Microsoft is continuing attempts to restore service after its worldwide outage prevented tens of thousands of users from accessing email and other Microsoft services for the second consecutive day.
In an
early morning post on X Friday, the company said some operations have been restored but “capacity has not yet fully returned to baseline.”
Disruptions were reported in 74 countries, but the precise number of affected users is not known. Downdetector, which tracks user-reported complaints of internet difficulties, recorded a peak number of just Outlook problems at about 130,000, at 1:27 p.m. Eastern time on Nov. 12. That was higher than the overall 50,000 reported complaints for Microsoft 365, which Outlook is part of.
Microsoft has not said when full service will return, USA TODAY reported.
How many outages were reported?
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Microsoft says that more than 430 million people use its Microsoft 365 apps and more than 90% of Fortune 500 companies use Microsoft 365 Copilot.
Here is how the Microsoft outage unfolded.
The disruption started with Microsoft servers – powerful computers that run online services, store information and respond to users – at about 12 p.m. ET on Nov. 12. Microsoft maintains servers in data centers in the United States and around the world.
Microsoft maintains millions of servers in more than 300 data centers around the world. It does not provide an exact number.
Microsoft changed part of its cloud system and some of those servers unexpectedly stopped responding on Nov. 12. Other operational servers were used to pick up the added workload.
Microsoft redistributed network activity to working servers and restarted the affected ones. Some servers became unstable as traffic returned. Some servers became unstable as traffic returned.
Microsoft changed settings that controlled authentication and traffic routing and continued working to restore service.
How Microsoft 365 users were affected:
- Users reported errors, sign-in problems, missing or delayed emails. Some features could not be accessed.
- Businesses, schools, governments and other institutions said email, communications, file access and team collaborations were disrupted.
- Employees, students, government workers, customers and others were limited in accessing Microsoft 365. This affected work, retail, education and personal activities.
Microsoft said it does not believe anything "malicious" is behind the outages, USA TODAY reported.
Contributing: James Powell, Julia Gomez, Mary Walrath-Holdridge
Source: USA TODAY Network reporting and research; Reuters; Microsoft
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Microsoft meltdown triggers global disruption. What happened?
