The cloud is great until it isn’t. Usually, being able to use all your software and access your files no matter where you are is very handy. But it also means that any glitch or outage to something like Microsoft Office 365 will seemingly grind the whole world’s productivity to a halt.
Office 365, for those not acquainted, is the cloud office software offered by Microsoft. It includes services like Word, Excel, but also email server software like Exchange Server, file management software like SharePoint and many other services that are crucial to the running of … well, nearly everything.
On Tuesday morning (Australian time), people began to report that their Office 365 wasn’t working.
Time to call it a day. Outlook, Office 365, and Microsoft Azure cloud appear down. pic.twitter.com/B5nT41WMlX
— Andrew Ba Tran (@abtran) September 28, 2020
For users in the US, the timing meant people decided pulling up stumps for the day. But in Australia, where our work day is just beginning, it’s a bit more of problem.
Office365 down in Australia at 8:30 am – Teams, Outlook, OneDrive, — anything that uses Microsoft Authentication. Like the rest of 2020 hasn’t been shit enough.
— The Wow Factor (@jwowchuk) September 28, 2020
The web tool Downdetector found that users began reporting Office 365 problems just after 7 a.m. AEDT.
Why is Office 365 down?
Soon afterwards, Microsoft confirmed there was an issue with their cloud software.
“We’re investigating an issue affecting access to multiple Microsoft 365 services. We’re working to identify the full impact and will provide more information shortly,” the company said in a tweet.
We’re investigating an issue affecting access to multiple Microsoft 365 services. We’re working to identify the full impact and will provide more information shortly.
— Microsoft 365 Status (@MSFT365Status) September 28, 2020
And soon after they said they found a recent Office 365 update that seemed to be causing the issue. So, they rolled it back.
But unfortunately, that didn’t solve it either!
“We’re not observing an increase in successful connections after rolling back a recent change. We’re working to evaluate additional mitigation solutions while we investigate the root cause,” the company tweeted.
And while the company attempts to hunt down the cause of the problem, people did what they do when they have spare time: they posted about it.
Some shared their sympathies to the world’s computer technicians.
My sincere condolences to everyone in IT support this morning.
— georgia (@georgjar) September 28, 2020
Others freaked out.
When you are trying to do homework but Microsoft Office 365 won’t let you login to your account……@Microsoft pic.twitter.com/1K5z67jXN5
— Pyra Sydannia {comms open} (@Pyra_Sydannia) September 28, 2020
And while it’s not the first time Office 365 has been down, it does seem to remind how much we depend on services run by someone else that can just accidentally break. But hey, probably not good to think about it too much, hey?