Microsoft restores Outlook and Teams after global outage hits 130,000 users

Microsoft is restoring services after a global outage affected nearly 130,000 users of its 365 suite, including Outlook and Teams, with servers returning to operation following configuration issues. The outage, tracked by Down Detector, disrupted access to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, SharePoint, OneDrive, and AI assistant Copilot, with users reporting email and inbox problems. Microsoft attributed the issue to servers failing during automated checks due to elevated load, and has paused deployments while investigating recent configuration updates as a potential cause. Experts suggest the problem stems from a network layer misconfiguration causing a cascading overload, similar to Optus's 2023 outage. Microsoft has validated a fix on affected servers and is applying it broadly, while advising businesses to maintain backup options like Gmail for resilience.