Microsoft reports incremental improvement during global Microsoft 365 outage
Services like Outlook and Teams are slowly recovering, but Microsoft says systems have not yet fully returned to normal levels.
Microsoft is seeing incremental improvement in several services as it works to resolve a major outage that began around 11:30 pm IST on November 12, according to the Times of India. The disruption has affected millions of users, impacting applications including Outlook, Microsoft Teams, SharePoint Online, Microsoft 365 Copilot, and Microsoft Defender XDR.
The company stated that service health remains variable and systems have not fully returned to normal. While recovery work has moved forward in phases across the affected infrastructure, some users may still experience connection errors or service stumbles. Microsoft has not provided a timeline for full restoration.
The outage was caused by several servers going offline unexpectedly, which meant the remaining servers could not handle the load. Microsoft executive Charles Lamanna said there is no indication that the disruption is the result of malicious or cyber activity.
The impact has been global, affecting users in the Americas and India. In India, airlines IndiGo and Akasa Air reported that their email support services were affected. In Japan, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Masanao Ozaki said the government's shared IT platform is experiencing disruptions.
The outage has also impacted various organisations, including OpenAI, Anthropic, and several UK police forces. Microsoft has promised to provide a Post-Incident Report regarding the root cause once all services are restored.