A mass Microsoft 365 outage disrupted email, chat, and cloud tools for users across 74 countries and territories, according to Downdetector.
Monitoring websites registered a spike in user reports involving Microsoft Teams in Ireland and the UK starting at 6:15 p.m. on Thursday. The disruption continued into Friday morning, affecting businesses, schools, and government agencies worldwide.
The incident impacted core productivity platforms including Outlook email, SharePoint, Teams, and Copilot AI. “ability to receive emails has been affected by the global Microsoft outage. This also impacts all New Zealand Embassies, Consulates and Representative Offices around the world,” the New Zealand foreign ministry said in a notice, impacting all embassies and consulates globally.
According to CNN, Downdetector logged nearly 130,000 complaints regarding Outlook problems at the height of the incident, alongside thousands more for Microsoft 365 and Teams.
We’re seeing positive results with our efforts to restart affected infrastructure and recover server availability in an isolated manner. We’re actively monitoring the performance of these portions of infrastructure to verify stability, which we suspect will support improved…
In Australia, courts lost live feeds and schools texted parents to phone in absences until email systems returned to service, according to The Guardian. OpenAI and Anthropic also reported issues involving their Microsoft integration connectors, as third-party AI providers faced disruptions.
“We appreciate your organisation’s patience and understanding while we work with urgency to resolve this incident,” Microsoft said in an early statement.
A massive Microsoft outage has left people around the world without access to Outlook email, Teams meeting tools and other staples of modern office life. With reporting from yours truly in the United States and CNN's @hilary_whiteman in Australia:https://t.co/aQLVTUNTwG
Server Crashes Prolong Worldwide Downtime
The outage ran for more than nine hours, making it an unusually prolonged disruption for a critical cloud infrastructure service. Microsoft engineers attempted to mitigate the problems by isolating parts of the infrastructure and shifting traffic to alternate routes. However, the company reported that efforts to improve serviceability were not progressing as expected.
In subsequent updates, Microsoft explained that servers brought back online repeatedly crashed upon receiving live traffic. The company said that “the servers we returned to service can become unresponsive again once they receive traffic” as engineers tested configuration changes. Ruling out a cyber-attack, Microsoft clarified that the disruption stemmed from servers unexpectedly going offline rather than any sudden surge in user activity.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which Microsoft products were affected by the global outage?
The incident impacted Microsoft 365 service connectivity, including Outlook emails, Teams messaging, SharePoint, Copilot AI, and Exchange Online services across 74 countries and territories.
Was the Microsoft disruption caused by a cyber-attack?
Microsoft reported no indication that the global outage was the result of a cyber-attack, attributing the failure instead to servers unexpectedly becoming unavailable.
We're investigating reports of users experiencing issues accessing Exchange Online mailboxes through multiple connection methods in the Americas. More details can be found in the Microsoft 365 admin center under EX1550543.
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Microsoft Outlook is down. Microsoft 365 issues are cutting people off from their email, as well as Microsoft Teams, SharePoint Online, and Microsoft 365 Copilot https://t.co/4odaKBRKQS
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