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Microsoft said it was returning some of its affected servers to full service late Thursday afternoon, after widespread outages hit many of its platforms including Outlook, with users encountering trouble using their email accounts and other errors across the tech giant’s suite of apps.
“We’ve… shifted traffic and connections to alternative pathways wherever possible and have observed limited recovery in some regions,” the company said in a statement on its website.
Nearly 130,000 users on outage tracker Downdetector reported problems accessing Outlook just after 1 p.m. ET. New reports fell following that peak, but many said they couldn’t send and receive emails, or had trouble loading their inboxes altogether.
Thousands also reported issues with Microsoft’s workplace messaging app Teams, as well as its AI assistant Copilot and wider Microsoft 365 services.
In updates posted on social media, Microsoft said it was aware of users “experiencing issues accessing Exchange Online mailboxes through multiple connection methods in the Americas.”
We’re investigating reports of users experiencing issues accessing Exchange Online mailboxes through multiple connection methods in the Americas. More details can be found in the Microsoft 365 admin center under EX1550543.
Microsoft later 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 checks.
It later said it was “implementing protective traffic management measures in a specific location to reduce load on the affected infrastructure,” and would expand those measures if the results were positive.
“As capacity is restored, users may experience a gradual recovery as their clients reconnect to the service,” it said.
CBC News reached out to Microsoft for more details about how users in Canada were affected.
Via Rail said on social media that, due to the outage, some of its customers may not be receiving email communications about their trip and encouraged them to consult its tracker or sign up for SMS notifications.
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.
Microsoft’s Visitor Centre in Redmond, Wa. The company said ‘elevated load’ was likely the cause of connectivity errors users encountered. (Lindsey Wasson/The Associated Press)