Students received little or no access to their WebMail accounts Monday morning and afternoon due to an unknown problem, University Information Technology Services officials said.

“”We are still investigating this point but we do not know the cause of the problem,”” said UITS Senior Director Limell Lawson.

Several students said they were frustrated at being unable to access their e-mail.

“”I got on at 8 a.m. and then couldn’t get on for the rest of the day,”” said non-degree seeking student Markus Steinhauser.

Senior mathematics major Jared Hudson said he was frustrated at not being able to access a paper he had e-mailed to himself Sunday evening. “”I’ve got to turn in a paper in two hours and I can’t get onto WebMail,”” Hudson said. “”This is ridiculous.””

By 5 p.m., UITS officials said WebMail was up and running but were still unable to identify the cause for it being down.

“”We are fairly certain the issue was not related to the transfer to Google e-mail services,”” Lawson said.

Monday was also the first day for students to transfer their WebMail accounts to the Google-based system CatMail, the university’s new e-mail provider. While students were unable to use WebMail for the majority of the day, 2,000 students had transferred to the university’s new email services by 11 a.m., according to Lawson.

She said UITS technicians are still working to identify why WebMail was unavailable to students.