Microsoft Investigates Outlook and Exchange Online Outage in the Americas

Microsoft is investigating reports of users experiencing issues accessing Exchange Online mailboxes through multiple connection methods in the Americas, the company’s Microsoft 365 Status account on X posted at 12:54 p.m. ET on Wednesday, according to Variety.

User reports of problems with Microsoft Outlook began spiking at around 12:39 p.m. ET, according to monitoring platform Downdetector. As of 1:09 p.m. ET, more than 129,000 error reports had been logged with Downdetector.

Microsoft’s response

In a string of social media posts Thursday, Microsoft acknowledged that users had reported issues with access. The company said: “We’re investigating reports of users experiencing issues accessing Exchange Online mailboxes through multiple connection methods in the Americas.”

Microsoft added: “While we’re working to mitigate impact, we’ve confirmed the issue may affect Microsoft 365 service connectivity for users in any region.”

In an update, Microsoft said: “We’ve determined a portion of infrastructure is experiencing elevated load across multiple regions, which is likely contributing to the connectivity errors.”

A service update web page stated: “We’re restarting and repairing impacted portions of this infrastructure to restore capacity, and reviewing an unexpected increase in a specific type of service traffic to determine whether it’s contributing to the elevated load.” The page added that Microsoft was evaluating options to redirect traffic to alternate infrastructure to expedite relief.

Scope and affected services

Variety reported that the outage affected users across North America and potentially other regions, and that other Microsoft services, including Microsoft Teams and Copilot, were also affected. Deadline reported that Outlook as a stand-alone service was deemed operational, along with Teams and OneDrive, but that enterprise and business customers of Microsoft 365 were experiencing problems connecting to email via the Exchange server as well as accessing other services.

Clubic reported that the problem affected the web version of Outlook, the MAPI interface used by the desktop Outlook client, Exchange ActiveSync, which synchronizes messaging on smartphones, and the API REST used by many third-party applications. Microsoft said it had identified connectivity errors on part of the Exchange Online infrastructure that receives and processes user access requests.

Why it matters

The outage disrupted business communication across North America and Europe, with media companies among the sectors whose activities slowed due to the technical issue. Microsoft has not provided a timeline for restoration or the number of users affected.

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Sources

• variety.com: Outlook Outage: Microsoft's Email Service Goes Down Nationwide
• deadline.com: Microsoft Outlook Goes Down, Paralyzing Business Communication
• numerama.com: Sans prévenir, Microsoft s’est mis à bloquer des mails de petites structures vers Hotmail et Outlook : voici comment y remédier - Numerama
• clubic.com: Microsoft Outlook en panne : la messagerie ne fonctionne plus ce soir, l'entreprise confirme l'incident

This article was drafted with AI assistance and checked against the sources above. Company claims are reported as claims. Cover image is AI-generated.