Nearly 130,000 Reports of Outlook Outage as Disruption Spreads to Teams and Copilot
Key Facts
Nearly 130,000 users reported Outlook problems on Downdetector after 1 p.m. Eastern time on November 12, 2026, with messages unable to send or arrive and inboxes difficult to load, according to The Associated Press. Reports showed the disruption spreading to other applications and services across the Microsoft ecosystem. The company said it was investigating problems with Microsoft 365 services, particularly Exchange Online. Reports included Teams and Copilot, as well as broader Microsoft 365 services. The complaints show the outage extending from email to workplace and collaboration tools and an AI assistant.
Microsoft said several servers had become “unexpectedly unavailable” after failing automated health checks, while the cause of the failures was not immediately clear. The company attributed a rise in connection errors to increased load on part of its infrastructure across multiple regions. It said the affected servers had not passed the checks systems use to monitor their health, keeping them out of service. Later, it said it was testing a fix and rolling out an alternative way to run those checks to bring the affected servers back online. The explanation links infrastructure strain to the access problems reported by users, while remediation efforts focused on restoring the servers.
For Teams, Microsoft said earlier in the day that it had “successfully restored” service-related issues in North America. But some users continued to report connection problems, according to The Associated Press. The restoration announcement came while reports of problems still included other Microsoft 365 services, including Outlook and Copilot. The number of reports alone does not establish how fully each service had recovered, while the company described its work on the affected servers as part of its efforts to restore service. Microsoft continued testing the fix and the alternative method for automated checks to bring those servers back into service.
The outage also affected Microsoft connectors that link its services to AI tools. OpenAI said it was investigating a problem with Microsoft connectors, warning that new connections could fail and tools might not work as expected. The problem put the connectors among the affected services, alongside Microsoft applications that users reported difficulty accessing. Microsoft said efforts to bring the affected servers back online were still part of the remediation. The OpenAI statement cited here did not give a timeline for restoring the connectors. The connector disruption adds to problems with services users rely on to access email, work and collaborate.
Workhorse Group recorded an operational impact from the outage when it postponed its third-quarter earnings call, scheduled for November 12, 2026, at 4:30 p.m. Eastern time. The company said business disruptions caused by global Microsoft outages led it to postpone the call to November 16 at 4:30 p.m. Eastern time. It added that its earnings release would be issued before the call. The postponement sets a new date for presenting third-quarter results, while keeping the call at its originally scheduled time. The move is one of the reported operational consequences of the outages beyond the Microsoft applications directly affected.
In the stock market, Microsoft shares closed at $523 in the November 12 session, compared with a close of $521.13 on November 11, according to EL7 data. These prices show the stock’s movement on the day of the outage and the previous day. The figures provided do not explain the share-price movement or link it causally to the service disruption. In response, Microsoft said it was testing a fix and rolling out an alternative method for automated health checks to bring servers back into service. Workhorse is scheduled to hold its postponed earnings call on November 16, 2026, at 4:30 p.m. Eastern time, with the earnings release due beforehand.