Microsoft Hit With Teams, Microsoft 365 Outage Issues

Thousands of reports have been filed on Downdetector in the U.S. regarding Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams outages on Tuesday.

Microsoft is grappling with an outage that is affecting the ability for users in North America to access Teams and Microsoft 365.

“We’re investigating an issue where some users in North America are unable to access Microsoft 365 services,” said Microsoft in a Twitter post on Tuesday at 9:17 a.m. EST. “We’re analyzing network trace logs to isolate the source of the issue.”

Microsoft said in a Twitter post that its telemetry indicates that the “Microsoft managed network is healthy” and that the issue “appears to be limited to a specific local ISP.”

“The local ISP took additional action to reroute connections to alternate infrastructure, and we‘ve confirmed that the issue is now resolved,” Microsoft 365 Status said in a Twitter update at 2:18 p.m. ET.

The local ISP took additional action to reroute connections to alternate infrastructure, and we've confirmed that the issue is now resolved. Please see MO498385 in the Microsoft 365 admin center for more info.

— Microsoft 365 Status (@MSFT365Status) January 17, 2023

Outage-tracking website Downdetector showed thousands of reported issues with Teams including 504 reports of issues at approximately 10 a.m. and another 503 reports of issues at 11 a.m.

Approximately 66 percent were a result of server connections, 20 percent due to the application and 14 percent login issues.

[Related: 15 Biggest Cloud Outages Of 2022]

The Microsoft Teams outage issues appear to be more prominent in Boston, New York and Phoenix, according to a Downdetector outages heat map.

Downdetector reported fewer issues on Microsoft 365, spiking at 187 issues at 9:03 am, falling to 155 issues at 11:08 am.

The Microsoft 365 issues appears to be more prominent in Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

One user on Downdetector claimed connections to various Azure cloud services seem to be linked to Verizon/FIOS.

The user reported that “multiple reports from coworkers all in the Boston area on FIOS with no connectivity to most services through in-home internet services, but tethering through mobile works fine.”

CRN reached out to Microsoft and Verizon at press time but had not heard back.

Bob Venero, the CEO of Future Tech Enterprise, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., No. No. 95 on the 2022 CRN Solution Provider 500, said access and outage issues with SaaS applications like Microsoft 365 and Teams are inevitable.

“These access and outage issues are going to continue to become more prevalent year after year after year,” he said. “The more that we leverage the off-premise cloud ecosystem the more you will see outages and the more risk you will have as an organization. Microsoft Office 365 and Microsoft Teams are mission critical applications. It is how millions of people communicate when there is an outage. There needs to be some other form of communication for companies that rely on these services.”

Venero compared the access and outage issues facing Microsoft Teams and Microsoft 365 similar to a cell phone that has issues in certain coverage areas.

“We all know there is going to be dead spots with a cell phone where you are not going to have coverage,” he said. “We are always looking for hybrid alternatives for mission critical applications. The problem is there are no good cost effective hybrid alternatives for Microsoft 365 and Teams. It is just not economically viable for a company to have an on premise Microsoft 365 or Teams.”

This story has been updated to reflect the resolution of the issue.