Microsoft Outlook outage hits email and Teams across the Americas

A widespread Microsoft technical disruption impacted users across the Americas on Thursday, affecting both Outlook email and Microsoft Teams functionality. The tech company shared details regarding the service interruptions through social media channels as technical teams worked to resolve the connectivity problems.

According to posts on social media Thursday, the company reported issues with users' Exchange Online mailboxes alongside separate problems impacting Microsoft Teams. “We're investigating reports of users experiencing issues accessing Exchange Online mailboxes through multiple connection methods in the Americas,” the company wrote.

Server Availability and Infrastructure Strain

Initial reports from the company indicated that the Exchange Online mailbox disruptions might stem from infrastructure “experiencing elevated load across multiple regions.” However, further investigation clarified the root cause behind the slowdowns.

The company later clarified, “We determined the elevated load isn't driven by an increase in traffic, but by a number of servers being unexpectedly unavailable; straining the remaining infrastructure.” Meanwhile, monitoring platform Downdetector registered elevated user complaints concerning both Microsoft Teams and Outlook throughout Thursday.

Regarding the disruptions involving Microsoft Teams, the company reported a resolution shortly after the initial discovery, writing, “Our mitigative actions have successfully restored service health and functionality.” For the ongoing mailbox issues, the company added, “we've confirmed the issue may affect Microsoft 365 service connectivity for users in any region.”

To address the lingering mailbox connectivity troubles, technical teams pursued multiple remediation steps on Thursday. The company noted, “We're aggressively pursuing all pathways to reduce impact. We've paused all deployments, we're moving additional traffic off the affected infrastructure, and we're restarting affected servers to return them to service.”