Microsoft hit by second outage; Azure, Teams and Microsoft 365 affected

Just days after a global IT meltdown left Windows users worldwide facing the dreaded “Blue Screen of Death,” Microsoft is grappling with another massive outage due to an apparent unexpected spike in usage, according to Microsoft.

This latest disruption, which began around 1 pm today [BST] and is not known to be related to the previous outage, affects platforms like Minecraft, Microsoft 365, Microsoft Teams, and Microsoft Azure.

What services were affected by Microsoft’s recent outage?

Outlook, the widely used email and calendar system, has been affected. Users have reported being unable to access their emails through the app and the browser.

Microsoft has already acknowledged the issue and is actively investigating the cause. In a post on X, Microsoft 365 said, “We’re currently investigating access issues and degraded performance with multiple Microsoft 365 services and features.”

We’re currently investigating access issues and degraded performance with multiple Microsoft 365 services and features. More information can be found under MO842351 in the admin center.

— Microsoft 365 Status (@MSFT365Status) July 30, 2024

The outage also affects Azure, Microsoft’s cloud computing unit. According to its status page, an unexpected spike in usage caused Azure Front Door (AFD) components to perform below acceptable thresholds, leading to intermittent errors, timeouts, and latency spikes.

DownDetector, a platform that monitors IT outages globally, has recorded thousands of reports since the onset of the outage. Most issues (55%) were reported on the Microsoft 365 website and 23% on Outlook.

According to DownDetector, nearly 2,000 gamers have also reported issues with Minecraft, the world’s most popular video game, purchased by Microsoft for US$2.5 billion in 2014.

What steps is Microsoft taking to resolve the issue?

According to the most recent update, as of this writing, Microsoft has “applied mitigations and rerouted user requests to provide relief.” They continue monitoring the service to confirm the resolution.

While the exact cause of the Microsoft 365 outage is still under investigation, preliminary reports suggest that the issues may be related to Microsoft’s network infrastructure.

Azure’s status page mentioned that networking configuration changes and failovers to alternate networking paths have been implemented to provide relief.

This outage follows closely on the heels of a global IT meltdown that caused widespread disruptions just days ago due to a faulty CrowdStrike update — read TechInformed’s takeaways from that outage for more context.

For a crash course in the first global Microsoft outage and takeaways from an industry expert, watch the latest episode of TI:TALKS below.