Global outage rocks MS Teams users; Microsoft announces investigation
Thousands of users worldwide have been at the receiving end of a Microsoft Teams outage on Thursday morning (July 21). The disruption of the popular business communications platform had users scrambling. Outage tracking website Downtracker.com said that over 4,800 incidents were reported from just the US. Microsoft later came out and confirmed the outages. It also informed that the issue is being investigated.
- Microsoft Teams was undoubtedly Microsoft's most popular service during the pandemic-induced WFH period. It has over 270 million users at the moment.
- Such a large user base means that a simple issue could stop thousands of people from working. And that's exactly what happened today.
- As outages have become a norm with big tech companies, it is high time that they become more careful.
Several users of MS Teams, an integral business tool, reported outages as they were unable to use the platform. Microsoft later tweeted that the issue was caused by a "recent deployment (that) contained a broken connection to an internal storage device." The issue's downstream effect was felt on multiple Microsoft 365 services with Teams integration, including MS Office, Office Online, and SharePoint Online.
We've received reports of users being unable to access Microsoft Teams or leverage any features. We're investigating the issue and further updates can be found in your Service Health Dashboard via TM402718.
— Microsoft 365 Status (@MSFT365Status) July 21, 2022
The exact number of people affected by the outage is yet to be known. According to Downdetector.com, over 4,800 incidents in the US and over 18,200 in Japan were reported. It also said that more than 150 people reported incidents with MS Office 365.
Microsoft later came out and confirmed that several users were unable to use MS Teams. "We've received reports of users being unable to access Microsoft Teams or leverage any features. We're investigating the issue," said the tech giant. Two-and-a-half hours after the company confirmed outages, it said, "Our telemetry indicates that Microsoft Teams functionality is beginning to recover."
We are continuing to see improvements to the affected Microsoft Teams functionality. We're focused on mitigating the remaining impact. Additional information can be found under TM402718, MO402741, or at https://t.co/4yJVZgRX18.
— Microsoft 365 Status (@MSFT365Status) July 21, 2022
