Microsoft Outlook, one of the world’s most popular email software programs, is down for thousands of Brits.
The issue began just after 5.20pm before rising to more than 3,300 within 20 minutes, according to outage tracker Downdetector.
Reports of issues with Outlook have since fallen to nearly 1,900 as of about 8.40pm.
Hundreds of other Brits are struggling to use the videoconferencing app Microsoft Teams and Copilot, the computer company’s AI chatbot.
A few dozen users reported difficulties with Microsoft OneDrive, an online file storage service.
Some 130,000 people in the US were unable to access Outlook at 6.15pm, with issues first springing up earlier at 4pm.
Users loading Outlook are being met with a ‘Failed to fetch’ error, when a browser sends a request to a server and fails to hear back.
Some users faced a black screen with white code on it which, in Spanish, says the browser can’t reach Outlook’s servers.
Microsoft initially said the outage was only impacting ‘mailboxes through multiple connection methods in the Americas’.
But a post on its 365 Status account said: ‘The issue may affect Microsoft 365 service connectivity for users in any region’.
It urged people to use its status webpage for more info, though users say the page does not load.
If it does, the page says Microsoft 365, the company’s family of software and services, are ‘severely degraded’.
‘We’re aggressively pursuing all pathways to reduce impact,’ it says.
Microsoft said servers becoming ‘unexpectedly unavailable’ appears to be the cause of the outage, causing its system to buckle under pressure.
‘We’ve initiated a restart of all affected servers and are monitoring health as they return to service, the company added.
But as one X user replied: ‘Soo, basically you’re turning it off and turning it back on.’
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