Microsoft Struggling to Fix Global System Outage Impacting Email Systems and More, Admits Initial Repairs 'Not Taking as Expected'

Microsoft is struggling to fix a prolonged systems outage that has hindered access to online services including Outlook and Teams. On the upside, AI tool Copilot has also been impacted.For more than 12 hours, users around the world have been reporting an inability to access email accounts, instant messaging systems, and documents via OneDrive and Office365. No Xbox services are believed to be offline, however.Microsoft was quick to acknowledge the problem and admit that it was suffering from issues with its server capabilities, with "elevated load across multiple regions." Attempts to solve this were initially unsuccessful, however, as the company reported its fixes were "not taking as expected."The 100 Best Xbox Games of All Time"We've monitored the status of the changes applied to improve serviceability and confirmed they're not taking as expected," Microsoft said in a lengthy thread on X/Twitter. "We're identifying alternate workstreams that can be applied to increase capacity in the face of sustained traffic management imbalances."Hours later, Microsoft seemed to have changed tack and was now trying to carve out the impacted servers completely as it struggled to make progress. "We're aggressively pursuing all pathways to reduce impact," the company then stated. "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."Why is this happening? Microsoft has blamed a number of servers becoming "unexpectedly unavailable", adding strain to its remaining capacity, rather than any sudden increase in traffic. That would suggest this is not a targeted DDOS attack, and indeed, Microsoft exec Charles LaManna has confirmed "there is no indication this is the result of malicious or cyber activity."We'll update again when there's been further developments. In the meantime, hopefully you're having a quiet day at work or school.Photo Illustration by Scott Olson/Getty Images.Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social