google's service dashboard initially showed no errors - before switching to red status across all services.

"We're aware of a problem with Gmail affecting a majority of users. The affected users are unable to access Gmail," the statement said, with the word "Gmail" replaced by other services.