Microsoft Struggles to Restore Outlook After Global Outage

Microsoft is exploring alternative solutions to restore its Outlook services after initial efforts to resolve a major global outage failed to deliver the expected results.

The disruption, which began on Thursday, affected Outlook email services as well as Microsoft Teams and its artificial intelligence assistant, Copilot, leaving users in several countries unable to access the platforms.

The technology company attributed the problem to unusually high demand on parts of its infrastructure across multiple regions.

In an update, Microsoft said changes introduced to improve service performance had not produced the anticipated results, prompting engineers to explore other ways of expanding system capacity.

“We’ve monitored the status of the changes applied to improve serviceability and confirmed they’re not taking as expected,” Microsoft said. 

“We’re identifying alternate workstreams that can be applied to increase capacity,” the tech giant added. 

The company did not provide a timeline for the full restoration of services.

Outage tracking platform Downdetector reported disruptions in 74 countries and territories, with complaints coming from users across the Americas, Europe, Asia and Africa.

The outage also affected government operations in New Zealand. 

The country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade notified users that its ability to receive emails had been disrupted, including at its embassies, consulates and representative offices worldwide.

Microsoft initially reported investigating connectivity problems in the Americas but later confirmed that the disruption could affect Microsoft 365 users across different regions.

“We’ve determined a portion of infrastructure is experiencing elevated load across multiple regions, which is likely contributing to the connectivity errors,” the company wrote. 

“We’re aggressively pursuing all pathways to reduce impact,” it added.

Microsoft 365 is the company’s cloud-based subscription service, which includes applications such as Outlook and Teams.

As the disruption continued, thousands of users also reported difficulties accessing Teams and Copilot, according to Downdetector.

Microsoft subsequently reported limited signs of recovery as it worked to redirect user traffic away from affected infrastructure.

The company said access could gradually return as system capacity improved and users’ applications reconnected to its services.