Microsoft Teams Encountered a Network Issue, Sparks Outage Frustration After Performing Series of Failovers

By Moon Harper

Jan 27, 2024 01:00 AM EST

Microsoft Teams, the workplace communication platform, experienced an outage on Friday, leading users to express their frustration on social media, which Microsoft calls "multiple issues" for many.

14,599 Reports were Submitted on Down Detector

"User reports indicate problems at Microsoft Teams," the Down Detector website, which monitors online outages, posted Friday. As of 1:43 p.m. EST, 14,599 reports for Microsoft Teams were submitted on Down Detector.

The problem started at around 11 a.m. EST and quickly expanded, where users faced difficulties accessing the service, delays in message delivery, and issues displaying graphics.

Microsoft 365's official updates account on X posted on Friday morning, stating they have identified a networking issue affecting a portion of the Teams service, performing a failover to address the impact.

Microsoft's "Network Issue" Affecting Teams Service

Teams is a messaging and videoconferencing app with over 320 million monthly users as of September 2023.

Microsoft communicated on X (formerly known as Twitter) that it identified "a networking issue impacting a portion of the Teams service." It moved some services to backup systems, reportedly finished by around 1:30 p.m. EST for Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, while backup switchovers for North and South America were still in progress. Outage reports on DownDetector dropped to nearly half their peak level by 3 p.m. EST but later leveled off, suggesting ongoing issues.

Frustration from Microsoft Teams' Users

U.S.-based X users continued to express dissatisfaction with Teams' service issues, with some sarcastically thanking Microsoft for resolving the issue quickly in regions where the workday had already ended. In a later tweet, Microsoft admitted that the backup switchover didn't immediately help all users in North and South America but assured they were making other efforts to minimize customer impact as quickly as possible.

Microsoft's public tweets referred to additional details in a document on an administrative dashboard for Microsoft 365 software. When questioned about the document, a spokesperson from the public relations firm WE Communications, representing Microsoft, mentioned that the information shared on X was the only detail they would provide.

Dozen of Issues Resulting from the Outage

Microsoft's document, obtained by The Associated Press, presented a more challenging situation for its customers, outlining about a dozen issues resulting from the outage, such as login problems, missing or delayed messages, and difficulties accessing or viewing media like images, videos, and audio recordings. In an update at 4:26 p.m. EST, the company mentioned that their attempts to work around issues caused problems with backend parts of the system, effectively slowing down data traffic.

At 5:02 p.m. EST, Microsoft recognized that "many customers remain impacted by this issue" but mentioned they were observing a decrease in errors and an improvement in service availability. The company also stated it was simultaneously addressing specific failures of Teams functions alongside its broader network efforts.

DownDetector indicated that reported problems with Teams continued to decrease and were nearly back to normal by 7:45 p.m. EST.