Why is the Microsoft Outage Lasting So Long?
A major global Microsoft outage has caused disruptions, or in some cases, disabled entire services, including emails and artificial intelligence products. Efforts to fully restore services are ongoing. Microsoft stated that the outage was not caused by a cybersecurity incident. Here's what we know about the affected services and the underlying issues.
What Happened?
Microsoft 365 services, such as Teams, Outlook, and Microsoft's artificial intelligence software Copilot, have been hit by "connectivity problems." Customers are experiencing varying levels of access, with many unable to send or receive emails, access certain files, or view their calendar apps. Some users have been able to use Teams without issues, utilizing messaging and online meeting functions.
Will Emails Sent During the Outage Ever Arrive?
While services are resuming, Microsoft has warned of continued "intermittent access issues," indicating that some users will still face difficulties loading their inboxes and may experience "delayed email delivery." This means it's not guaranteed that every email sent during the outage will reach its intended recipient immediately. Earlier, Microsoft extended the "timeout window" to 48 hours "to help protect delayed messages as delivery catches up." The email timeout window refers to the time Outlook waits to receive an email, and when they do arrive, the timestamp will reflect when they were delivered, not when they were sent.
How Many People Have Been Affected?
More than 430 million people worldwide use Microsoft 365 apps, according to Microsoft's website. The exact scale of the outage remains unconfirmed, but monitoring website Downdetector received 140,000 reports of Outlook issues from 74 countries on Thursday evening. The actual number affected is likely much higher as Downdetector relies on user self-reporting. Microsoft 365 is also widely used by companies globally, and the outage has had a ripple effect on other services. Tech giants OpenAI and Anthropic have both faced problems due to the outage.
OpenAI reported an issue with its connections to Microsoft's services, causing some tools to malfunction. The disruption has been widespread, affecting city governments in the US, Australian spy agencies, and even healthcare networks in Canada and the UK. Courts in Los Angeles and Texas have warned of potential communication delays, and GP surgeries, pharmacies, police forces, and schools across the UK have been impacted.
What Has Microsoft Said?
Microsoft has ruled out a cyber-attack and attributed the ongoing outage to "elevated load" on its infrastructure, referring to servers handling a higher volume of stress than usual. A large number of servers became "unexpectedly unavailable," straining the remaining servers. On Friday afternoon, Microsoft reported encouraging recovery progress in Europe and North America. They added that they are focused on "addressing the remaining areas of disruption" and warned that some users may still experience intermittent issues while recovery actions continue. In a later statement, they said email queues have significantly reduced and are approaching normal levels.
Why Has It Taken So Long to Fix?
Although the email service is beginning to recover, the extent of the issue and the number of affected users have contributed to the lengthy repair process.