Outlook users across the United States are facing significant disruptions, as the popular email service suffers a nationwide outage.
This has left many unable to send or receive emails, causing major headaches for office workers trying to get through their day.
The Scope of the Issue
The problems began around 9:00 AM ET, impacting users from coast to coast, from New York City to Chicago and Los Angeles.
People trying to access Outlook through both the website and app have reported glitches, which are affecting millions of Americans who rely on the platform for work.
In addition to the Outlook outage, Microsoft’s broader services were also experiencing difficulties.
Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams were down for many users, compounding the frustration.
Rising Reports of Issues
By 12:40 PM ET, Downdetector, a site that tracks online service disruptions, recorded over 8,000 reports from U.S. users.
The majority of the issues were related to Outlook’s website (69%), with 20% of complaints about the app and 10% of users unable to log in at all.
Outlook is a crucial tool for approximately 1.2 million Americans, making this outage a major disruption.
Users Venting on Social Media
As expected, many users took to social media to share their frustrations.
One user humorously tweeted, “So Microsoft Outlook decides to go down this week?
Sounds like Microsoft wants us to take an early Thanksgiving break.”
In response, Microsoft’s Support team acknowledged the issue, reassuring users that they were working to resolve it.
By 1:00 PM ET, they stated: “Our specialists are currently addressing an issue impacting users attempting to access Exchange Online or other Microsoft 365 services, and they’re working to get this difficulty sorted.”
A Global Impact
This outage follows similar problems faced by Outlook users in the UK earlier in the morning, though it seems the issues have just begun affecting American users later in the day.
Microsoft continued to update its status on X (formerly Twitter), stating, “While we continue to work on mitigating the issue, we’ve added a comprehensive list of impacted services and scenarios to the more info section.”
Some users jokingly attributed the outage to “mercury retrograde” or as a sign that “we shouldn’t be working this week.”
A Familiar Problem
This isn’t the first time Microsoft has dealt with a massive outage.
Just four months ago, the company faced what was described as the “most serious IT outage the world has ever seen,” affecting not only Outlook but also supermarkets, banks, telecoms, streaming services, airports, and even GP surgeries.
The cause of that massive disruption was traced to a bug in the Crowdstrike cybersecurity service used by Microsoft.
A faulty software update to the ‘Falcon Sensor’ caused the widespread problems, leaving millions stranded at airports when major airlines were forced to ground flights.
What’s Next?
As Microsoft works to resolve the current outage, users are left wondering what will come next.
Will the company be able to get its services up and running in time for the holiday rush? Only time will tell.
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