Microsoft Struggles to Restore Services as Global Outage Disrupts Microsoft 365

Photo: IANS

New Delhi: Microsoft has acknowledged that its recovery efforts are not producing the expected results as a major global outage disrupted multiple Microsoft 365 services, leaving millions of users facing difficulties accessing essential workplace tools and applications.

In an update posted on X on Friday, the US-based technology giant said it had been monitoring changes introduced to improve service availability but found that they were not taking effect as expected.

"We're identifying alternate workstreams that can be applied to increase capacity in the face of sustained traffic management imbalances," the company said.

Microsoft said the disruption was affecting connectivity across several Microsoft 365 services, particularly those relying on Exchange Online and email infrastructure.

Users of Exchange Online may be unable to access their mailboxes through Outlook on the web, Outlook desktop applications, Exchange ActiveSync and REST-based connections. The company also warned that email delivery could be delayed.

The outage has affected several other productivity tools. Microsoft 365 administrators may encounter problems loading the admin centre, while users of Microsoft 365 applications may be unable to access their recently opened files.

Microsoft 365 Copilot users have also reported disruptions, with difficulties loading Copilot Chat, receiving responses and accessing workplace information such as emails, calendars and files.

Microsoft Teams' primary functions, including joining calls and meetings, participating in group chats and accessing channel messages, have largely remained operational. However, calendar-related services, the creation of live and virtual events, Copilot responses and contact synchronisation have been affected.

The disruption has also extended to a wide range of Microsoft's enterprise and cloud-based products, including Microsoft Defender for Office 365, Defender XDR, Microsoft Fabric, Microsoft Graph, Intune, Planner, Purview, To Do, Power BI, SharePoint Online, Universal Print and Windows 365.

Explaining its ongoing investigation, Microsoft said it was examining network traffic patterns and affected infrastructure to identify opportunities for improving routing and service stability.

The company added that it was working to establish the underlying causes of the failures so that targeted corrective measures could be implemented.

The disruption highlights the widespread dependence of businesses and organisations on Microsoft's cloud-based ecosystem, where interruptions to interconnected services can affect email communication, collaboration, data access and routine workplace operations.