The widespread connectivity issues began in the United States before spreading to users internationally, with monitoring service Downdetector noting a major disruption spike in the United Kingdom around 18:30 GMT. Microsoft clarified that the elevated load was caused by multiple servers suddenly becoming unavailable rather than an influx of user traffic. In response to the systems failing automated health checks, the company restarted all impacted servers. Engineers then began testing a new configuration around 19:50 GMT to stabilize the network.
Key points
Enterprise productivity tools including Outlook, Teams, and the Copilot AI service experi…: Enterprise productivity tools including Outlook, Teams, and the Copilot AI service experienced significant global interruptions.
The infrastructure strain stemmed from internal server availability problems rather than…: The infrastructure strain stemmed from internal server availability problems rather than a surge in external traffic.
Microsoft implemented configuration changes and server restarts to address the underlying…: Microsoft implemented configuration changes and server restarts to address the underlying causes of the disruption.
Sources checked by our analysis pipeline: 1
- Published
Microsoft says it is working to tackle "connectivity problems" after users worldwide reported outages on Thursday.
Services including Teams, Outlook and Microsoft's AI software Copilot were affected.
The tech giant said a part of its infrastructure was experiencing "elevated load", which was likely contributing to connectivity errors.
While the issue was originally reported in the US, Microsoft said the connectivity problems could affect users "in any region".
At around 18:30 GMT on Thursday evening, monitoring website Downdetector showed a spike in UK users reporting issues with Microsoft products.
"We determined the elevated load isn't driven by an increase in traffic, but by a number of servers being unexpectedly unavailable; straining the remaining infrastructure," Microsoft said in a statement.
In a further update issued at 19:50 GMT, Microsoft said it was "testing a configuration" to fix the problem, which was "causing servers to fail automated health checks and become unavailable".
All affected servers had been restarted, it added.
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