Microsoft users around the world are having problems accessing a plethora of the company’s services. This includes Teams, Xbox Live and Office 365 as the company grapples with an Azure outage.
Early on Tuesday morning, Microsoft acknowledged it was looking into reports that users were unable to log into some services.
“We’re investigating an issue for access to multiple M365 services. Please visit the admin center post M0244568 for more information. We’ll provide additional information here as it becomes available,” the company’s Microsoft 365 Status account tweeted.
We’re investigating an issue for access to multiple M365 services. Please visit the admin center post M0244568 for more information. We’ll provide additional information here as it becomes available.
— Microsoft 365 Status (@MSFT365Status) March 15, 2021
Later, the company said that an update to its Azure authentication system was responsible for the problem.
Microsoft said this update was being rolled back slower than originally expected and users should be able to log in soon. The company is already receiving fewer error reports, suggesting that the problem is being fixed.
Microsoft’s cloud services have been affected by a few outages recently. Such is the peril of cloud services, especially for things that used to be stored locally such as word processing software and other parts of the Office suite.
Amidst the confusion, some found a bright side to the situation.
Are you guys hiring? I also like to test in production.
— Macho de bajo pelaje (@MachoZ06) March 15, 2021
Microsoft’s full report on the Azure outage as of 9AM ADST 16/03
Microsoft 365 Service health status
Title: Users may be unable to access multiple Microsoft services.
User impact: Users may be unable to access multiple Microsoft 365, Azure, and Dynamics 365 services, including the Service Health Dashboard.
More info: Any service that leverages Azure Active Directory (AAD) may be affected. This includes but is not limited to Microsoft Teams, Forms, Exchange Online, Intune and Yammer.
Current status: The update has finished its deployment to all impacted regions. Microsoft 365 services continue the process of recovery and are showing decreasing error rates in telemetry. We’ll continue to monitor service health as availability is restored.
Scope of impact: This issue could affect any user.