A global Microsoft outage, which the company says began when a large number of its servers suddenly stopped working, kept Outlook email and Teams down for many users for a second day.
Story Highlights
- The outage began Thursday, November 12, and stretched into Friday, November 13, hitting Outlook email, Teams, the Copilot AI assistant and other Microsoft 365 work tools.
- Microsoft said “a large number of servers” became unexpectedly unavailable, which piled extra strain on the rest of its system. The company has not named a root cause.
- Government offices in Japan, Singapore and Norway, a British courtroom, police and pharmacies that rely on UK health service email were among those hit, according to reports.
- On Friday, Microsoft reported “encouraging recovery progress” but warned that some users could still see slow or delayed email.
- Microsoft said it had no evidence of malicious activity.
- Australia’s Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said Microsoft told him “an update that has gone awry” was behind the outage; Microsoft itself says a large number of its servers were unexpectedly unavailable.
What Went Down, and Why
Trouble started on the afternoon of Thursday, November 12, when users in the Americas could not reach their email. Microsoft 365 is the company’s paid package of work tools, including Outlook email, Teams video meetings and online file storage, used by businesses, schools and governments. More than 130,000 people reported Outlook problems on Downdetector, a website that tracks user complaints about online services, at the peak that afternoon. Within hours, Microsoft said the problem could affect users “in any region.”
Microsoft said the trouble was not caused by a rush of traffic. Instead, it pointed to “a large number of servers being unexpectedly unavailable,” which shifted the work onto the remaining machines and overloaded them. Servers are the powerful computers in Microsoft’s data centers that store and deliver email. According to reports, the servers were failing automated health checks, the routine tests that tell the system whether a machine is fit to take work. Microsoft has not named a root cause and has said it will publish a full report once the fix is done. Australia’s Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said Microsoft told him it believes “an update that has gone awry” was behind the outage, and that the company does not believe it is dealing with a cyberattack.
Who Was Hit
Governments felt it quickly. Japan’s deputy chief cabinet secretary, Masanao Ozaki, said the outage affected government computer systems, and officials switched to telephones. Singapore’s government email went down, several Norwegian ministries lost email, and the Philippine Supreme Court said some of its work was affected. In Britain, a trial in Manchester was halted and jurors were sent home, and police could not receive crime reports online. The National Pharmacy Association warned that prescriptions could be delayed because email at the NHS, Britain’s national health service, was affected. The British government said it had “robust contingency plans” in place.
Businesses lost their inboxes, too. Workhorse Group, a U.S. electric truck maker, delayed its quarterly earnings call. Air India rerouted its email, and the Indian airline IndiGo said its email support was disrupted, though its flights were not. Some banks in Hong Kong reported partly disrupted operations. In New York City, emergency management officials warned of delays in email and online city services. Microsoft reported more than 450 million paid commercial subscriptions in January, so the reach of a breakdown like this is enormous.
The Latest on the Fix
By Thursday evening, Microsoft said it was returning some servers to service, but warned they “can become unresponsive again once they receive traffic.” Engineers paused other system changes, moved traffic away from the affected servers and spread the load across Microsoft’s wider network.
On Friday, November 13, Microsoft reported “broader improvements” in North America, “sustained improvements across much of Europe” and “encouraging recovery signals” in Asia and the Pacific. It said, “We are seeing early signs of stabilization, but service capacity has not yet returned to normal levels,” and that some users could still face “intermittent access issues or delayed email delivery.” Its focus in its latest updates was the remaining affected systems and the backlog of stuck email. Microsoft also extended the time its system keeps trying to deliver a message to 48 hours, so delayed email could keep arriving through at least Saturday afternoon, November 14.
What It Means for You
If email went missing on Thursday or Friday, it may still be on its way. Because the fault was inside Microsoft’s own systems, answers on Microsoft’s support forum advised against reinstalling Outlook or changing settings on your computer or phone. Business owners can ask their tech staff to watch Microsoft’s service health page for the all-clear.
The bigger lesson is about leaning on one provider. When a single company’s servers fail, email, meetings and files can all go dark at once, for a family business or a national government. A simple backup plan, such as a printed phone list for key customers and coworkers or a second way to reach them, can keep work moving the next time a tech giant has a bad day.
Sources:
kare11.com, bbc.com, learn.microsoft.com, learn.microsoft.com, learn.microsoft.com