Microsoft Services Face Widespread Outage Affecting Outlook, Teams and Other Platforms

Users in multiple countries reported trouble accessing Microsoft services on Thursday, Nov. 12, 2026. The disruption affected Outlook, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft 365, the Microsoft Store and Copilot. Microsoft acknowledged the problems and said it was working to restore access.

DownDetector recorded about 7,900 reports at around 3:30 p.m., and the number of complaints eventually reached approximately 41,000. Microsoft said the first problems were identified in the Americas, but warned that the disruption could affect Microsoft 365 connectivity in other regions as well.

The company said an unexpected outage involving a large number of servers had placed additional strain on infrastructure that remained online. Microsoft said it had not identified recent changes that would explain the start of the incident. Its investigation pointed to a possible problem with a component that checks server health, which may have caused servers to fail automated checks and become unavailable.

In a statement on X, Microsoft 365 Status said users were having trouble connecting to Exchange Online mailboxes through multiple methods in the Americas. The company listed the incident under code EX1550543 and said further details were available in the Microsoft 365 admin center. It also cited code MO1550821 for related information.

Microsoft said some of its infrastructure was under heavy load in several regions, likely contributing to connection errors. To limit the impact, it paused deployments, redirected traffic away from affected infrastructure and began restarting servers that had gone offline. The company said it was testing a configuration change intended to address the server health-check issue and monitoring servers as they returned to service.

Reports involved different services: Outlook users experienced difficulty accessing email; Microsoft 365 users reported connection problems with its tools; Teams users had trouble accessing the platform; the Microsoft Store was unstable; and some Copilot users reported problems with the artificial intelligence tool. The company said it was continuing efforts to mitigate the disruption and restore service.