Microsoft down — live updates on outage affecting 365, Office, Outlook, Teams and more

Near immediate drop in reports

Since Microsoft announced that it was redirecting traffic and implemented a repair reports have quickly dropped on Down Detector.

That doesn't mean the outage is over since thousands of reports are still coming in, they've just lessened.

Outlook, the most affected service, is still above 10,000 reports though it is in decline.

Infrastructure restored says Microsoft

Microsoft says it has restored the infrastructure to a "healthy state" with a caveat.

The company says it still needs "further load balancing" to mitigate the impact from the outage. Traffic is being redirected while the fix goes into effect.

Up and down reports

Reports for Outlook have plateaued but other services are a mixed bag. Some services like Azure went down but are spiking again.

365 is dipping a bit and Store is going up. Teams meanwhile is going down.

Microsoft update

Another tweet from Microsoft just went up. Unfortunately, there isn't anything new here.

"We're continuing to review what actions are required to restore the affected infrastructure to a heathy state and rebalance the service traffic to achieve recovery."

It's similar to the message we've seen on the status page. However, access to the status page is intermittent due to the 429 errors, so sharing this message in multiple places is getting people some information.

Where we stand after just over an hour

This outage kicked off around 11 a.m. Pacific but didn't really hit until closer to 11:40 am.

Right now, reports on Down Detector have started to dip a little across every Microsoft service. However, we are still seeing a high numbers including over 12,000 reports for Outlook, close 16,000 reports for 365, and 2,700 reports for Store.

The status page hasn't changed, and Microsoft hasn't tweeted in about 35 minutes.

However, the company says it is continuing to review the incident to determine what actions it needs to restore service.

365 seems to work but not Outlook

I'm seeing comments on Down Detector and social media that some people are able to login to the admin center for Microsoft 365.

Outlook appears to be having more problems with claims of emails not sending or receiving. I've seen some comments from users who can send emails but aren't receiving any new ones.

Intermittent interruption

I was able to load the status page again, but it won't stay up. Refreshing causes the 429 error to hit.

There is some new information, including this message:

"Users may be receiving a "451 4.3.2 temporary server issue" error message when attempting to send or receive email through Outlook."

The update does say that users may experience intermittent impact.

Status page crashes!

Either because of the infrastructure issues or due to a fix Microsoft is attempting to implement, the Status page is also now down.

When I try to access it I keep getting the above error message.

An HTTP 429 Error refers to a site receiving too many requests. I'm sure it's not just me trying to access the page.

Cause identified

Microsoft says it has identified a cause for the outage.

"We've identified a portion of service infrastructure in North America that is not processing traffic as expected. We're working to restore the infrastructure to a healthy state to achieve recovery," the company posted in a tweet.

On the status page, it provided a little more a details saying that the infrastructure is impacting load balancing and service availability.

Status page update

The official Microsoft status page has finally updated. It specifically notes service degradation for Microsoft 365 (Business or Enterprise).

Surprisingly, the page reads, "Users may be seeing degraded service functionality across multiple Microsoft 365 services."

That message would normally appear in the admin center, but apparently the outage may affect some people's ability to even access the admin center.

The message says people may have issues with sending and receiving emails.

Mixed bag for Microsoft apps

Over on Down Detector, Outlook, 365, Teams and Microsoft Store are seeing a growing number of reports.

On the other hand, Azure and Defender XDR spiked but have quickly started to decline. It's possible these services aren't as affected compared to the big apps like 365.

Similar to previous outage?

During the outage on Jan 21, Microsoft blamed the interruption on an issue related to a third-party. It's believed that an unnamed ISP caused connections between Microsoft's services and the apps.

This led to user unable to login to 365 or Teams or in some cases even open the app.

Microsoft acknowledges outage

The official Microsoft status page hasn't been updated yet, but the official Microsoft 365 X account posted that the company is investigating.

"We're investigating a potential issue impacting multiple Microsoft 365 services, including Outlook, Microsoft Defender and Microsoft Purview. Further information can be found in the admin center under MO1221364."

Other services affected

While they haven't received the same number of reports we are seeing other Microsoft services interrupted as well.

These include Azure, Defender, and Teams.

Sudden spike

The new outage kicked off around noon Pacific with Outlook hitting just over 6,750 reports on Down Detector.

Microsoft 365, the office apps suite, is less but still sitting closer to 4,000 reports.