Microsoft says that Microsoft 365, the collective name for the tech company’s productivity software, is back online after going down on Thursday afternoon (September 12).
Tens of thousands initially reported outages with the platform on Down Detector, which provides real-time information about the status of various websites. The reports included hundreds from the UK as well.
The issues also affected Microsoft’s other online services, among them Xbox Live, Microsoft Teams, Outlook and the Microsoft Store.
The problems, which appear to have been linked to US internet provider AT&T, have now been resolved, Microsoft said at 3.06pm on Thursday.
“We've confirmed that a change within a third-party ISP's managed-environment resulted in impact. The ISP has reverted the change and we're now seeing signs of recovery,” the Micrososft 365 Status account posted on X (formerly Twitter).
The latest outage followed a major incident nearly two months ago, when a faulty software update from cybersecurity provider CrowdStrike impacted around 8.5 million Windows devices. The resulting fallout disrupted operations across industries such as airlines, banking, and healthcare.
🚨Downdetector has seen over 90,000 user-reports come in within the U.S. for #Microsoft 365 reports within the last two hours, with #Azure, #Teams, the MS Store, #Xbox, #Bing, and all MS entities seeing elevated reports. This #outage also appears to be impacting other companies… pic.twitter.com/kwz0FBXUW0
— Downdetector (@downdetector) September 12, 2024
Shortly after the issue began, Microsoft said the technical hiccups could be due to “a potential issue connecting to Microsoft services from AT&T networks.”
Reactions immediately began pouring in on social media, where users shared their experiences following the outage.
“Microsoft 365 outage is bigger than you think!” posted a user on X, along with a map of the US showing the outage hotspots.
Microsoft 365 Outage is Bigger than you Think! pic.twitter.com/d7wecbflwV
— GR (@GuidanceRealtor) September 12, 2024
Indicating the impact the disruption had on people’s work routines, another user said: “Microsoft 365 and Teams are down, so it’s a lazy morning for me.”
Overall, Down Detector said it had seen over 90,000 user reports about Microsoft 365 from within the US alone, with the issues also impacting Microsoft’s Bing search engine and other companies. The popularity of Microsoft’s cloud and productivity software, which workplaces use for everyday tasks, only exacerbated the problem.
