19 hours and counting: Microsoft extends email timeout to 48 hours amid ongoing outage

Microsoft has warned users to prepare for a prolonged disruption to its services on Friday (Nov 13) despite being 14 hours since the Microsoft outage started globally. The technology giant said it was seeing early signs of stabilisation and improvements in service capacity as recovery efforts continued. However, the extended timeline of 48 hours suggested that users may continue to experience delays and interruptions, particularly with email services.

In an update, Microsoft said it had extended the email timeout period to 48 hours to help preserve delayed emails during the disruption. The company has also acknowledged the impact of the incident and directed users to its Microsoft 365 admin centre for a comprehensive update under incident number MO1550821. Users can additionally monitor the progress of recovery efforts through Microsoft's service status page. The latest warning comes as businesses and individuals relying on Microsoft's services await a complete restoration of normal operations.

“We’re seeing early stabilization and capacity improvements as recovery actions continue. To help preserve delayed mail during this event, we’ve extended email timeout to 48 hours, Microsoft said in a post on X. The company added that a comprehensive update is available under incident number MO1550821 in the Microsoft 365 admin centre. It also said: “Recovery actions continue across Microsoft, the company says in its latest update, adding it is seeing “incremental improvement in several workloads”, adding, ”service health remains variable and capacity has not yet fully returned to baseline. Network and traffic-management actions remain active."

Is it a cyberattack?

Microsoft has ruled out possibility of a cyber attack with senior technology reporter Chris Vallance saying that Microsoft has stated that there's nothing malicious about this incident. "When you look at previous outages of this kind, that affected a lot of different services, it's hard to think of one that was due to a cyber attack," he said. "Most of them have been due to things going wrong internally rather than malicious action," he added, so there's "certainly no reason to doubt" what Microsoft are saying at this stage.