Outlook.com outage locks users out of accounts
▼ Summary
– Microsoft is investigating an Outlook.com outage causing intermittent sign-in issues and preventing mailbox access.
– Thousands of users reported login problems and connection issues on Downdetector over three hours.
– Affected customers see “too many requests” errors or are unexpectedly signed out of their accounts.
– Microsoft attributes the outage to a recently introduced change and is reverting it to restore service.
– Service health returned to normal 10 hours after the outage began, according to a Microsoft update.
Microsoft is currently investigating an ongoing Outlook.com outage that has left many users unable to access their email accounts. The disruption, which began more than three hours ago, is causing intermittent sign-in failures and locking customers out of their mailboxes.
According to outage tracking site Downdetector, thousands of user reports have been filed since the incident started. The majority of complaints cite login problems and connection issues, preventing users from reaching their inboxes.
In an update on the company’s official Service Health Status page, Microsoft confirmed that affected customers are being signed out of their accounts and encountering “too many requests” errors. The company stated, “Some users may experience intermittent sign‑in failures, including ‘too many requests’ errors or unexpected sign‑outs.” They added, “Our investigation indicates client sign-in scenarios may be contributing to the reported behaviour, and we’re focused on validating interactions across service components to identify next steps.”
Microsoft has not yet disclosed the root cause of the outage, nor has it specified how many users or which regions are affected. However, the incident has been classified as causing “service degradation” , a designation used for issues that have a noticeable impact on users without completely taking the service offline for everyone.
This is not the first time Microsoft has faced a similar issue recently. Last month, the company resolved an Exchange Online outage that blocked users from accessing mailboxes and calendars through Outlook on the web, Outlook desktop, Exchange ActiveSync, and other Exchange Online protocols. That same day, Microsoft also fixed a separate problem that caused Office.com or Microsoft 365 Copilot web sign-in failures, affecting the Copilot desktop app, Copilot in Microsoft Teams, and Copilot in Office apps.
Update April 27, 09:46 EDT: Microsoft now attributes the ongoing Outlook.com sign-in issues to a “recently introduced change.” In a new Service Health Status update, the company said, “We’re reverting a recently introduced change to determine if this action provides relief from impact upon completion. In parallel, we’re continuing to analyze customer reports, and we’re closely monitoring service telemetry to identify our next steps.”
Update April 27, 15:30 EDT: Ten hours after the outage began, Microsoft reports that service health has returned to normal.
(Source: BleepingComputer)
