130,000 users report Outlook outages in the Americas
Microsoft is testing configuration changes to fix elevated load on its infrastructure after a widespread email service failure.
By Alyssa Parker ·
More than 130,800 people reported problems with Microsoft Outlook email services as of noon Mountain Standard time on Thursday. The outage affected users across the country, cutting off access to the platform’s communication tools.
Microsoft acknowledged the disruption on X, stating that it is investigating reports of users experiencing issues accessing Exchange Online mailboxes through multiple connection methods in the Americas. The company directed readers to the Microsoft 365 admin center for specific details under reference code EX1550543.
The company identified a portion of its infrastructure as the source of the trouble. Microsoft noted that this infrastructure is experiencing elevated load across multiple regions, which is likely contributing to the connectivity errors. The company confirmed that the issue may affect Microsoft 365 service connectivity for users in any region.
To address the problem, Microsoft began redistributing connection traffic across its worldwide infrastructure to balance the load. The company said it paused all deployments and moved additional traffic off the affected systems. It also restarted affected servers to return them to service.
As of 12:51 p.m., Microsoft was testing a configuration change to fix the issue causing servers to fail automated health checks. This failure made the service unavailable to users. The company initiated a restart of all affected servers and is monitoring their health as they return to service.
Microsoft has not provided an estimated time for when services will be fully repaired. The company stated it is aggressively pursuing all pathways to reduce the impact on users. Oil City News will update this story as more information becomes available.
