Microsoft said it was investigating an outage affecting Outlook, Teams, Microsoft 365, the Microsoft Store, and Copilot. (Foto: Instagram)
Microsoft users in multiple countries reported trouble accessing the company’s services on Thursday, Nov. 12. The disruption affected Outlook, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft 365, the Microsoft Store and Copilot, Microsoft’s artificial intelligence tool. The company said it was investigating server problems and working to restore access.
Reports also appeared on DownDetector. At about 3:30 p.m., the outage-tracking site had logged 7,900 reports; the number of complaints later reached about 41,000. Microsoft said the first problems were detected in the Americas, but warned that the disruption could affect users in other regions as well.
In a post on X, Microsoft 365 Status said users were having difficulty accessing Exchange Online mailboxes through multiple connection methods in the Americas. The company directed users to the Microsoft 365 admin center for details under incident code EX1550543. Microsoft also said the issue could affect Microsoft 365 connectivity in any region.
Microsoft said an unexpected outage involving a large number of servers had placed additional strain on infrastructure that remained operational. The company said it had not identified recent changes that would explain the start of the disruption. Its investigation pointed to a possible problem with a component that checks server health, which could cause servers to fail automated checks and become unavailable.
The reported problems varied by service: Outlook users had trouble accessing email; Microsoft 365 users reported connection issues with tools in the suite; Teams users experienced access problems; the Microsoft Store was unstable; and some Copilot users also reported issues. Microsoft listed additional updates under EX1550543 and MO1550821 in the Microsoft 365 admin center and on its service-status website.
To limit the impact and restore service, Microsoft said it had halted deployments, redirected traffic away from affected infrastructure and begun restarting impacted servers. The company said it was testing a configuration change intended to address the health-check problem and monitoring servers as they returned to service.
