Microsoft struggles with huge outage affecting Outlook and Teams as fixes falter

Widespread service disruption

Reports surged around 1pm ET, according to Down Detector. Users reported problems accessing Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Teams, along with SharePoint and OneDrive. Copilot was also affected, as were connectors supporting AI services from OpenAI and Anthropic. Microsoft said the disruption involved part of its infrastructure and was not caused by a cyber attack.

Repairs fail to hold

Microsoft said some infrastructure was under unusually heavy load, likely contributing to connection errors. The company found that a number of servers had become unavailable after failing automated checks.

Some restored servers went offline again when traffic returned, complicating the effort to restore service. Microsoft said it was routing traffic through alternative paths where possible and working to bring remaining servers back online.

The company said it had restored Microsoft Teams problems in North America, though some users still reported connection difficulties. Its executive vice-president of Copilot, Charles Lamanna, said on X that Microsoft regretted the disruption and was working on the issue.

Experts urge backup planning

Gregory said configuration problems can leave customers relying on a smaller pool of servers, creating a cascading effect. He said identifying the underlying network misconfiguration takes time. Gregory also called for more testing of configuration changes before they are applied to live networks. Businesses that depend on Microsoft 365 and other cloud services, he said, should maintain alternatives.

The latest disruption followed an Azure cloud outage reported by Microsoft last month. That earlier incident affected productivity software and industries worldwide.