A Detailed Look
On Monday, October 30th, 2023, users of Microsoft 365 and Teams experienced widespread outages, impacting services like Exchange Online, Outlook, and Teams calendar functionality. The issue began around 4 a.m. Eastern Time and peaked around noon, with thousands of users reporting problems on DownDetector.
Microsoft acknowledged the issue and attributed it to a recent change they implemented. They began reverting the change and investigating further actions to mitigate the problem. However, the outage persisted throughout the day, causing significant disruption for businesses and individuals relying on these services.
Users reported various issues, including trouble connecting to Outlook, sending emails, accessing OneDrive files, and using Teams for video calls and online chat. The outage also impacted the University of Galway, which relies heavily on Microsoft 365 services.
By 1:51 p.m. Eastern Time, Microsoft acknowledged delays in restoring the affected services, causing further frustration among users. They emphasized their understanding of the significant impact this event had on businesses and assured users they were working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible.
This outage follows a similar incident in July 2023, where a technical problem caused by global cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike disrupted Microsoft 365 services, impacting various industries and leading to lawsuits against CrowdStrike and Microsoft.
While the current outage appears less severe than the July incident, it highlights the reliance of many businesses and individuals on Microsoft 365 and the potential disruption caused by such outages.