Tens of Thousands of Microsoft Users Hit by Outlook and 365 Outage

Tens of thousands of Microsoft users were affected by an outage this weekend, locking many users out of their Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft 365, and Microsoft Azure accounts.

Web monitoring service Downdetector (owned by PCMag parent company Ziff Davis) reported that 37,000 individuals reported an Outlook outage yesterday, while roughly 24,000 reported an outage in Microsoft 365. Other Microsoft services, like Teams, recorded smaller but still notable disturbances.

The disturbance was mainly concentrated in the US, with most cases reported in the New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles areas. The issue seems to have been resolved at the time of writing, according to Microsoft’s official Service Health page.

Microsoft didn’t provide a great deal of detail about what caused the outage, but its social media accounts attributed the issue to a “problematic code change,” which it has now reverted.

According to Downdetector, outage reports for Microsoft 365 and Outlook peaked around 4 p.m. ET on Saturday, March 1, before declining.

But Microsoft’s cloud services weren’t the only major networking tools to get hit by a serious outage this week. Messaging platform Slack was hit by a major outage in the middle of last week, completely locking out some users and disrupting “workflows, threads, sending messages, and API-related features” for others.

Though many users flocked to social media to express their anger at the latest Microsoft outage, Microsoft’s users have experienced vastly more disastrous outages in recent history.

The global CrowdStrike outage in July 2024 took down 8.5 million Windows computers, closing down government systems and entire businesses in the process, as well as causing severe damage to Delta Airlines’ business operations.

About Will McCurdy

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I’m a reporter covering weekend news. Before joining PCMag in 2024, I picked up bylines in BBC News, The Guardian, The Times of London, The Daily Beast, Vice, Slate, Fast Company, The Evening Standard, The i, TechRadar, and Decrypt Media.

I’ve been a PC gamer since you had to install games from multiple CD-ROMs by hand. As a reporter, I’m passionate about the intersection of tech and human lives. I’ve covered everything from crypto scandals to the art world, as well as conspiracy theories, UK politics, and Russia and foreign affairs.

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