Google Play error – five days and counting

This issue is affecting mainly non-US users.

Basically Google Play Store is broken, with error "Something went wrong try again" when trying to check for updates.

Restarting phone, clearing cache and data (for both Google Play Store and Google Play Serives), uninstalling updates to Google Play doesn't fix the issue.

The issue tracker has a comment (#24) about this being known to developers now - but still no official response on what is causing it. No communication from Google on a public discussion either (https://support.google.com/googleplay/thread/201319087/googl...)