Microsoft Outlook outage disrupts US councils, schools and Congress offices
Local governments, schools and businesses across the United States faced disruptions, while Microsoft said most services were recovering by the end of Friday.
Key points
- The Outlook outage began around 1pm ET on Thursday and affected email, calendar and video tools.
- Local agencies in Colorado, California, Texas and Maryland reported bond payment, email and water service problems.
- Some school districts asked parents to contact them by phone or other platforms.
- Microsoft said there was no sign the outage was caused by malicious or cyber activity.
- By Friday evening, schools and businesses appeared to be coming back online.
A Microsoft Outlook outage disrupted companies, schools and local governments across the United States, according to The Guardian. The problem began around 1pm ET on Thursday. Services started to return on Friday morning, but some staff and services remained unavailable for a time.
The outage affects Microsoft’s suite of email, calendar, video conferencing and cloud storage tools. Local leaders in Miami, Maryland and Los Angeles warned residents that some services were not working. In Colorado, a detention facility in Arapahoe county could not accept online bond payments, so people had to pay in person at the jail.
Read also: Global Microsoft 365 outage disrupts email and Teams worldwide
Local services and schools affected
The Los Angeles county sheriff’s department reported disruptions to its email and other communication tools. Officials running emergency response in Fredericksburg and Gillespie County, Texas, lost the ability to get email and told the public to phone them instead.
In Maryland, the Washington suburban sanitary commission warned that its technicians could be delayed and that some customers might struggle to pay water bills. Several school districts in Richmond, Virginia, and Port Washington, New York, also reported problems and asked parents to reach them by phone or through other online services. The Albany school district said its services had been restored. The Colorado School of Mines told faculty to be flexible with assignment deadlines.
Congress and technology companies
Congressional staff in Washington DC said the outage hit them hard during the lame duck session. Politico reported that some offices were negotiating pending legislation before the end of the year. A communications director for congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton joked in a message about moving official business to direct messages.
The outage also affected artificial intelligence services. Claude, developed by Anthropic, said it was seeing signs of recovery but warned some users could still see errors. OpenAI said it was investigating issues with Microsoft connectors that were reducing performance. On Wall Street, the industrial manufacturer Workhorse Group postponed its Q3 earnings call, which had been set for Thursday afternoon, because of the outage.
Microsoft response and recovery
Microsoft executive Charles Lamanna said late on Thursday that there was no indication the outage was caused by malicious or cyber activity. On Friday morning, Microsoft reported improvements in service availability. It also warned that some users could still have intermittent access problems or delayed email delivery while recovery continued.
By the end of Friday, most issues appeared to be resolved. Congressional staff reported improvements in Outlook’s functionality, and the Colorado detention facility said it was again receiving email notices when online bond payments were made. Emergency services in Texas said emails were beginning to arrive again.
Frequently asked questions
When did the Microsoft Outlook outage start?
According to The Guardian, the outage started around 1pm ET on Thursday. Outlook began to resume normal operations on Friday morning.
Was the Microsoft outage caused by a cyber attack?
Microsoft executive Charles Lamanna said there was no indication the outage was caused by malicious or cyber activity. Microsoft also said some users could still face intermittent access issues during recovery.
Which services were affected by the outage?
The outage affected Microsoftu0026#039;s email, calendar, video conferencing and cloud storage systems. Local governments, schools, courts and companies across the US reported disruptions.
Sources
This article was written with the help of AI from reports by the outlets listed above. See our Editorial Policy. Spotted a mistake? Tell us.
