(Photo courtesy of Anadolu)
BRUSSELS – A major Microsoft 365 outage continued to disrupt users across multiple regions, with connectivity problems affecting Outlook, Exchange Online, Microsoft Teams and other services as the disruption approached its 12th hour.
Microsoft said efforts to restore normal operations had not produced the expected results, with unexpected server outages placing additional pressure on its remaining infrastructure.
In an update posted on social media platform X, Microsoft 365 Status acknowledged that measures implemented to improve service availability had failed to resolve the problem.
“We’ve monitored the status of the changes applied to improve serviceability and confirmed they’re not taking as expected. We’re identifying alternate workstreams that can be applied to increase capacity in the face of sustained traffic management imbalances,” Microsoft said.
The company clarified that the increased load on its systems was not caused by an unusual surge in user activity.
Instead, several servers had unexpectedly become unavailable, forcing the remaining infrastructure to handle additional demand and contributing to widespread service disruptions.
Users reported difficulties accessing Exchange Online mailboxes, sending and receiving emails through Outlook, and connecting to Microsoft Teams and other Microsoft 365 applications.
The outage affected multiple access methods, disrupting communication and productivity services used by businesses, organizations and individual subscribers.
The first reports emerged at approximately 11:17 a.m. Eastern Time on Thursday, November 12, equivalent to 12:17 a.m. Friday in the Philippines.
According to outage-monitoring platform Downdetector, reports in the United States exceeded 97,000 for Outlook, while Microsoft 365 received more than 38,000 complaints.
Microsoft Teams also recorded approximately 4,500 reported issues.
Microsoft said it was exploring alternative measures to increase system capacity and address the continuing imbalance in traffic distribution.
However, the company had not provided a definite timeline for full service restoration as recovery efforts continued.
The disruption highlighted the widespread reliance of businesses and institutions on cloud-based communication and productivity platforms.
