Missed a job interview because Teams went down? You weren’t alone; here’s what to do after the Microsoft outage

A Microsoft outage has left millions of people unable to access Outlook, Teams and other Microsoft 365 services. It's had a major impact on work, school and government across a number of countries. For some people, the issue went beyond just delayed emails. ABC in Australia reported job seekers missing out on interviews because they couldn't get into the virtual meetings. Businesses were having supply problems too and schools and local authorities were all resorting to phone calls and text messages.

Microsoft reported some improvements on Friday, though users were still having problems as the servers were under continued pressure from the volume of traffic, as per a report by CNN.

Why did the MS outage cause such a big disruption?

The outage started around noon on the US East Coast and then spread globally. Outlook email, SharePoint, Teams, Microsoft 365 and Copilot AI were all impacted as a result of issues with Exchange Online and Microsoft's email infrastructure. Downdetector had a peak of 130k reports of Outlook issues. The actual number of users affected was probably far higher, as not all users would be inclined to report an outage.


The effect was very much in Australia. The ABC reported that some people simply missed job interviews as a result of being unable to attend virtual meetings. Businesses couldn't print their invoices. Schools were unable to deliver online classes, and there were problems with live feeds from the courts. Some of the DCS were having supply issues as they went about stocking the supermarkets. Schools were asking parents to call in any absences until the email systems were back.

What did Microsoft say regarding the restoration of services?

Microsoft's recovery efforts have been repeatedly hampered. In an update at 1:59 a.m. GMT, they said: "We're seeing positive results with our efforts to restart the affected infrastructure and recover server availability in an isolated fashion." However, another update at 3.13 a.m. GMT suggested the changes weren't having the desired effect.

"We've been monitoring the status of the changes we've applied to improve serviceability and can confirm they're not going as expected," said Microsoft.

The company has also said it is looking at other ways to increase capacity in the face of continuing traffic management issues. Microsoft also cautioned that the servers brought back online could become unresponsive again should they receive any traffic. Some users would therefore go back to being unable to access the site.

What do you do if you've missed a Teams meeting or an interview?

The outage also highlighted how rapidly things can go wrong when email and meeting services are down. Some of the US workers simply moved to Slack, phone calls and in person conversations. Local authorities were asking their constituents to call rather than email. If you've missed a job interview or an important meeting, then get in touch with the relevant person/organisation via phone or whatever other channel is available. Just explain that the Microsoft services were down and ask them to reschedule. For businesses, using alternative comms can help keep the vital conversations going as Microsoft works to get its services back.