UAE Weather Turns Wild: Heavy Rain, Strong Winds and Rough Seas Until November 12
The UAE is preparing for a wet and windy few days, with rain, dusty winds and choppy seas expected until November 12. Temperatures will also slip by up to 6°C.
A major Microsoft disruption has left millions of people across the globe, including users in the UAE, unable to open their mailboxes or join work chats. The trouble began on Thursday and was still being felt on Friday morning, with the company admitting its first fixes had not worked.
A Disruption That Began in the Americas and Went Global
Microsoft initially said it was investigating problems in “the Americas”. It later widened the scope, saying Microsoft 365 connectivity was affected for users “in any region”. In the US, around 130,000 Outlook users reported issues shortly after 1pm Eastern Time on Thursday, which is 6pm GMT and 10pm UAE time, according to Downdetector. Within about an hour, the problem had spread worldwide. By 6pm Eastern Time, reports in the US had dropped to about 37,000.
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Which Services Went Down?
The outage disrupted Outlook, Teams, Copilot and other Microsoft 365 services. Many users could not access their mailboxes, send emails or connect to Teams. Thousands also reported trouble with Teams and Copilot. Downdetector’s map showed impact across the Americas and parts of Europe, Asia and Africa.
UAE Users Feel the Impact
On Friday morning, Outlook, Microsoft 365 and Teams were the three most reported services on Downdetector’s UAE site, with sharp spikes in complaints recorded at 8.42am.
The Exchange Online Problem at the Centre
Microsoft identified “connectivity errors affecting part of its Exchange Online infrastructure”, the system that handles requests from users trying to access their accounts. The company said it was examining network logs to trace the source. It also stated: “We’ve determined a portion of infrastructure is experiencing elevated load across multiple regions”, which it believed was contributing to the errors.
Why the First Fix Failed
Microsoft said on Thursday that the steps taken to fix the outage were not going as expected. In a post on X, the company said: “We’ve monitored the status of the changes applied to improve serviceability and confirmed they’re not taking as expected. We’re identifying alternate workstreams that can be applied to increase capacity in the face of sustained traffic management imbalances.”
Is Recovery Under Way?
Microsoft said it was “aggressively pursuing all pathways to reduce impact”. It paused deployments, moved traffic away from affected infrastructure and restarted servers. The company later reported “limited recovery” and cautioned that services may return gradually as apps reconnect.
What UAE Users Can Do Meanwhile
Close Outlook and Teams and reopen them after some time instead of refreshing repeatedly. If the desktop apps fail to connect, try the web versions. Microsoft’s official service status pages carry the latest updates.
