• by Ray Schultz , July 18, 2023

Microsoft Exchange users have been hit with an email outage, preventing them from sending messages. 

Microsoft has confirmed the problem, attributing it to “a recent change to the free/busy infrastructure, which is used to track the availability of users.”

“The issue was caused by a recent change to the free/busy infrastructure, which is used to track the availability of users,” Microsoft says in an admin centre update. “The issue was first reported on July 18, 2023, and Microsoft began investigating immediately. A fix was implemented within hours, and the issue was resolved for all affected users by July 19, 2023.” 

The company adds that its “free/busy infrastructure is a critical part of Microsoft 365, as it allows users to see when their colleagues are available. This is important for scheduling meetings and appointments, as it helps to ensure that everyone is available at the same time.

It adds, “As the change was only applied to a limited portion of Exchange infrastructure, we’ve now scoped down our communication to only the customers who were affected by this issue.”