Outlook, OneDrive, Office365 and Other Microsoft Cloud Products Are Down [Updated]

Updated 2PM AEDT: Microsoft says ‘we back‘.

Microsoft’s Outlook, OneDrive and other Office365 products are having big problems this morning as users report being unable to access their products.

On Wednesday morning Australia time, people began noticing they were receiving errors when they were trying to access their emails hosted by Microsoft — something that feels very familiar.

According to Downdetector, there have been spikes of reported problems for hours, primarily an inability to log in.

Soon after, Microsoft confirmed that the problems were widespread.

“We’re investigating an issue in which users may be receiving errors when attempting to access Outlook.com Additional information will be provided shortly,” they tweeted. “We’ve determined that additional services may be impacted by this issue including OneDrive, Sharepoint Online and Power BI.”

We’re investigating an issue in which users may be receiving errors when attempting to access https://t.co/ZUfyjth6sU. Additional information will be provided shortly.

— Microsoft 365 Status (@MSFT365Status) November 10, 2020

Microsoft recently updated saying that these consumer-facing products have “largely recovered” and that they’re monitoring the situation.

But despite those assurances, users continued to experience problems accessing the services.

“@Outlook @Microsoft it’s happened again? What is going on with your login service? @downdetector @downdetectorUK complaints spiking! #badservices @awfulcustomerservice #servicedown,” one person tweeted.

One of the downsides of moving towards cloud-based software is that your ability to use it are at the whims of the company. When have a problem like this, all you can do is wait around and hope it is fixed soon.

But that’s not to say cloud-based software is inherently less reliable. It certainly means that there are less things that can break on your end, and it means that the provider can push updates and make changes without you even needing to do anything about it.

But there are times like this when you wish you just had data stored on your computer so you have more control over it. And, in the end, it’s often your employer’s decision anyway so, what can ya do?

This article will be updated when problems cease.