130,000 Users Report Outlook Outage as Microsoft Servers Fail Health Checks
Widespread disruptions hit email and workplace tools on Thursday, affecting government operations in Japan and corporate workflows globally.
By Justin Barnes ·
Microsoft identified failed automated health checks as the primary cause of a major service disruption that began after midday Eastern time on Thursday. The outage persisted into the night, leaving many users unable to send or receive emails or load their inboxes across the company's platform.
Downdetector data shows nearly 130,000 users reported Outlook issues just after 1 p.m. EST. While new reports have declined since that peak, thousands also flagged problems with Teams, Copilot, and other Microsoft 365 services. The disruptions continued to affect users in parts of Asia as of Friday midmorning.
Microsoft, based in Redmond, Washington, stated that parts of its infrastructure were experiencing elevated load, which contributed to the connectivity errors. The company noted that its standard procedures to bring failed servers back online did not take effect immediately. A post on the Microsoft 365 Status account on X said, “We’re aggressively pursuing all pathways to reduce impact.”
The technical failure reached into public sector operations. Masanao Ozaki, deputy chief cabinet secretary in Japan, announced on Friday that the outage impacted the government’s IT infrastructure. He added that officials were “keeping a close eye on the developments.”
Earlier in the day, the tech giant announced that it had successfully restored Microsoft Teams in North America. Despite that update, some users continued to report lingering connectivity issues. The disruptions first surfaced on Thursday and extended into the following morning for users in the Asia-Pacific region.
AP journalist Mayuko Ono contributed reporting from Tokyo regarding the impact on Japanese government systems.
