A service outage has hit thousands of Microsoft Outlook users, with many unable to access their email accounts.
Many users have reported issues logging in to their Outlook and Hotmail accounts, with the technology giant confirming it is suffering from connection problems.
The company’s service health website carried a message which read: “We’ve identified that a subset of infrastructure was unable to process requests as expected, which caused general service availability to drop unexpectedly.
“We’ve redirected requests to alternate infrastructure to restore service, and we’re monitoring the environment while connectivity recovers. Additionally, we’re investigating an issue in which users are unable to send email messages.”
Many took to Twitter to vent their frustrations:
Not again!! 😬😬😡😡😕 #hotmail #hormaildown #outlookdown #outlookfail #hotmailfail pic.twitter.com/QIkfr8zJHj
— Didimex (@didimex1111) September 18, 2017
#wakeupcall to @outlook : #outlook and #hotmail have been #down for quite some time now and no official communication yet!? #outlookdown pic.twitter.com/DmUDEdPjyB
— Luca (@Luca_Fincip) September 18, 2017
#Hotmail is down and people are mad pic.twitter.com/nZzs88GeC9
— john nimmo (@JohnNimmo000) September 18, 2017
When #Hotmail stops working around the world… pic.twitter.com/apEqjZesP4
— simon crabtree (@Crabbers) September 18, 2017
Although quite a few were chuffed when they realised they weren’t the only ones using Hotmail in the 21st century:
I thought I was the last person in the land using #hotmail. Now it's not been working for hours, I see there are a few of us left
— Genevieve Roberts (@GenevieveRobert) September 18, 2017
PROUD TO BE ONE OF THE HOTMAIL HUNDREDS #hotmail
— hoskas (@hoskas) September 18, 2017
Turns out I'm actually *not* the only one still using #Hotmail. Regretting my retro choices right now #90sthrowback
— Zoe Armstrong (@MsZoeArmstrong) September 18, 2017
Others saw the funny side of things:
The worst part about #hotmail being down is that I'm waiting to hear back from a Nigerian prince who has chosen me to receive his fortune.
— Kev Payne (@HugsfromDad) September 18, 2017
What? #Hotmail is down? Now where will all the spam from things I've signed into but didn't want to give my real email address to go?
— Ian Collins (@iancollinsuk) September 18, 2017
The irony of receiving updates about Hotmail by email wasn’t lost on people:
Me when #hotmail is down but #Outlook say they'll update me by email pic.twitter.com/hPukvyHxv5
— Parveen Agnihotri (@Parveen_Comms) September 18, 2017
I've been in touch with #Outlook to ask when #Hotmail will be working. They say they will email me updates. Oh, hang on…
— GrahamS (@GrahamLStacey1) September 18, 2017
Been promised an email update about #hotmail being broken. Urrrm… pic.twitter.com/Z51vTGc2NX
— Andrew Oldbury @EGX (@AndrewOldbury) September 18, 2017
According to service monitoring site Downdetector.co.uk, the platform has been experiencing issues since around 9am, with the UK among the worst affected countries.
“Intermittent connectivity is affecting customers in some European countries, which we are working to resolve as soon as possible,” a Microsoft spokeswoman told the Press Association.
Outlook has more than 400 million active users, according to Microsoft figures.