Error reports surge as widespread Microsoft outage takes down Outlook and other 365 services

Reports spread across services

Outlook users reported an outage Thursday afternoon, while error reports for Microsoft products climbed. The Microsoft service status page also failed to load for Mashable reporters for part of the day, then returned to normal.

Microsoft initially said the problem mainly affected mailboxes in the Americas. In a later update, it acknowledged that other services and locations were affected too.

Microsoft describes disruption

At 1:07 p.m. ET, Microsoft said the issue could affect Microsoft 365 connectivity for users in any region. It reported elevated load across infrastructure in multiple regions as a likely contributor to connection errors.

The company said users might have difficulty accessing Microsoft Teams, Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Microsoft Copilot 365 and Microsoft Defender XDR. It directed administrators to the Microsoft 365 admin center for updates under EX1550543.

Fixes underway by afternoon

At 2:20 p.m. ET, the status page was loading normally and warned that users might be unable to connect to multiple Microsoft 365 services. At 4:17 p.m. ET, Microsoft said on X that it was deploying fixes and some servers had returned online.

Despite that progress, the company status page continued to list Microsoft 365 service as degraded. Microsoft had not provided further information in the updates described.

Earlier Outlook outage

Outlook also suffered a widespread outage in August. Microsoft then attributed the problem to a configuration error that stopped authentication components from deploying correctly. Microsoft 365 includes services used for email, collaboration and other work. The Thursday disruption reached beyond Outlook, according to the company’s updates.