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How to track Teams and Microsoft 365 service issues
Published: September 26, 2023
Rebekah Carter
Is Microsoft Teams down (again)?
If you’re one of the 300 million people who rely on Microsoft’s UCaaS service to communicate with colleagues, serve customers, and generally collaborate, you’ve definitely asked this question.
Microsoft offers one of the most popular, powerful, and versatile collaboration platforms in the modern market. But like any technology, it’s not fail-proof. Outages happen. Sometimes, they last just a few minutes; other times, people are locked out of their services for hours or days.
In a world where countless hybrid and remote employees rely on Teams to stay productive, even a temporary issue can lead to huge problems. It’s not just everyday users who are left anguished as they hit the refresh button on their browser countless times.
Companies using Teams as the primary tool to synchronize their workforce suffer from unexpected downtime and lost opportunities every time Teams takes a hit.
Fortunately, we’re here to help. Here’s how you can answer the question: “Is Microsoft Teams down?” as quickly as possible.
Microsoft is no stranger to technical difficulties. Since the Microsoft 365 portfolio and Microsoft Teams were first introduced, countless reported “outage” issues have occurred.
Back in January 2023, for instance, Microsoft had a significant issue with its online servers, causing outages across Teams, Outlook, and even Xbox Live. The problem affected users worldwide, with millions flocking to Twitter (X) to complain.
Later in June, Microsoft went through a similar problem again when a massive DDoS attack stopped users from logging into Exchange, Outlook, OneDrive, and Teams.
Even now, at the time of writing this article (September 2023), new outage reports are emerging. On September 13th, Microsoft 365 went down, preventing some customers from sending and receiving messages properly on Teams. Notably, the issue was only limited to users in the US this time.
Still, it’s worth noting that Microsoft Teams isn’t subject to outages more than any other major collaboration app. If you look at the Google Trends reports for searches of “Is Microsoft Teams Down?” you’ll notice search volumes are pretty consistent, aside from a few spikes in the last five years.
The patterns aren’t too different from those you’d see if you searched for “Is Zoom Down” instead.
It’s worth remembering that issues with your Teams app won’t always be caused by an outage. Teams users experience problems all the time as a result of improper admin settings, cluttered cache systems, and problematic add-ons. However, before you start troubleshooting potential issues, it’s worth answering the question, “Is Microsoft Teams down for everyone, or just me?”
There are a few ways to find the insights you need. The easiest option is to visit the Microsoft 365 Service Status page. Even if you don’t have a Microsoft Admin account, you can check the general status of all Microsoft 365 products on this website.
The status checker is updated pretty frequently and will show you the current status of everything from OneDrive to Outlook and the consumer version of Teams.
If you need to take a closer look at the service status of your business Teams account, you’ll need to log into the Microsoft 365 Admin Center.
Here, administrators can visit their account’s “Health” section to check whether a known issue has been established or a resolution is in progress.
The Microsoft 365 Admin Center offers a behind-the-scenes insight into the status of all of your Microsoft services. This includes Office (for the web), Microsoft Dynamics, Viva Engage, and any mobile device management services you use.
To check for status issues, log in to the Admin Center using your admin account details. Click “Health” on the left side of the page, then “Service Health”. You can also click the “Service Health” card on your Home dashboard.
Once you arrive on the Service Health page, you’ll see all services aligned with your current subscriptions, listed in a table format. The “All Services” tab, which is the default view, shows all of your services, their current health state, and any active advisories or incidents.
An “advisory” notification is given to a problem that Microsoft is aware is affecting some users. There’s usually a workaround to the problem, and the issue may be limited in scope. If an “incident” notification appears, this means the service is suffering from a critical issue.
If there’s an active incident or advisory happening, more data will be listed under the service name in a nested table. An advisory or incident summary will show you the following:
If you want to filter your view to show only “active” incidents. Click the “Incidents” tab on the top of the page. You can also switch to the “History” tab to see all issues and advisories Microsoft has already resolved in the past 7 to 30 days.
When you’re reviewing active incidents, you can see exactly what Microsoft is doing about the issue by checking the “Status.” For instance, if the Status is set to “Restoring service,” this means Microsoft is already working on addressing the problem.
Microsoft also allows users to customize their view of which services display on the dashboard. Simply click “Preferences” then “Custom view,” and uncheck the boxes for the services you don’t want to see. If you want instant alerts when an incident happens, you can subscribe to receive email notifications for problems affecting your tenant.
Use the “Preferences” section, then click on “Email,” and select “Send me service health notifications in email”. You can choose whether to receive notifications for incidents or advisories and which services you want to hear about.
Another option is to enable push notifications for your Microsoft 365 admin app (on your smartphone). The app allows admins to add new users, reset passwords, manage devices, and receive crucial notifications on the go, and it’s available for both iOS and Android.
The Microsoft 365 Admin Center’s “Health” page is an excellent way to answer the question, “Is Microsoft Teams down?” However, you may still encounter issues if you can’t log into your admin account. The good news is there are a few other ways to check for incident reports.
First, head to Microsoft’s dedicated Twitter (X) account, @MSFT365Status. Microsoft uses this account to keep consumers updated on all of its service issues. While the channel isn’t always as quick to update as Microsoft’s “Health” page, it’s usually quite reliable.
You can also search Twitter for hashtags like #MicrosoftTeamsDown or #TeamsDown.
Alternatively, you can look for answers outside of the Microsoft ecosystem.
There are a few tech-tracking websites specifically dedicated to providing rapid incident reports to users when services stop working. For instance, you can head to “IsTheServiceDown” in the UK to see if any problems are currently happening with Teams.
The website also has a graph showcasing the number of Microsoft Teams issue reports it received in the last 24 hours. This can give you a handy insight into whether a problem has recently occurred and is currently being fixed. There’s even a live outage map showing where issues are most common.
DownDetector and DownForEveryoneOrJustMe offer a similar service. At the top of the page, you’ll see a quick report to answer the question “Is Microsoft Teams down?” instantly. You can also scroll down to see outages reported in the last 24 hours and a live issue map.
Both of these tools also offer insight into the most common recently reported issues, such as “app login,” “service connection,” or “send a message.”
If you’re concerned about Teams outages, you could consider purchasing dedicated tech to help you. For instance, there’s a “Martello Microsoft Teams Down Detector” tool available for custom alerting and reports. It offers a one-stop dashboard for insights and root cause analysis tools.
Most Teams users will ask, “Is Microsoft Teams down?” at some point. All apps, no matter how incredible, still encounter technical issues. A platform as big as the Microsoft 365 ecosystem is sure to encounter problems from time to time.
Fortunately, with the tips above, you should be able to find out what’s happening with your service as quickly as possible. If you discover Teams is apparently okay, but you’re still having issues, ask your team members whether they’re having the same problem. If not, the issue could be related to your browser, app, or internet connection. Before contacting support:
If everyone in your team (or at least a handful of people) has the same problem, you can always report the issue to Microsoft or contact the support team.
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