Google Talk sending messages to the wrong recipients

Instant messaging service experience 'service disruption' with Google working on a fix

Google Talk users are reporting that messages sent over the search giant’s instant messaging service are being delivered to the wrong recipient.

The service is sometimes known as ‘gchat’ or ‘gtalk’ (though Google does not endorse either name) and is currently in the middle of an upgrade to the new Hangouts service.

A Google status message for Google Talk currently lists it as experience “Service disruption” with a note indicating that “at this time Google Talk is not functioning correctly and we are continuing to work to restore full functionality.”

Google are promising to provide more information about the problem from noon.

The Verge notes that users have been complaining about the errors on Twitter and on Google’s forums, with some even reporting that their messages are being sent to users outside their contact list.

One user from the forums described the following situation:

"I was chatting with contact A when suddenly contact B pops up with a message asking me about things I was saying to A. Upon searching my chat history with B, I see my messages to A there, one-sided so it was out of context for B. This was obviously quite shocking, so I told contact C about the issue. I suspected an issue with Hangouts in Google+, which I don’t use often but have an account for, and upon opening Hangouts history with A, I see my messages to C there."

User have suggested that the problem is arising due to mis-communication between Talk and Hangout.