I thought I would update anyone who was interested in my ongoing situation as to what has happened now. (Long story short: had viva, given R&R, did revisions & resubmitted within a year, waited 3 months for result and was told by admin office two weeks ago that examiners had failed my thesis, got hysterical, then was told by the school to wait as the examiner reports were incomplete).

I have received my examiner's reports (much earlier than I had anticipated) and I have been given minor revisions! I was so incredibly relieved to hear this. Considering I'd been told that I'd failed two weeks ago, it was like my thesis was given back to me after I thought I'd never get control of it again. So obviously I am very happy and rang my partner followed by my mum in tears of joy!

However, having read the reports I'm feeling terrified again. Firstly: there are two distinct categories of minor CORRECTIONS (within 2 months) and minor REVISIONS (within 6 months). I got the latter. What my examiners have asked me to do makes very little sense and is incredibly vague. It is only my external who will see the thesis again but the short report I received from her was wholly critical and gave no positive feedback whatsoever. Although the official letter I received from my university says that "the thesis has met the standards for the award of PhD, but require me to make satisfactory revisions to the thesis within six months", the report from my external says that my 12 months of R&R corrections have "improved the thesis somewhat but do not bring it up to the standard required for a PhD".

Although these minor revisions are of course great news, I'm still terrified that I will do them (and they are not as 'minor' as the title suggests) and will still be failed. Bearing in mind my word count is 153,000 and will now rise even more.

Thanks to everyone for all the advice and support!

1. Congratulations! That is great news, and you deserve a medal for going through all this and coming through as a functional person with a good thesis. That official letter - "has met the standards for the award of the PhD" - is the notification that you've PASSED and it's only a matter of time now.

2. Your university admin sounds TERRIBLE. First they lost your viva report. Then they gave you your actual result and told you it was wrong. Then they gave you the wrong report. Then they made you wait two weeks. Then they finally gave you your actual result. What on earth is happening there? If I were in your shoes, I would go see the dean or the head of the grad school and point out 1) that the process to date has been deeply unsatisfactory, and the support you have received has not been up to standard and 2) given that, it is really important for you to be adequately supported in this final stage, so that the disadvantages caused by these institutional failures don't prevent you from taking the degree. Given these circumstances, I think you should officially tell the university that you need your supervisors to stay closely involved at this stage. This conversation will implicitly flag to the school that you WILL be appealing if you don't get the degree after all this and it is their job to prevent that.

3) have you spoken to your supervisors about the revisions? It may be worth giving your supervisors a list of concrete questions - in the form, "I think when the examiner says x, they mean z and I can respond by making these 3 changes - do you agree?" Where a comment is incomprehensible, say so and ask your supervisor to tell you - via email - how to interpret it. You want a paper trail of every step you take in understanding the report at this point, I think, because your institution has proved itself pretty untrustworthy.

CONGRATULATIONS! I'm so happy for you.

Everything what gwen said, and congratulations, you are almost there!

You certainly have been through the wringer but you have done so well... just a bit of polish and you're finished.

Very well done. I'd be doing cart wheels if I was you.

So pleased to hear this!!