A global failure in Microsoft services, for the second day in a row, on Friday, caused widespread disruptions that affected millions of users around the world, with the Outlook email services and the Teams and CoPilot platforms being disrupted, or their efficiency declining, which affected the workflow in government institutions, companies, and vital sectors.
On Friday, Microsoft announced that it had made “encouraging progress” in efforts to restore services affected by the widespread outage, which affected its platforms for the second day in a row, noting that the performance of email message delivery across increasing ranges of its affected infrastructure had improved.
The company said, in a statement published on the “X” platform (formerly Twitter), that the performance of email delivery is improving in an increasing range of infrastructure affected by “Microsoft 365” services, but it indicated that some users may still face intermittent problems in accessing the services.
The company's announcement came in conjunction with testimonies from social media users and CNN journalists that emails had begun arriving again in their inboxes, while other users indicated that their messages continued to be inaccessible.
Earlier, Microsoft said that it had not yet observed a sustainable recovery in the areas affected by the malfunction, despite recording a partial improvement in some areas where measures were applied to address the problem.
The company explained, in an update published through its account dedicated to tracking failures in Microsoft 365 services on the
She added that these amendments contributed to achieving a partial recovery in some areas, but they have not yet led to a stable restoration of services, which means that some users may still be exposed to intermittent disruptions.
The malfunction caused widespread disruption to Microsoft services, including Outlook email, the Teams platform, and the artificial intelligence assistant CoPilot, and affected the ability of users and organizations to access and use the company's services normally.
Vital sectors
On the other hand, several British police agencies reported the disruption of electronic reporting forms for crimes and problems on their websites, and called on the public to report by phone instead of using websites.
The police urged citizens to call 101 to report cases that require rapid intervention and do not represent emergencies, while the number 999 remains designated for emergency situations.
In the health sector, the National Pharmacy Association in Britain warned that the disruption may lead to a delay in some patients receiving their prescribed medications, due to a disruption in the e-mail system of the British National Health Service (NHS), which pharmacies rely on to communicate with general practitioner clinics.
The association explained that the impact may be greater on patients whose prescriptions require additional communication between the pharmacist and the treating physician to verify or inquire about some details, noting that Friday usually witnesses great pressure on pharmacies.
The repercussions of the disruption extended to railway networks, as the Canadian company VIA Rail announced that some passengers may not receive emails related to their trips, while the German railway company Deutsche Bahn said that the slowness of the Outlook service caused major delays in internal communications and affected the distribution of train diversion schedules.
In Britain, the British Railways Authority, National Rail, warned that travelers' ability to access train tickets sent via email might be affected, and advised them to return to the websites and applications through which they purchased tickets, or to contact ticket selling companies. However, it confirmed that there were no disruptions to the operation of trains or their services as a result of the malfunction.
Government institutions and services in the United States were also affected, as the US House of Representatives announced that some of its users faced problems due to the holiday, while the governments of a number of cities encouraged residents to communicate by phone with offices and local authorities when needed.
Police departments reported that their email services and communications platforms were affected, while the processing of bail payments for detainees in one Colorado county was delayed.
The unrest spread to other countries and regions, including Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, and the Philippines, where government institutions, courts, and companies were affected. Employees in some Japanese government agencies were forced to prepare paper copies of documents, in light of the inability to use e-mail.
What services are affected?
The main impact is on the Outlook email service, as users faced difficulties in accessing their accounts or sending new messages. The Exchange Online service, which is responsible for managing email in institutions, was also affected.
The impact extended to the artificial intelligence assistant "Copilot", as some users encountered difficulties loading conversations or obtaining answers, as well as problems accessing the data it relies on, such as emails, files, and calendars.
As for the “Teams” platform, some of its functions related to the calendar and scheduled meetings were affected, while some basic functions, such as joining calls and exchanging messages, remained working.
On the other hand, the basic functions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint remained available, although some features related to printing via cloud services and sharing documents using Microsoft SharePoint were affected, as well as the ability to access recently used files.
