Microsoft Outlook Outage Reportedly Crashes App, Blocks Account Access

Users of Microsoft Outlook across the globe were reporting issues when attempting to check their email from the desktop application. It appears that in addition to crashing the desktop application, this bug was using a lot of system resources and preventing some users from accessing their accounts.

Outlook users reported repeated freezing of the new desktop application, which requires forcing a shutdown using Windows Task Manager. Many Microsoft services were reportedly impacted, and some users complained that they couldn’t access Microsoft Teams.

As per DownDetector, a website that tracks online outages, and social media posts, there were problems with both Microsoft 365 and Outlook. There were reports of Microsoft Store also facing issues.

The Microsoft 365 Status team reportedly provided an explanation of the situation, saying they were investigating the issue and further updates could be found in the Service Health Dashboard via TM402718. Microsoft also explained that a potential memory management issue could have caused the outage.

While Microsoft was trying to resolve the issues, the company took to X to address a user's complaint and provide additional assurance that the worst of the outage was past.

Users who were having problems were advised to refresh in order to restore functionality, according to the post. It said that a config change was applied and telemetry confirmed, adding that “we've mitigated impact.”

If you are experiencing issues, try clicking the refresh button or closing and reopening your email application. After that, Outlook should return to operating normally.

While according to the earlier Downdetector report, there were over 2,100 user issue reports, that number had reportedly reduced to around 600.