back to article Office 365 Exchange enjoys a less than manic Monday. Users? Not so much

Happy Monday, everyone! Microsoft is apparently celebrating this made-up Cyber Monday "holiday" by giving Office 365 users a break from all that pesky email, with Exchange services currently still out of whack. Users in the UK began noticing problems with the service late this morning, with things starting to get a little …

  1. Korev Silver badge
    FAIL

    Available to your Office365 admin

    End users probably won't have access to this; and it's not like their admins can send them an email...

    1. Nick Ryan Silver badge

      Re: Available to your Office365 admin

      Well it wasn't very honest or helpful anyway:

      Title: Can't access email

      User Impact: Users may be unable to connect to the Exchange Online service

      At least it's been updated a bit now.

      Title: Can't access email

      User Impact: Users may be unable to connect to the Exchange Online service.

      More info: Affected users may be able to able to access the Exchange Online service if they refresh their connection.

      Current status: We've determined that availability dropped below acceptable thresholds due to a networking issue. We've restricted some replication and migration requests through the affected infrastructure and while increasing connection points on alternate infrastructure to remediate impact.

      Scope of impact: Impact is specific to a subset of users who are served through the affected infrastructure.

      Start time: Monday, November 26, 2018, at 10:10 AM UTC

      Next update by: Monday, November 26, 2018, at 2:30 PM UTC

      1. AMBxx Silver badge

        Schrodingers Email?

        My email appears to be working fine (O365), but I have no idea if anything is failing to arrive due to MS problems.

        I've been waiting for a customer in Spain to reply since 11am. Not sure if MS problem, or just extended siesta.

  2. adam 40 Silver badge
    IT Angle

    At last! I can get some work done...

    Without interruption from stoopid emails.

    at least, I would if I wevern't on El Reg...

    1. big_D Silver badge
      Pint

      Re: At last! I can get some work done...

      Yep.

      Or, "I chose the wrong day to give up drinking."

      1. royprime

        Re: At last! I can get some work done...

        I would be getting some work done, but my clients keep moaning that their emails still aren't working.

        Guess I chose the wrong day to stop sniffing glue...

        1. MyffyW Silver badge

          I don't like Mondays

          I guess I chose the wrong day to pitch Office 365 to the board.

          [unscrewing a bottle of nail varnish for the volatile organic compounds as we speak]

    2. Shadow Systems

      Re: At last! I can get some work done...

      ElReg: killing productivity for so long it took a Time Lord to get us there.

  3. Nick Ryan Silver badge

    Seemed to be a partial failure of some systems, and guessing from how things panned out across devices most likely the non-standard interfaces that Outlook uses rather than any standard interface. Webmail Outlook started to give up later doubtless because too many victims had to use it.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Seem to be the only bit of O356 that is working for us. The rest is rubbish

    1. DJV Silver badge

      "The rest is rubbish"

      SNAFU

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The problem with using Exchange on someone else's computer is when it goes wrong, you are are made to look the dick, not them. Thanks for nothing Microshaft.

  6. UK-Techie

    Silence once again!

    11/26/2018 11:12 AM We're investigating a potential issue and checking for impact to your organization. We'll provide an update within 60 minutes.

    It's now 14:25

    1. Anonymous Custard
      Boffin

      Re: Silence once again!

      You forget these are Microsoft minutes of which they quote...

      We have learned from copying and downloading times in File Explorer and Internet Explorer that they bear very little resemblance to real-world minutes in duration, and are best thought of as measured on a rubber wristwatch...

  7. ArrZarr Silver badge
    Boffin

    Cyber Monday and Manic Monday are slightly different things (right-pondian marketing speak)

    Cyber Monday is the Monday after Black Friday

    Manic Monday is the Monday after November Payday when everybody comes into the office and starts buying stuff online.

    They can fall on the same day depending on when Black Friday sits but this year they are a week apart

    1. Anonymous Custard
      Headmaster

      Speak for yourself - I got paid last Thursday so they're both today for me.

      Not that there's anything much I actually wanted to buy either today or last Friday, but that's a minor issue (at least until I find out what SWMBO has purchased on my behalf, or at more accurately on my income).

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        "what SWMBO has purchased on my behalf, or at more accurately on my income"

        When you ask her you'll discover it's the same thing.

      2. ArrZarr Silver badge

        Same deal for payment with me, but the vast majority get paid this week rather than last week hence the different dates.

  8. Ken Moorhouse Silver badge

    I thought this was supposed to be a NEWS site

    I thought I was reading last week's article again, but wait... looking a bit more closely I see you've updated the date and changed a few of the words around.

    1. Captain Scarlet Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: I thought this was supposed to be a NEWS site

      I am surprised it wasn't nick named Office 361 today.

      1. katrinab Silver badge

        Re: I thought this was supposed to be a NEWS site

        The last report called it Office 361, so I think it is Office 360 now, unless an outage has dropped out of counting.

        1. Pascal Monett Silver badge
          Coat

          We'll be able to keep a proper count starting the 1st of January, as per the new protocol.

          In the meantime, it'll just be Office If It Can.

    2. Dan 55 Silver badge

      Re: I thought this was supposed to be a NEWS site

      This breaking news just in... Office 365 is still hosed. In other news, Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.

  9. T. F. M. Reader

    Monday really isn't their thing.

    Tell me about it. We work with every kind of private, public, and hybrid "clouds" because our customers do. We have a rule: never schedule any demos related to Azure, not even internal ones or training, on Mondays.

    It looks like MSFT roll out patches/features over weekend, and if they don't screw something up royally then you can count on them changing interfaces, controls, APIs, what not.

    Hence the rule: schedule Azure demos for Wednesdays. Test on Monday, fix or work around whatever they broke over the weekend, test again on Tuesday.

  10. ServerSauna

    I checked the DNS record and the nameservers had changed. The *.eu ones no longer worked so swapped out to the .com ones which seemed to solve the problem.

  11. anthonyhegedus Silver badge

    We used our remote support system to message a hundred or so users. A message just flashed up on their screen. But if we didn't have that, how are you supposed to communicate to your customers that a service provided through you is hosed?

  12. bombastic bob Silver badge
    FAIL

    All eggs, one basket.

    everybody KNOWS that all eggs in one basket is a bad idea. It's just that the siren song of "The Cloud" drowns out the reality that it's still, one VERY LARGE basket.

    And when that basket goes TITSUP and FUBAR, the eggs are broken. Ooops.

    (captain obvious)

    got Libre Office?

    1. dajames

      Re: All eggs, one basket.

      got Libre Office?

      Unfortunately LibreOffice doesn't include a mail client ... it should -- it'd be a winner -- it's not like there's much competition!

      1. A.P. Veening Silver badge

        Re: All eggs, one basket.

        "Unfortunately LibreOffice doesn't include a mail client"

        It is completely true that LibreOffice doesn't have a mail client, but I fail to see why any office suite should have one. On the other hand, I have found Thunderbird to be a superior alternative to Outlook.

        1. Ken Moorhouse Silver badge

          Re: I have found Thunderbird to be a superior alternative to Outlook.

          Customers of mine that use T'bird rarely have problems. Those using on-prem Outlook have all sorts of inexplicable woes which when identified, fall into these categories:-

          (i) Microsoft Updates (ii) a functionality of Outlook has changed between versions (deleted as well as added) (iii) Anti-Malware program interference (iv) mailbox corruption or bloated mailbox size (v) emails going walkabout (vi) winmail.dat issues (vii) licencing issues whilst using the legitimately licenced application.

          (iv) and (vi) have decreased substantially in recent years, but bloated mailbox sluggishness has not. Trying to drive Outlook from a third-party program (MAPI) has some bizarre "rules" defining behaviour, which can be painful to satisfy.

          Sorry, that was intended to be a succinct list, but the more I thought about it, the more that needed to be added.

          One of the big snags with Outlook is the dangers of reinstallation to troubleshoot dire problems, will there be hassle with licencing issues upon reinstallation?

  13. adnim
    Joke

    It's 2018...

    And people are still using Microsoft.

    Joking aside. A company I contract for are embedded in MS cloud offerings. They run their own Exchange server but Office is the 365 thing. I stopped caring about and looking after MS domains in 2005, so I don't know in detail how all this MS stuff really works any more. I can't say I have had any problems using office today when I have needed to though.

    Personally I am not reliant on Microsoft at all or any other provider for that matter, everything that I need for my own business is local. I been messing with computers for a few days now so it is cheaper, safer and more convenient for me to employ myself to run my own servers on my own hardware.

    TBH, I don't care what the OS or the office suite is... I just want it to work and be available when I need it. That's why I don't use MS for my personal shit.

  14. dnicholas

    Echoing in Redmond

    "Oh for fuck's sake, Bob! I just did the Days Since Last Outage sign"

    1. Huw D

      Re: Echoing in Redmond

      Leave it at 0. It's more likely to be right.

      1. Notas Badoff

        Re: Echoing in Redmond

        Normal computer coding involves just "0", "1", "many". Just have those three possibilities for the status board, and 5/7ths of the time it'll be the pleasing "many".

        (Or do I have an off-by-one error there...?)

    2. Nolveys
      Windows

      Re: Echoing in Redmond

      "Oh for fuck's sake, Bob! I just did the Days Since Last Outage sign"

      Reminds me of an episode of Futurama in which Fry updates the "Days Since Last Accident" sign by nailing a piece of paper with a "1" on it to the sign. Immediately after he finishes putting up the "1" he realizes that he put the nail through his thumb.

  15. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

    When....?

    when will heads roll at MS?

    when will MS admit that their systems are shite?

    when will MS start paying compensation to customers who are crippled by this sort of thing which seems to be getting more and more frequent?

    and

    When will customers start realising that MS is playing fast and loose with their companies data and possibly the future of the company and give them the really big finger...?

    Sadly, the answer to all of the above is never.

    1. dnicholas

      Re: When....?

      Well to be fair when it works Office365 is better than Exchange on prem in ease of use, lack of maintenance, easy scalability. Not sure I'd like to go back to on-prem. Plus when it's broken I can just say "Microsoft are working on it". Exchange is a weekend ruining time bomb

      1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

        Yeah, but "when it works" is not supposed to be the general status of a business application.

        It's supposed to fucking work. You're not supposed to have to ask the question.

    2. a_yank_lurker

      Re: When....?

      The answer is when a major client sues for breach of contract with some eye-watering damages that is a certainty to win. An alternate scenario is when a couple of major clients like the EU governments ditch Bloat and associated cruft very loudly and noisily. If it is a government, they start mandating that all office type documents be ODF formats only. Until then, nothing will happen.

  16. 4711

    It's still office 404. Move along, nothing to see here.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Office Zero

    Perfect Capitalism - Keep taking the Money and give absolutely nothing in return.

  18. 0laf
    FAIL

    I got O365 for home recently.

    It works other than Outlook. It won't connect to an existing Outlook account.

    MS advice to tweak a setting. Only problem is that the setting they sugget tweaking doesn't exist anymore. Thanks.

  19. David 18
    Coat

    Maybe they are simply aligning products

    The Xbox 360 was a huge hit, so maybe they are aiming for Office 360.

    Although at the rate it's going they will be aligned their most recent console and will be producing Office One

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    WTF

    So have now had no email for over 24 hours. Next update from Microsoft is at 10:00 UTC. Aren’t Microsoft a 24/7 operation or has the one engineer clocked off at 5pm yesterday?

  21. AlexMac

    My Exchange email still not working, after telling me my box is full. I can receive emails okay, but not send them. Damn nuisance. Now I can only send or reply to emails via my AOL, which only works on my iPhone, having refused to work on my Mac for two years, despite every effort.. I may have to revert to sending letters by post.

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