I'm glad I found this post, although I've been waiting a bit longer than some of you, It makes feel better to know I'm not the only 1
Arrived in Canada in 2005
I applied in July of 2016 (I procrastinated sending everything in..)
As of September 2018, still "In Process", I've called CIC so many times, I know most people by name (jk), and I've had letters sent to the local office in my city. I've even gone in to the local office to ask and got lucky enough that someone checked my UCI even though they weren't supposed to (they only help people with appointments). That's when I found out they were doing "Clearances through 2nd parties" which neither of us really knew what that meant.
Finally today I decided to google it and here I am and it does sound like they are just massively backed up. Hope this helps
Appreciate your story. I called them a month ago and was told they finally cleared my background check. But now the backlog is in the decision making. They asked me to call them if I reach the 1-year threshold. not sure that'd be helpful to anyone else applying.