Microsoft is currently investigating an issue that prevents some customers from utilizing search functionality across various Microsoft 365 services, including Outlook on the Web, Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Microsoft Teams, and Outlook desktop clients.
Probing the search functionality issue
Microsoft acknowledged the ongoing problem in a tweet, stating, “We’re investigating an issue where users may be unable to use the search functionality in multiple Microsoft 365 services.” The company is analyzing service telemetry data to pinpoint the source of the issue and devise a mitigation plan, as reported in a Microsoft 365 admin center incident report. It remains unclear whether this issue affects users worldwide or is limited to specific regions.
Recent outages in Microsoft 365 services
This search outage comes shortly after another incident that disrupted multiple Microsoft 365 services last week, preventing customers worldwide from signing into their accounts and accessing web apps. In some instances, “new” users were prompted to contact their IT departments for assistance.
The cause of last week’s outage was traced back to caching infrastructure operating below acceptable performance thresholds, resulting in timeout exceptions within Azure Active Directory (AAD) infrastructure.
In January, Microsoft 365 experienced another massive outage when a router IP address update led to router packet forwarding issues within Microsoft’s Wide Area Network (WAN).
