The Microsoft 365 outage explained: What happened, what apps are affected, and is a fix available?

Thousands of Microsoft 365 customers worldwide are still affected by a lengthy outage but the tech giant says a fix is on its way.

Reports of an outage affecting Outlook first emerged on Monday 31 August, with Downdetector flagging a surge in issues at around 3pm UST. Issues with other applications also spiked around that time.

Microsoft has since confirmed the outage with a Service Health Status report, attributing the outage to a “core authentication configuration used by multiple Microsoft 365 services”.

Services impacted in the outage include:

• Microsoft 365 Copilot
• OneDrive for Business
• SharePoint Online
• Exchange Online
• Microsoft Teams
• Microsoft Purview
• Microsoft Defender XDR

What Microsoft 365 users have encountered

Microsoft highlighted a series of potential problems users may experience due to the outage, such as their Copilot prompts failing.

OneDrive and SharePoint Online users, in particular, have been dealing with acute problems since the outage began. Some have reported being unable to load or refresh both applications, according to Microsoft, while others have been unable to access search results and content.

“Some users may also experience delayed or failed file opening, Office policy-label retrieval, OneDrive synchronization, mobile camera upload, and video playback,” Microsoft noted.

Microsoft Teams users have also experienced issues with calendar functionality and search features.

A fix is underway

In the most recent status update issued at the time of publication, Microsoft said it has applied a fix to the affected authentication component. The company noted that services are beginning to recover but this could still take some time.

“Service telemetry continues to indicate recovery, with availability increasing across previously impacted scenarios as remediation progresses,” the company said.

“We’re validating that authentication, connectivity and search operations are returning to expected service levels while monitoring for any residual impact and confirming that the remediation is delivering broad mitigation across affected Exchange Online scenarios.”

FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL MEDIA

Follow ITPro on Google News and add us as a preferred source to keep tabs on all our latest news, analysis, views, and reviews.

You can also follow ITPro on LinkedIn, X, Facebook, and BlueSky.