Users may be seeing degraded service functionality or be unable to access multiple Microsoft 365 services

We’re continuing to optimize service load distribution and are seeing improved accessibility in Microsoft Purview, along with a noticeable reduction in related errors.

This quick update is designed to give the latest information on this issue.

Title: Users may be seeing degraded service functionality or be unable to access multiple Microsoft 365 services

User impact: Users may be seeing degraded service functionality or be unable to access multiple Microsoft 365 services.

More info: Some of the impacted service functions include, but may not be limited to:
- Sending and receiving email through Exchange Online, including notification email from Microsoft Viva Engage as well as subscription email for Microsoft Fabric users. Users may be receiving a "451 4.3.2 temporary server issue" error message when attempting to send or receive email through Outlook.
- Collecting message traces in Exchange Online.
- Searching within SharePoint Online, Microsoft OneDrive, and/or Microsoft Teams.
- Accessing the service portals, including Microsoft Purview, Microsoft Defender XDR, and the Microsoft 365 admin center.
- Creating chats, meetings, teams, channels or adding members in Microsoft Teams. Additionally, some users may be intermittently unable to create breakout rooms or Microsoft Teams live events.
- Receiving presence or location information in Microsoft Teams.
- Existing or new meeting options for Facilitator in Teams may not be honored.
- Applying and managing sensitivity labels, interactive operations on reports, and artifacts with sensitivity labels in Microsoft Fabric.
- Print registration and printer jobs may fail in Universal Print.
- Microsoft ToDo users may experience synchronization issues, which can prevent tasks from updating across devices. Additionally, tasks created in Shared Lists may not appear for collaborators.
- Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps users may be unable to view insights or view, create, or update OAuth enabled app policies. Reporting data may also appear blank, even though no error is shown.
- Microsoft Defender for Office (MDO) users may experience limited access to administrative and SOC experiences, including the quarantine portal and Safe Links protection. As basic mail flow continues to be restored, these associated experiences are expected to resume normal operation.
- Microsoft Power Automate users may be unable to utilize Power Automate connectors including Office 365, Office 365 Users, Office 365 Groups, and Office 365 Groups Mail.

Current status: We’ve identified elevated service load combined with temporary capacity constraints during maintenance resulted in impact. We’re seeing positive signs of recovery in mail delivery, and mitigation actions are in place to better manage service load. While some connectivity impact remains between Microsoft Defender for Office, Microsoft Purview, and Exchange Online, and DNS lookup failures, engineers are actively working to restore full functionality.

Scope of impact: Any users served through an affected section of service infrastructure in the North America region may be intermittently impacted. This could affect users located in Asia-Pacific, Europe, or Latin America.

Root cause: We've identified that the issue was caused by elevated service load resulting from reduced capacity during maintenance for a subset of North America hosted infrastructure.

Next update by: Friday, January 23, 2026, at 5:30 AM UTC

Title: Users may be seeing degraded service functionality or be unable to access multiple Microsoft 365 services

User impact: Users may be seeing degraded service functionality or be unable to access multiple Microsoft 365 services.

More info: Some of the impacted service functions include, but may not be limited to:
- Sending and receiving email through Exchange Online, including notification email from Microsoft Viva Engage as well as subscription email for Microsoft Fabric users. Users may be receiving a "451 4.3.2 temporary server issue" error message when attempting to send or receive email through Outlook.
- Collecting message traces in Exchange Online.
- Searching within SharePoint Online, Microsoft OneDrive, and/or Microsoft Teams.
- Accessing the service portals, including Microsoft Purview, Microsoft Defender XDR, and the Microsoft 365 admin center.
- Creating chats, meetings, teams, channels or adding members in Microsoft Teams. Additionally, some users may be intermittently unable to create breakout rooms or Microsoft Teams live events.
- Receiving presence or location information in Microsoft Teams.
- Existing or new meeting options for Facilitator in Teams may not be honored.
- Applying and managing sensitivity labels, interactive operations on reports, and artifacts with sensitivity labels in Microsoft Fabric.
- Print registration and printer jobs may fail in Universal Print.
- Microsoft ToDo users may experience synchronization issues, which can prevent tasks from updating across devices. Additionally, tasks created in Shared Lists may not appear for collaborators.
- Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps users may be unable to view insights or view, create, or update OAuth enabled app policies. Reporting data may also appear blank, even though no error is shown.

Current status: We’re continuing to see steady improvements in service availability for Exchange Online and Microsoft Teams and our broader recovery efforts remain actively underway. Engineers are further refining load balancing measures to accelerate recovery and are methodically addressing the remaining impacted services.

We do not yet consider this issue resolved and we remain committed to treating this issue with the highest urgency and priority. We understand how difficult it can be to operate without a confirmed estimated time to resolution. Please be assured that our teams are actively investigating and addressing the underlying causes of the impact, and we will share an estimated time for resolution as soon as one becomes available.

Scope of impact: Any users served through an affected section of service infrastructure in the North America region may be intermittently impacted. This could affect users located in Asia-Pacific, Europe, or Latin America.

Root cause: A portion of dependent service infrastructure in the North America region isn't processing traffic as expected.

Next update by: Friday, January 23, 2026, at 4:30 AM UTC

Title: Users may be seeing degraded service functionality or be unable to access multiple Microsoft 365 services

User impact: Users may be seeing degraded service functionality or be unable to access multiple Microsoft 365 services.

More info: Some of the impacted service functions include, but may not be limited to:
- Sending and receiving email through Exchange Online, including notification email from Microsoft Viva Engage as well as subscription email for Microsoft Fabric users. Users may be receiving a "451 4.3.2 temporary server issue" error message when attempting to send or receive email through Outlook.
- Collecting message traces in Exchange Online.
- Searching within SharePoint Online, Microsoft OneDrive, and/or Microsoft Teams.
- Accessing the service portals, including Microsoft Purview, Microsoft Defender XDR, and the Microsoft 365 admin center.
- Creating chats, meetings, teams, channels or adding members in Microsoft Teams. Additionally, some users may be intermittently unable to create breakout rooms or Microsoft Teams live events.
- Receiving presence or location information in Microsoft Teams.
- Existing or new meeting options for Facilitator in Teams may not be honored.
- Applying and managing sensitivity labels, interactive operations on reports, and artifacts with sensitivity labels in Microsoft Fabric.
- Print registration and printer jobs may fail in Universal Print.
- Microsoft ToDo users may experience synchronization issues, which can prevent tasks from updating across devices. Additionally, tasks created in Shared Lists may not appear for collaborators.
- Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps users may be unable to view insights or view, create, or update OAuth enabled app policies. Reporting data may also appear blank, even though no error is shown.

Current status: We’re seeing continued improvements in service availability and functionality as a result of our load-balancing efforts. We’re actively monitoring performance and making targeted adjustments to further improve stability and availability, while continuing recovery actions to ensure a reliable service experience.

Scope of impact: Any users served through an affected section of service infrastructure in the North America region may be intermittently impacted. This could affect users located in Asia-Pacific, Europe, or Latin America.

Root cause: A portion of dependent service infrastructure in the North America region isn't processing traffic as expected.

Next update by: Friday, January 23, 2026, at 3:30 AM UTC

We’re seeing notable improvements in availability and service functionality. We’ll continue to closely monitor performance and make any targeted adjustments to further enhance stability.

This quick update is designed to give the latest information on this issue.

Title: Users may be seeing degraded service functionality or be unable to access multiple Microsoft 365 services

User impact: Users may be seeing degraded service functionality or be unable to access multiple Microsoft 365 services.

More info: Some of the impacted service functions include, but may not be limited to:
- Sending and receiving email through Exchange Online, including notification email from Microsoft Viva Engage as well as subscription email for Microsoft Fabric users. Users may be receiving a "451 4.3.2 temporary server issue" error message when attempting to send or receive email through Outlook.
- Collecting message traces in Exchange Online.
- Searching within SharePoint Online, Microsoft OneDrive, and/or Microsoft Teams.
- Accessing the service portals, including Microsoft Purview, Microsoft Defender XDR, and the Microsoft 365 admin center.
- Creating chats, meetings, teams, channels or adding members in Microsoft Teams. Additionally, some users may be intermittently unable to create breakout rooms or Microsoft Teams live events.
- Receiving presence or location information in Microsoft Teams.
- Existing or new meeting options for Facilitator in Teams may not be honored.
- Applying and managing sensitivity labels, interactive operations on reports, and artifacts with sensitivity labels in Microsoft Fabric.
- Print registration and printer jobs may fail in Universal Print.
-Microsoft ToDo users may experience synchronization issues, which can prevent tasks from updating across devices. Additionally, tasks created in Shared Lists may not appear for collaborators.

Current status: We’re refining our load balancing efforts to optimize performance and reduce potential impact. In parallel, we’re assessing alternative solutions to reinforce recovery and enhance long term stability.

Scope of impact: Any users served through an affected section of service infrastructure in the North America region may be intermittently impacted. This could affect users located in Asia-Pacific, Europe, or Latin America.

Root cause: A portion of dependent service infrastructure in the North America region isn't processing traffic as expected.

Next update by: Friday, January 23, 2026, at 2:30 AM UTC

We’re actively optimizing load balancing configurations to address residual imbalances and reinforce recovery efforts, while taking additional precautions to minimize the risk of further recovery related issues.

This quick update is designed to give the latest information on this issue.

Title: Users may be seeing degraded service functionality or be unable to access multiple Microsoft 365 services

User impact: Users may be seeing degraded service functionality or be unable to access multiple Microsoft 365 services.

More info: Some of the impacted service functions include, but may not be limited to:
- Sending and receiving email through Exchange Online, including notification email from Microsoft Viva Engage as well as subscription email for Microsoft Fabric users. Users may be receiving a "451 4.3.2 temporary server issue" error message when attempting to send or receive email through Outlook.
- Collecting message traces in Exchange Online.
- Searching within SharePoint Online, Microsoft OneDrive, and/or Microsoft Teams.
- Accessing the service portals, including Microsoft Purview, Microsoft Defender XDR, and the Microsoft 365 admin center.
- Creating chats, meetings, teams, channels or adding members in Microsoft Teams. Additionally, some users may be intermittently unable to create breakout rooms or Microsoft Teams live events.
- Receiving presence or location information in Microsoft Teams.
- Existing or new meeting options for Facilitator in Teams may not be honored.
- Applying and managing sensitivity labels, interactive operations on reports, and artifacts with sensitivity labels in Microsoft Fabric.
- Print registration and printer jobs may fail in Universal Print.

Current status: We're continuing to refine our load balancing configurations to remedy residual imbalances across the environment and further our ongoing recovery efforts.

Scope of impact: Any users served through an affected section of service infrastructure in the North America region may be intermittently impacted.

Root cause: A portion of dependent service infrastructure in the North America region isn't processing traffic as expected.

Next update by: Friday, January 23, 2026, at 1:30 AM UTC

Title: Users may be seeing degraded service functionality or be unable to access multiple Microsoft 365 services

User impact: Users may be seeing degraded service functionality or be unable to access multiple Microsoft 365 services.

More info: Some of the impacted service functions include, but may not be limited to:
- Sending and receiving email through Exchange Online, including notification email from Microsoft Viva Engage as well as subscription email for Microsoft Fabric users. Users may be receiving a "451 4.3.2 temporary server issue" error message when attempting to send or receive email through Outlook.
- Collecting message traces in Exchange Online.
- Searching within SharePoint Online, Microsoft OneDrive, and/or Microsoft Teams.
- Accessing the service portals, including Microsoft Purview, Microsoft Defender XDR, and the Microsoft 365 admin center.
- Creating chats, meetings, teams, channels or adding members in Microsoft Teams. Additionally, some users may be intermittently unable to create breakout rooms or Microsoft Teams live events.
- Receiving presence or location information in Microsoft Teams.
- Existing or new meeting options for Facilitator in Teams may not be honored.
- Applying and managing sensitivity labels, interactive operations on reports, and artifacts with sensitivity labels in Microsoft Fabric.
- Print registration and printer jobs may fail in Universal Print.

Current status: During our ongoing efforts to rebalance traffic across the region, we introduced a targeted load balancing configuration change intended to expedite the recovery process, which incidentally introduced additional traffic imbalances associated with persistent impact for a portion of the affected infrastructure. We're remedying our load balancing configurations while, in parallel, reviewing the viability of expediting our ongoing incremental rebalancing and recovery efforts.

Scope of impact: Any users served through an affected section of service infrastructure in the North America region may be intermittently impacted.

Root cause: A portion of dependent service infrastructure in the North America region isn't processing traffic as expected.

Next update by: Friday, January 23, 2026, at 12:30 AM UTC

While we’re proceeding as quickly as possible to effectively rebalance traffic to achieve recovery, we're also recursively monitoring the extent of the affected environment to identify whether additional actions may be required. We'll provide an estimated recovery timeline as soon as we have this information.

This quick update is designed to give the latest information on this issue.

Title: Users may be seeing degraded service functionality or be unable to access multiple Microsoft 365 services

User impact: Users may be seeing degraded service functionality or be unable to access multiple Microsoft 365 services.

More info: Some of the impacted service functions include, but may not be limited to:
- Sending and receiving email through Exchange Online, including notification email from Microsoft Viva Engage as well as subscription email for Microsoft Fabric users. Users may be receiving a "451 4.3.2 temporary server issue" error message when attempting to send or receive email through Outlook.
- Collecting message traces.
- Searching within SharePoint Online and/or Microsoft OneDrive.
- Accessing the service portals, including Microsoft Purview, Microsoft Defender XDR, and the Microsoft 365 admin center.
- Creating chats, meetings, teams, channels or adding members in Microsoft Teams. Additionally, some users may be intermittently unable to create breakout rooms or Microsoft Teams live events.
- Receiving presence or location information in Microsoft Teams.
- Existing or new meeting options for Facilitator in Teams may not be honored.
- Applying and managing sensitivity labels, interactive operations on reports, and artifacts with sensitivity labels in Microsoft Fabric.
- Print registration and printer jobs may fail in Universal Print.

Current status: We're carefully rebalancing traffic across all affected infrastructure in the region, while monitoring the corresponding health telemetry, to ensure the environment enters into a balanced state as our remediation efforts continue. We’re proceeding as quickly as possible and this incremental approach will also help us identify whether any additional actions may be required to ensure longstanding recovery.

Scope of impact: Any users served through an affected section of service infrastructure in the North America region may be intermittently impacted.

Root cause: A portion of dependent service infrastructure in the North America region isn't processing traffic as expected.

Next update by: Thursday, January 22, 2026, at 11:30 PM UTC

We've implemented a traffic balancing solution within a limited portion of infrastructure and telemetry shows success. We're applying this solution incrementally across all affected infrastructure to ensure the environment remains balanced as recovery continues.

This quick update is designed to give the latest information on this issue.

Title: Users may be seeing degraded service functionality or be unable to access multiple Microsoft 365 services

User impact: Users may be seeing degraded service functionality or be unable to access multiple Microsoft 365 services.

More info: Users may be receiving a "451 4.3.2 temporary server issue" error message when attempting to send or receive email through Outlook.

Some of the impacted service functions include, but may not be limited to:
- Sending and receiving email through Exchange Online, including notification email from Microsoft Viva Engage as well as subscription email for Microsoft Fabric users.
- Collecting message traces.
- Searching within SharePoint Online and/or Microsoft OneDrive.
- Accessing the service portals, including Microsoft Purview, Microsoft Defender XDR, and the Microsoft 365 admin center.
- Creating chats, meetings, teams, channels or adding members in Microsoft Teams.
- Receiving presence or location information in Microsoft Teams.
- Applying and managing sensitivity labels, interactive operations on reports, and artifacts with sensitivity labels in Microsoft Fabric.

Current status: While we've restored the affected infrastructure to a healthy state, further load balancing is required to mitigate persistent impact. We've identified and are implementing additional actions to direct requests and traffic to additional healthy sections of infrastructure to achieve withstanding recovery.

Scope of impact: Any users served through an affected section of service infrastructure in the North America region may be intermittently impacted.

Root cause: A portion of dependent service infrastructure in the North America region isn't processing traffic as expected.

Next update by: Thursday, January 22, 2026, at 11:00 PM UTC

Title: Users may be seeing degraded service functionality or be unable to access multiple Microsoft 365 services

User impact: Users may be seeing degraded service functionality or be unable to access multiple Microsoft 365 services.

More info: Users may be receiving a "451 4.3.2 temporary server issue" error message when attempting to send or receive email through Outlook.

Some of the impacted service functions include, but may not be limited to:
- Sending and receiving email through Exchange Online, including notification emails from Microsoft Viva Engage.
- Collecting message traces may be delayed or fail.
- Searches within SharePoint Online and/or Microsoft OneDrive mail be delayed or fail to complete.
- Accessing the service portals, including Microsoft Purview, Microsoft Defender XDR, and the Microsoft 365 admin center.

Current status: We're continuing to review what actions are required to restore the affected infrastructure to a healthy state and rebalance the service traffic to achieve recovery.

Scope of impact: Any users served through an affected section of service infrastructure in the North America region may be intermittently impacted.

Root cause: A portion of dependent service infrastructure in the North America region isn't processing traffic as expected.

Next update by: Thursday, January 22, 2026, at 11:00 PM UTC

Title: Users may be seeing degraded service functionality or be unable to access multiple Microsoft 365 services

User impact: Users may be seeing degraded service functionality or be unable to access multiple Microsoft 365 services.

More info: Users may be receiving a "451 4.3.2 temporary server issue" error message when attempting to send or receive email through Outlook.

Some of the impacted service functions include, but may not be limited to:
- Sending and receiving email through Exchange Online, including notification emails from Microsoft Viva Engage.
- Accessing the service portals, including Microsoft Purview, Microsoft Defender XDR, and the Microsoft 365 admin center.

Current status: We've identified a portion of dependent service infrastructure in the North America region that is not processing traffic as expected. This is impacting our load balancing processes and general service availability. We're working to restore this infrastructure to a healthy state and rebalance the service traffic to achieve recovery.

Scope of impact: Any users served through an affected section of service infrastructure in the North America region may be intermittently impacted.

Next update by: Thursday, January 22, 2026, at 10:00 PM UTC

Title: Users may be seeing degraded service functionality across multiple Microsoft 365 services

User impact: Users may be seeing degraded service functionality across multiple Microsoft 365 services.

More info: Users may be receiving a "451 4.3.2 temporary server issue" error message when attempting to send mail through Outlook.

Some of the impacted service functions include, but may not be limited to:
- Sending and receiving email through Exchange Online, including notification email from Microsoft Viva Engage.
- Accessing the service portals, including Microsoft Purview and Microsoft Defender XDR.

Current status: We're reviewing the reported impact scenarios and identifying what portion of the dependent service infrastructure is degraded so we can determine our next troubleshooting steps.

Scope of impact: The scope of this issue is currently being investigated.

Next update by: Thursday, January 22, 2026, at 9:00 PM UTC

As we rapidly pursue an investigation into the nature of the impact and the source of the issue, we've received reports that users may be receiving a "451 4.3.2 temporary server issue" error message when attempting to access the service portals or use Outlook.

This quick update is designed to give the latest information on this issue.

Title: We're investigating a potential issue affecting Microsoft 365 services

User impact: We've received reports of an issue affecting Microsoft 365 services.

Current status: We're investigating a potential issue with Microsoft 365 services and checking for impact to your organization. Initial reports indicate possible issues accessing the Microsoft Defender and Microsoft Purview portals, as well as issues using Outlook. We'll provide an update within 30 minutes.