Microsoft 365 Services Outage Affects 20,000+ Users; Admins Unable to Access Microsoft 365 Centers

On September 12, Microsoft 365 services experienced significant downtime, impacting thousands of users. More than 20,000 users reported issues primarily with Outlook and other services.

Frustrated users took to social media, joking that this outage might be a good reason to take a day off. Discussions on platforms like Reddit highlighted sentiments such as Microsoft has hit another low point.

As of the latest updates, Microsoft has addressed the outage, stating, “We’ve monitored our systems and confirmed that impact has been remediated. Please look for MO888473 in the admin centre for more details,” via their X account.

The report of downtime began around 04:30 AM PDT, affecting mainly Outlook services. Ookla’s Downdetector observed a surge in reports from over 20,000 users, which may have been connected to issues within Microsoft Azure.

Despite the resolution of many services, administrators still faced challenges signing into the Microsoft 365 Admin center.

According to Microsoft, they have identified the reason but have not yet released a fix.

This year, the Redmond-based tech giant has faced multiple outages. Earlier this summer, the company dealt with a significant tech blackout caused by a Crowdstrike error affecting millions of Windows PCs, which disrupted operations in airports, healthcare, and educational organizations for several days.

This situation is ongoing.

We identified and repaired an issue within the authentication flow for the Microsoft 365 admin center. We confirmed through monitoring service telemetry and via admin reports that the impact is resolved. See MO889001 in the admin center for more information.

— Microsoft 365 Status (@MSFT365Status) September 13, 2024

We’re investigating reports of an issue in which admins are unable to access the Microsoft 365 admin center. We’re reviewing details provided by affected admins, and we’ll provide an update shortly.

— Microsoft 365 Status (@MSFT365Status) September 13, 2024

Source