By Amanda Castro and Hannah Parry
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Microsoft Azure experienced simultaneous outages, disrupting access to websites, apps, and cloud-connected services across industries on Wednesday afternoon. The dual failure triggered widespread connectivity issues for millions of users and reignited concerns about the internet’s dependence on a handful of cloud providers. The services have now been restored to every region as of 7.30 p.m. ET, with Microsoft stating that its full recovery would be complete by 7.40 p.m. Newsweek initially reported that AWS was experiencing an outage based on Downdetector reports; however, it has since been confirmed that those reports were false.
What to Know:
- Impacted platforms included Microsoft 365, Xbox, Outlook, Starbucks, Costco, Kroger, Blackbaud, and Minecraft.
- Microsoft attributed Azure issues to DNS disruptions and said mitigation efforts are underway.
- Social media users vented frustration, with some highlighting the risks of centralized internet infrastructure.
- Down Detector reports incidents only when problem submissions exceed normal volume thresholds.
- Amazon said in a statement to Newsweek the reports were false and its services were working without issues, saying: "AWS is operating normally and this reporting is incorrect. The only resource on the internet that provides accurate data on the availability of our services is the AWS Health Dashboard."
Newsweek's live blog is closed.
Oct 29, 2025 at 07:28 PM EDT
Microsoft pushes back time for full recovery to 7.40 pm
Microsoft Azure has updated its status message to say that it expects full recovery to happen by 7.40 p.m. ET.
However, all outages appear to be over as of 7.30 p.m. with Down Detector reports dropping for every Microsoft product. Azure's status updates page also reports that the service has resumed in every region.
Oct 29, 2025 at 06:36 PM EDT
Microsoft says it’s seen strong signs of improvement as it tracks towards full recovery
Microsoft said in a statement on Wednesday evening that it is seeing "strong signs of improvement across affected regions and are tracking toward full mitigation."
"This recovery effort involves reloading configurations and rebalancing traffic across a large number of nodes to restore full operational scale," Microsoft said.
"The process is gradual by design, ensuring stability and preventing overload as dependent services recover."
Full mitigation, meaning full recovery, is expected by 7.20 p.m. ET.
Oct 29, 2025 at 05:54 PM EDT
Outage is mostly over after five hours
The Microsoft outage appears to be mostly over, around five hours after it first went down.
Reports of Minecraft and Xbox Live outages have begin to drop on Down Detector and users on social media, and the Mojang server tracker appears to be returning to normal.
Microsoft Azure also appears to be up and running in nearly all regions.
Oct 29, 2025 at 05:07 PM EDT
‘Resilience gaps are still widespread’ warns expert after Microsoft outage
The CEO of Catchpoint, an internet performance monitoring company, warned that further outages and disruptions to major companies should be expected as resilience gaps remain "widespread across even the most advanced infrastructures."
"An AWS disruption last week, Microsoft Azure this week, and I have no doubt another Fortune 100 will be hit next week," Catchpoint owner and CEO Mehdi Daoudi told Tom's Hardware Wednesday. "Resilience gaps are still widespread across even the most advanced infrastructures.
"The Azure outage appears to have taken down not only core services but also DNS and CDN layers, rendering many dependent tools, like session recording and analytics platforms, completely unreachable."
Daoudi added that outages such as these can cost tens of millions of dollars in just a few hours.
"It’s a major reminder that the Internet’s interdependencies mean a single misconfiguration or network-edge change, such as an issue on the AFD side, can ripple rapidly across services that power millions of users worldwide. The bottom line is that resilience must become a boardroom conversation, or these prolonged and costly outages will continue to take place."
Oct 29, 2025 at 04:49 PM EDT
Minecraft, Xbox Live still down
While Azure appears to be getting back on track, Xbox Live and Minecraft are still down, according to tracking site PebbleHost.
Online, the hot topic of conversation is which players have been able to get back online and why.
Microsoft has said that full recovery is expected at 7:20 p.m. ET.
Oct 29, 2025 at 04:15 PM EDT
Azure projects recovery by 7:20 pm ET following outage
Microsoft Azure has updated its service status to indicate that recovery is expected at 7:20 p.m. ET.
The cloud platform has been experiencing disruptions, and users have been awaiting more precise guidance. Azure says further updates will be provided within two hours as engineers continue working toward complete restoration.
Oct 29, 2025 at 03:50 PM EDT
What is Microsoft Azure?
Microsoft Azure is a global cloud computing platform offering more than 200 services—from virtual machines and storage to AI and machine learning tools. It enables businesses to build, run, and scale applications without managing physical servers, using a flexible pay-as-you-go model.
Key features include compute power via virtual machines and serverless functions, diverse storage options, managed databases like Azure SQL and Cosmos DB, and robust networking tools. Azure also supports advanced AI workloads, built-in security monitoring, and hybrid capabilities that extend cloud services to on-premises and edge environments.
By providing both Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS), Azure helps organizations streamline operations, boost scalability, and innovate faster—all through Microsoft’s global network of data centers.
Oct 29, 2025 at 03:30 PM EDT
Azure recovery underway after major outage
Microsoft Azure says it has completed deployment of its “last known good” configuration following a widespread outage, with full mitigation expected within four hours. In a 3:18 PM ET update, the company confirmed that node recovery is in progress and traffic is being rerouted through healthy infrastructure.
Some users may already see signs of improvement, though configuration changes remain blocked during mitigation. Access to the Azure management portal has been restored, but minor issues persist with certain extensions, such as Marketplace.
Microsoft plans to issue another update within two hours and recommends customers consider failover strategies using Azure Traffic Manager as a temporary workaround.
Oct 29, 2025 at 03:19 PM EDT
Exclusive: Catchpoint CEO warns Azure outage shows Internet’s fragility
In exclusive comments to Newsweek, Mehdi Daoudi, CEO and Co-Founder of Catchpoint, said the Azure outage that disrupted services across Microsoft 365, Xbox, Minecraft, Starbucks, Costco, and Alaska Airlines underscores the vulnerability of the internet’s core infrastructure—even among hyperscale providers.
Catchpoint data shows error rates and latency spiked across multiple regions starting at 11:39 a.m. EST, with the disruption traced to a configuration change within Azure Front Door, Microsoft’s global traffic-routing and CDN layer. That misstep triggered DNS failures and widespread access issues.
Daoudi emphasized that even minor routing errors can cascade into major outages, costing industries tens of millions in downtime. He urged enterprises to prioritize multi-region redundancy, real-time observability, and contingency planning. “Resilience must become a boardroom conversation,” he said, “or these prolonged and costly outages will continue to take place.”
Oct 29, 2025 at 03:03 PM EDT
Down Detector shows drop in reports of Azure, Teams, 365, but gaming services remain high
Down Detector shows that reports of service outages on core Microsoft services, such as Azure, 365 and Teams, have steadily declined as the tech giant rushed to fix the issues.
However, reports of gaming services including Minecraft and Xbox Live remain on Down Detector.
Microsoft has said it's trying a current patch that could see issues fixed by around 3 p.m. ET.
Oct 29, 2025 at 03:00 PM EDT
Microsoft says customers should start to see signs of recovery soon
Microsoft has released an update on the outage, as it scrambles to fix the issue that saw services across the world go down.
"We have initiated the deployment of our last known good configuration, which is expected to complete within 30 minutes. As this deployment progresses, customers should begin to see initial signs of recovery. Once completed, we will begin recovering nodes and routing traffic through these healthy nodes," Microsoft said in a new statement.
"Customer configuration changes will remain temporarily blocked while we continue mitigation efforts. We will notify customers once this block has been lifted.
"Some customers may also have experienced issues accessing the Azure management portal. We have failed the portal away from AFD to mitigate these access issues. Customers should now be able to access the Azure portal directly, and while most portal extensions are functioning as expected, a small number of endpoints (e.g., Marketplace) may still experience intermittent loading problems."
Microsoft said it still doesn't have an ETA for full recovery but promised to post regular updates.
Oct 29, 2025 at 02:15 PM EDT
Multiple Microsoft services still experiencing issues
Oct 29, 2025 at 02:03 PM EDT
Azure is down in every region of the world
According to Azure's status page, the service is down in every region it serves including the Americas, Europe, Pacific Asia and the Middle East.
That includes a portion of the cloud distribution service being down.
Oct 29, 2025 at 01:59 PM EDT
Microsoft identifies configuration error behind Azure outage
Microsoft has issued a new update in its ongoing response to the Azure outage, revealing that an inadvertent configuration change may be the root cause of the disruption. The company is now taking dual action: blocking all changes to Azure Front Door (AFD) services and disabling a problematic route linked to the incident.
To restore access, Microsoft has rerouted traffic away from AFD, allowing customers to reach the Azure management portal directly. Engineers are also rolling back to a previously stable configuration, though no estimated completion time has been provided.
Microsoft says further updates will follow within 30 minutes as recovery efforts continue.
Oct 29, 2025 at 01:56 PM EDT
Azure outage grounds key systems at Alaska and Hawaiian Airlines
Alaska Airlines has confirmed that a global Microsoft Azure outage is disrupting critical systems, including its website and online check-in services. Hawaiian Airlines is also affected, as both carriers host key infrastructure on Azure.
Oct 29, 2025 at 01:49 PM EDT
Azure outage disrupts services at major brands
A growing number of major companies are reporting service disruptions tied to Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform. Among those affected are Microsoft 365, Minecraft, Starbucks, Xbox, and Costco—all of which rely on Azure for core operations and customer-facing services.
The outage has impacted access to productivity tools, gaming platforms, retail systems, and more. Microsoft is actively investigating the issue, which appears linked to Azure Front Door infrastructure. The incident highlights the widespread dependence on Microsoft’s cloud backbone across industries.
Oct 29, 2025 at 01:24 PM EDT
Microsoft believes it has found cause of outage
Microsoft says it appears to have found the cause of today's major outage, that saw Azure, Xbox and Outlook suddenly go down.
In a statement, Microsoft said they believe the outage was caused by " an inadvertent configuration change," rather than an external hack.
"We suspect that an inadvertent configuration change as the trigger event for this issue. We are taking two concurrent actions where we are blocking all changes to the AFD services and disabling a problematic route that we found to be related to this, and at the same time rolling back to our last known good state," the tech giant said in the statement. "We have failed the portal away from Azure Front Door (AFD) to mitigate the portal access issues. Customers should be able to access the Azure management portal directly."
Microsoft said it does not yet have an estimated time for when the services will be up and running again, but added that it would update users shortly.
Oct 29, 2025 at 01:20 PM EDT
Microsoft scrambles to resolve Azure Front Door outage
Microsoft has issued a fresh update as it works to resolve a widespread outage affecting its cloud services. The disruption, which began around 16:00 UTC, stems from issues with Azure Front Door—a key component of Microsoft’s global content delivery and application routing infrastructure.
The company confirmed that the outage has impacted access to several services, including the Azure Portal. In response, Microsoft has rerouted portal traffic away from Azure Front Door to restore functionality. Customers who are struggling to access the portal are advised to use alternative methods, such as PowerShell or the CLI, to manage their resources.
Engineers are currently evaluating failover options for internal services and continuing to investigate the root causes. Microsoft has promised further updates within the hour as recovery efforts progress. The incident underscores the critical role Azure plays in powering both Microsoft’s own ecosystem and that of its enterprise clients.
Oct 29, 2025 at 01:15 PM EDT
Microsoft reacts to outages on Azure
Microsoft has issued issued a statement after Azure, one of the most critical pillars of global internet infrastructure, began experiencing outages on Wednesday, disrupting access to websites, apps, and cloud-connected services across industries.
The computer giant said that the issue began at 12 noon ET which will mean customers "may experience issues accessing the Azure Portal."
"Customers can attempt to use programmatic methods (PowerShell, CLI, etc.) to access/utilize resources if they are unable to access the portal directly. We have failed the portal away from Azure Front Door (AFD) to attempt to mitigate the portal access issues and are continuing to assess the situation," the statement read.
"We are actively assessing failover options of internal services from our AFD infrastructure. Our investigation into the contributing factors and additional recovery workstreams continues. More information will be provided within 60 minutes or sooner."
Oct 29, 2025 at 01:12 PM EDT
Microsoft Store down amid widespread outage—surprise launch or system failure?
The Microsoft Store has joined the growing list of services affected by a major outage sweeping across the tech giant’s ecosystem. Alongside Azure, Teams, Outlook, and Microsoft 365, the Store’s downtime is compounding users' frustrations and fueling speculation about what’s really going on.
While Microsoft has confirmed technical issues impacting its cloud infrastructure, some users are wondering if there’s more to the story. The timing and scale of the disruption have sparked tongue-in-cheek theories that the company might be pulling an “Apple”—prepping for a surprise product drop, possibly new Surface devices, or even phones.
But current evidence points to a genuine service failure. Outage trackers like DownDetector have logged thousands of reports, and Microsoft’s support channels are actively investigating problems with Azure Front Door and other backend systems. The Store’s unavailability appears to be part of a broader cloud service disruption rather than a coordinated launch event.
For now, users hoping for a stealthy hardware reveal may need to temper expectations. This outage looks more like a technical hiccup than a marketing stunt.
Oct 29, 2025 at 01:06 PM EDT
Major Microsoft outage may be impacting Starbucks, Kroger, and Costco
A widespread Microsoft outage is disrupting Azure and Microsoft 365 services, and early indicators suggest the impact may extend to major corporate customers. According to outage tracking site DownDetector, spikes in service issues have been reported at Starbucks, Kroger, and Costco—three companies that rely heavily on cloud infrastructure for daily operations.
The outage, which began early Wednesday, has affected access to essential tools like Teams, Outlook, and the Azure Portal. Microsoft has acknowledged the issue and is investigating, but the scope appears to be broad. Because Azure underpins not only Microsoft’s internal systems but also those of its enterprise clients, any disruption can cascade quickly across industries.
Starbucks, for example, uses cloud services to manage mobile orders, loyalty programs, and in-store operations. Kroger and Costco depend on similar infrastructure for inventory management, customer engagement, and point-of-sale systems. If these companies experience outages, it could lead to delays, transaction failures, or communication breakdowns at scale.
While Microsoft has yet to confirm which clients are affected, the DownDetector data suggests that the ripple effects of this outage are already being felt beyond Redmond. Businesses and consumers alike may face temporary disruptions until services are fully restored.
Oct 29, 2025 at 12:59 PM EDT
Why Azure and Microsoft 365 outages hit hard
Microsoft’s digital ecosystem is built on two critical pillars: Azure and Microsoft 365. Azure, the company’s cloud computing platform, powers not only Microsoft’s own infrastructure but also supports countless businesses worldwide. From hosting applications to managing data, Azure is the silent engine behind much of the internet’s daily operations.
Meanwhile, Microsoft 365 serves as the productivity suite for millions, offering essential tools like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Teams. It’s the go-to software for office work, remote collaboration, and document management.
When either platform experiences disruptions, the ripple effects are immediate and widespread. Businesses lose access to vital services, communication stalls, and productivity grinds to a halt. In short, outages in Azure or Microsoft 365 aren’t just technical hiccups—they’re operational emergencies.
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