Couldn’t work because of Outlook? Here’s why it happened

Microsoft 365, Outlook, and Microsoft Teams experienced significant outages starting early on November 25, 2024, affecting users worldwide. Reports of the service disruptions began around 8 AM ET, peaking around noon with over 5,000 issues logged on DownDetector, the platform tracking user-reported problems.

Microsoft 365 experiences major outages, recovery efforts underway

To address these outages, Microsoft acknowledged the situation, stating it was “investigating an issue impacting users attempting to access Exchange Online or functionality within Microsoft Teams calendar.” The company communicated the first updates via its official Microsoft 365 Status account on X (formerly Twitter) at 9:06 AM ET. Although some reports indicated problems starting as early as 4 AM ET, the majority surfaced when users logged on for work, leading to a rapid increase in outage notifications.

As the day progressed, Microsoft identified the cause of the outages and began deploying a fix. It stated that “a gradual rollout” was underway, which involved both a broader software patch and manual restarts of affected machines. Microsoft noted delays in recovery efforts, attributing these complications to a slower than anticipated progress in the targeted restarts. Users continued to report issues as late as 2 PM ET, even as outage reports on DownDetector began to decline.

By the end of the day, Microsoft announced that most services had been restored, except for Outlook on the web, which still affected a small number of users. The company estimated that full restoration would occur by the following day, November 26. Their communications indicated that they had reached approximately 98% resolution of the affected environments by 11:51 PM ET.

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Current status and recovery efforts

As of November 25, Microsoft urged users to check the admin center for updates regarding ongoing recovery efforts, specifically referencing issue MO941162. The company has been monitoring and troubleshooting to accelerate the resolution process while addressing user concerns regarding service interruptions that have impacted business operations.

Reports suggest users have been experiencing intermittent access to Microsoft services throughout the day, causing frustration during what is often a busy work period. Some users expressed relief at the unintentional downtime ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, highlighting a mixture of inconvenience and unexpected respite.

Despite the challenges faced on this occasion, Microsoft has aimed to minimize the impact of such outages for its extensive user base, who rely on these tools for daily business activities. Tech industry observers have noted that while this incident is significant, it does not define the scale of IT outages experienced more broadly this year. The tech sector has witnessed other major disruptions, such as the CrowdStrike incident over the summer, which caused extensive chaos and financial losses across various industries.

Featured image credit: Microsoft