Office 365 Monitoring - Service Outages

On January 17, 2022, at ~02:06 am UTC, Microsoft communicated via tweet (@MSFT365status) that they were investigating an issue in which users were experiencing Exchange Online mailbox and calendar access issues.

For IT professionals and system admins with Microsoft admin center access, the incident # was EX315207.

Social media responses from the public were mild, with most users making comments as to which geo they were located in and whether or not their access was down. 

Within minutes of their initial tweet, Microsoft posted a second message confirming the geo regions impacted: Australia, North America and Japan.  Microsoft also stated that they had disabled a recently enabled "flight" in an effort to mitigate impact.

And by 03:51am UTC, it was all over.  Microsoft tweeted a final message as to issue # EX315207 and stated that they were confirming availability (all?) had been restored.  

A short-lived and minor service interruption it seems, but for any user impacted as well as any IT team responsible for those users, it may not have been a good start to the day.

On January 12, 2022, at ~01:49 am UTC, Microsoft communicated via tweet (@MSFT365status) that they were investigating an issue in which users in the UAE were experiencing mailbox access issues.

For IT professionals and system admins with Microsoft admin center access, Microsoft provided three issue #'s: EX313705, EX313731 and MO313750.

Public responses on Twitter confirmed that the issue was impacting many users, but did appear to be self-contained to users in the UAE.

Approximately 1 hour after its first report on Twitter, Microsoft followed up with another brief message that their investigation thus far pointed towards a networking problem as the potential cause.  Microsoft was at this time continuing its investigation and network analysis.

Some public responses on Twitter were from users in the UAE who were able to workaround the issue and access their Outlook mailboxes by using personal phones and phone hotspots for their computers.

Several minutes after their previous tweet @MSFT365status, Microsoft reported that their investigation into the issue and cause continued.  They also provided an additional incident # (EX313731).

By 4:17 am UTC, Microsoft was reporting that a third-party DNS issue was likely the cause of the Outlook mailbox access issues in the UAE.  Microsoft also provided a new (third) incident # (MO313750).  The third-party name was never disclosed by Microsoft, but several followers on Twitter reported UAE service providers Etisalat and Du may have been experiencing service issues.  Etisalat's own public responses @Etisalat_Care confirmed that Etisalat was experiencing issues as to its own services provided to users in the UAE.

Several hours after their first report @MSFT365status, Microsoft indicated that the impact to users in the appeared to be over.  Microsoft was continuing its investigation efforts as to root cause, and they were continuing to monitor service.

At 08:04 am UTC, Microsoft gave its final communication as to the matter, stating that service remained stable and the issue was fully resolved.

On January 4, 2022, at ~11:42 am UTC, Microsoft communicated via tweet (@MSFT365status) that they were investigating several issues involving users unable to access Planner and/or users unable to create and manage tasks in Teams.

If you are an IT pro with Microsoft admin center access, the incident #'s were TM311556 and PL311494.

On December 15, 2021, at ~8:48 pm UTC, Microsoft communicated via tweet (@MSFT365status) that they were investigating an issue in which users were unable to access Outlook. 

If you are an IT pro with Microsoft admin center access, the initial issue # Microsoft disclosed was EX305722.

On December 2, 2021, at ~8:43 PM UTC, Microsoft communicated via tweet (@MSFT365status) that they were investigating an issue in which mobile devices were being flooded with Microsoft admin center notifications.  More importantly, they were also investigating reports that some system admins were experiencing delays or were unable to access the Microsoft admin center.

For IT professionals and system admins with Microsoft admin center access, the incident # was MO301479.  However, given that this issue involved, for some, the inability to access the Microsoft admin center, additional public information at the time of this service incident was limited.

Microsoft customers often worry about the threat of a widespread and large outage. However, what they don’t realize is that they are getting beat up by an aggregate of smaller, less damaging but still annoying outages. There are a couple of deeper issues here that warrant a closer look in order to understand what the real risk is, and what you can do about it.

On November 22, 2021, at ~7:44 am UTC, Microsoft communicated via tweet (@MSFT365status) that they were investigating an issue in which users were unable to load images in Microsoft Teams chats or channels.

For IT professionals and system admins with Microsoft admin center access, the initial issue # was TM299667.

Twitter followers responded shortly and gave some indication that the matter involved more than just image loading with Teams chat.  Some Twitter followers also responded and stated that the image loading issue had been an issue for several days, notwithstanding the message Microsoft tweeted this morning (November 22)  indicating that the issue was a "new" issue.

Approximately 30 minutes after their first message, Microsoft followed up with a second message giving no further indication as to what the precise issues and impacts were, and no indication as to what the cause of the issue was.  Microsoft only stated that a fix had been applied to remediate impact.  Microsoft also provided a second issue #, LY299673, for IT professionals to reference in the admin center.

On November 17, 2021, at ~4:06 pm UTC, Microsoft communicated via tweet (@MSFT365status) that they were investigating an issue in which users were experiencing access delays for Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and Teams.

For IT professionals and system admins with Microsoft admin center access, the issue # was MO298798.

On November 17, 2021, at ~8:30 am UTC, Microsoft communicated via tweet (@MSFT365status) that they were investigating an issue in which users were unable to access Microsoft Forms.

For IT professionals and system admins with Microsoft admin center access, the issue # was FM298724.

On November 15, 2021, at ~10:09 pm UTC, Microsoft communicated via tweet (@MSFT365status) that they were investigating an issue in which users were unable to "see" the Microsoft Teams toolbar during calls.

For IT professionals and system admins with Microsoft admin center access, the issue # was TM298411.