Microsoft Attempts Fix Global Outlook Outage as First Repairs Stall
Microsoft said its first repairs to a global Microsoft 365 outage were not working as expected. Outlook, Teams and Copilot were hit in 74 countries and territories, and the company is now seeking alternative ways to add capacity.
Microsoft said on Thursday that its first efforts to repair a major global outage of Outlook and other Microsoft 365 services were not working as expected. The company is now looking for alternative ways to restore capacity.
The hours-long disruption has hit email, Teams and the Copilot AI assistant. Microsoft microsoft attempts fix global recovery has so far produced only limited results.
What Microsoft said
"We've monitored the status of the changes applied to improve serviceability and confirmed they're not taking as expected," Microsoft said on X. It added that it was "identifying alternate workstreams that can be applied to increase capacity." It did not say when service would be fully restored.
The company blamed "elevated load" on a portion of its infrastructure across multiple regions. It later said a number of servers were "being unexpectedly unavailable", which strained its remaining systems.
In an update shortly after 6 pm Eastern Time (2300 GMT), Microsoft said it was "observing limited recovery" as it tried to route user traffic away from affected servers. Users may see a gradual recovery as their clients reconnect, it said.
Microsoft also warned that some restored services "can become unresponsive again". Customers "in any region" could be affected, it said.
Scale of the disruption
Reports of Outlook problems peaked globally at nearly 140,000 around 18:00 GMT on Thursday, according to monitoring website Downdetector. The outage tracker said the disruption went global within an hour and knocked out Microsoft products in 74 countries and territories.
Users in the US, Japan and Singapore reported problems. Downdetector also logged thousands of complaints about Teams and Copilot.
Microsoft said the outage may stop some users viewing certain files or details in calendar apps. Copilot may not work properly. Messaging and online meetings were largely functional, the firm said.
Governments were affected too. New Zealand's foreign ministry told staff its ability to receive emails had been hit by the outage, including at all its embassies, consulates and representative offices worldwide.
Knock-on effects
The BBC understands there is no indication the outage was caused by a cyber-attack.
AI companies Anthropic and OpenAI, which work with Microsoft's systems, were also hit. OpenAI said it was investigating an issue affecting its connections to Microsoft's services, which caused some tools not to work as expected.
Electric truck maker Workhorse Group moved its third-quarter results from November 12 to November 16. It cited business disruptions caused by the Microsoft outage.
Microsoft reported a separate outage of its Azure cloud platform last month. That one also affected its productivity tools and companies worldwide.
"We appreciate our customers' patience while we work to restore services as soon as possible," a Microsoft spokesperson said.
