Microsoft has traced a global outage affecting Outlook, Teams and other apps to overwhelmed servers, and says it is rolling back a recent network change that coincided with the start of the problems.
Nearly 130,000 users on outage tracker Downdetector reported problems accessing Outlook just after 7am on Friday.
In an update this afternoon, the tech giant said a process on the affected servers that handled secure connections had become overloaded, causing the servers to stop processing requests.
It said it was testing a configuration fix on some servers before applying it more widely, and had limited traffic in some locations while it checked the servers stayed stable.
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Thousands also reported issues with Microsoft's workplace messaging app Teams, as well as its AI assistant Copilot and wider Microsoft 365 services.
One woman told 1News she had been waiting months for a job offer. "I was meant to be emailed one today, of all days," she said. "Whilst my teens navigate NCEA revision, for Monday, without Word access."
One West Auckland business owner said she’d had to rearrange meetings with four people today due to the issues – three in NZ and one in the UK.
“I'm getting really hacked off.”
Health NZ said its Digital Services team was working with Microsoft to get things back up and running, with some services reverting to "more manual systems to keep things moving".
"If you have an urgent health query, you can phone the service directly or Healthline free on 0800 611 116 anytime (24/7) to speak with a health professional."
Microsoft said it was investigating disruptions, notably related to its email and Teams applications.
In updates posted on social media, Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft said it was aware of users “experiencing issues accessing Exchange Online mailboxes through multiple connection methods in the Americas".
Earlier, Microsoft explained that a portion of its infrastructure was “experiencing elevated load" — which it said was “likely contributing to the connectivity errors". The company determined a number of servers were “unexpectedly unavailable” due to a problem that caused them to fail during “automated health checks".
It was not immediately clear what exactly caused that failure. But Microsoft later said it was testing a fix and rolling out an alternative method for these checks to bring impacted servers back online.
“We're aggressively pursuing all pathways to reduce impact,” the Microsoft 365 Status account wrote on X.
Earlier in the day, the company said it had “successfully restored” problems related to Microsoft Teams in North America, although some users continued to report connectivity issues.
The morning’s headlines in 90 seconds including a sexpionage scandal claiming a tech CEO and the collapse NYC building. (Source: 1News)
– with additional reporting from Associated Press
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