WEB DESK: A widespread Microsoft outage has left millions of users worldwide unable to access Outlook email, Microsoft Teams and other workplace tools, disrupting communication and daily business activities.
As service disruptions continued, Microsoft announced an extension of its email timeout window to 48 hours to prevent delayed messages from being lost while recovery operations remain underway.
In an update posted at around 4:15am ET on Friday, the company said it was witnessing initial signs of stabilisation, although its services had yet to return to normal capacity.
The email timeout window determines how long a mail server or email application, such as Outlook, waits for a message before generating an error.
Meanwhile, the prolonged disruption sparked a wave of memes and jokes across social media platforms, including X, Threads and LinkedIn, as the outage passed the 12-hour mark.
One widely shared joke suggested renaming Microsoft 365 as Microsoft 364, referring to the day the company’s services went offline.
Other users welcomed the unexpected break from workplace emails and constant notifications, with some joking that Microsoft should take its time restoring the services.
The disruption also caused anxiety among employees, with several Reddit users saying they initially feared they had been fired after finding themselves unable to access their work emails.
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