Microsoft users worldwide faced widespread outages on Thursday, November 12, 2026, affecting key services like Teams, Outlook, and the AI-powered Copilot. The tech giant attributed the disruptions to 'connectivity problems' stemming from an 'elevated load' on its infrastructure. Initially reported in the US, the issues quickly spread, impacting users across all regions.
At around 18:30 GMT, monitoring site Downdetector recorded a surge in UK users reporting problems with Microsoft products. In the US, the site logged over 131,000 reports of Outlook issues by 18:15 GMT. Microsoft clarified that the elevated load was not due to increased traffic but rather a number of servers unexpectedly becoming unavailable, straining the remaining infrastructure.
In a statement, Microsoft explained that the problem was causing servers to fail automated health checks and become unavailable. By 19:50 GMT, the company announced it was 'testing a configuration' to resolve the issue and confirmed that all affected servers had been restarted.