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Microsoft Outlook, Skype, OneDrive Hit By Another Authentication Issue (zdnet.com)

Posted by msmash on from the outage-report dept.

Two weeks after a widespread authentication issue hit Outlook, Skype, OneDrive, Xbox and other Microsoft services, it's happening again. From a report: On March 21, users across the world began reporting via Twitter that they couldn't sign into Outlook.com, OneDrive and Skype, (and possibly more). I, myself, am unable to sign into Outlook.com, OneDrive or Skype at 2:30 pm ET today, but my Office 365 Mail account is working fine. (Knock wood.) I believe the issue started about an hour ago, or 1:30 p.m. ET or so. MSA is Microsoft's single sign-on service which authenticates users so they can log into their various Microsoft services. As happened two weeks ago, Skype Heartbeat site, has posted a message noting that users may be experiencing problems sending messages and signing in.

48 comments

  1. Are all Outlook users this pedantic? by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 0

    >> I, myself, am...

    Good grief, are all Outlook users this pedantic? (Learn to use a reflexive pronoun, 'aight?)

    And why isn't everyone using Gmail or something better by now?

    1. Re:Are all Outlook users this pedantic? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      And why isn't everyone using Gmail or something better by now?

      Google READS all of your emails. Real email services like Microsoft are more secure because they will never read your email!

    2. Re:Are all Outlook users this pedantic? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Good grief, are all Outlook users this pedantic? (Learn to use a reflexive pronoun, 'aight?)

      No, but apparently Slashdot commentators are.

    3. Re:Are all Outlook users this pedantic? by Thud457 · · Score: 1
      read in Jerry Seinfeld's voice:

      Don't get scroogled!

      --

      the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

    4. Re:Are all Outlook users this pedantic? by Penguinisto · · Score: 2

      And why isn't everyone using Gmail or something better by now?

      Even better - why isn't every self-respecting business large enough to have more than 50 employees not using on-prem email/MTA solutions, instead of renting it out to people whose outages don't give a damn about your schedule?

      --
      Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
    5. Re:Are all Outlook users this pedantic? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Good grief, are all Outlook users this pedantic?

      Presumably by "this" you mean the example you, yourself, wrote.

    6. Re:Are all Outlook users this pedantic? by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      You yourself should be nicer to otherselves themselves.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    7. Re:Are all Outlook users this pedantic? by LunaticTippy · · Score: 2

      I've worked in numerous instances of both approaches and the homegrown mailservers in general have been far worse, in terms of features and downtime. Expensive, too.

      Modern examples of google or microsoft sourced email has excellent spam filtering and uptime. There isn't any reason to do it yourself anymore. Sure, I could possibly manage a mailserver pretty well but it is a poor use of my time.

      --
      Man, you really need that seminar!
  2. Updates? by Wowsers · · Score: 2

    It's the spies just updating the software for the latest backdoors.

    --
    Take Nobody's Word For It.
    1. Re:Updates? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's the spies just updating the software for the latest backdoors.

      It's the unicorn chasers just updating the software for the latest backdoors.

      There, FTFY.

  3. Can't sign into MS services by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    So they've finally done something right.

  4. And our employees keep opening internal tickets by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It sucks having to go through hundreds of tickets to just tell people we can't help them with those Microsoft problems.

  5. Update Pushed by darkain · · Score: 2

    Some sort of update was pushed out today. In the middle of working, my Windows 10 machine all of a sudden had One Drive show up in the system tray. Note: we don't use One Drive at all at this company. It was entirely disabled. They're up to their usual game of shoving shit down people's throats.

    (Yes, I know, Win10 is shit, and this crap is to be expected constantly. I'm honestly only running it as a trial on a pair of machines while everything else in the business is still Win7)

    1. Re:Update Pushed by Billly+Gates · · Score: 2

      No problem here. Update was pushed a few days ago for me and it was fine.

      --
      http://saveie6.com/
    2. Re:Update Pushed by Penguinisto · · Score: 2

      ...how, exactly? Specifically, are you pushing registry hacks, specific GPO rules, or what? GP is using a pair of test boxes, so I don't expect him to have all the AD bells and whistles attached to his machinery. That said, some specificity is desired as to how you avoided the trouble.

      --
      Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
  6. Again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I work for a company founded by former Microsoft execs we're required to use all Microsoft products and not allowed to use anything open source. This year has just been hell for us considering all of the downtime and problems.

    1. Re: Again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Same here. They don't care if it kills our startup. They only care about funneling as much money as they can to Microsoft.

    2. Re: Again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't understand why anyone would expect anything different than these problems after they fired the vast majority of their QA.

    3. Re:Again? by Grishnakh · · Score: 2

      Sounds like you should be looking for a new job.

    4. Re: Again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And vast majority of experienced (read, expensive) developers have also been fired. Most of my friends in the Seattle area that I graduated from the U of Waterloo with worked for Microsoft for around twenty years, and they've all been fired the past couple of years because they're too expensive. If Microsoft gave a damn about quality they wouldn't be firing their best employees.

    5. Re: Again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's always nice to have Microsoft to blame since they screwup constantly.

  7. I just finished a skype interview by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

    Sound never did work and video took several tries. Now I know why

    --
    http://saveie6.com/
  8. I don't trust it by jetkust · · Score: 1

    I haven't trusted outlook.com since they disabled my account for 30 days for no logical reason. I don't even remember what their excuse for. I'm sure they said something dumb like it was for my safety. They basically insisted one day I give them my phone number, and disabled the account for 30 days. Apparently, they don't think access to their service is all that important.

  9. Safe! Shields up! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I, myself, am unable to sign into Outlook.com, OneDrive or Skype at 2:30 pm ET today

    Why do you make it sound like it's a bad thing?

    Logged in as Anonymous Coward because this site used to have last minute logins for impulse posts

  10. Maybe MS should considering hiring some QA... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sure sounds like Microsoft should start thinking about hiring some QA...LOL.

  11. Impossible! by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 1

    This is impossible, Cloudâ services are rock-solid 100% of the time.

    --
    If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
    1. Re:Impossible! by Motherfucking+Shit · · Score: 1

      ÃÃÃ That's what they told me about Unicode! ÃÃÃ

      --
      "BSD: Free as in speech. Linux: Free as in beer. Windows 10: Free as in herpes." --Man On Pink Corner in #52607549.
    2. Re: Impossible! by bn-7bc · · Score: 1

      Unicode on sladhdot, shorly you jest sir

    3. Re:Impossible! by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

      This is impossible, Cloudâ services are rock-solid 100% of the time.

      But but IT is a cost center. LOOK AT THE SAVINGS!

      Obviously outages must not be important according to the bean counters who want the cloud to automate all of IT away

      --
      http://saveie6.com/
  12. Re: Only apps can app apps! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This meme is *boring*. Can't you manage something original?

  13. Uptime SLA Remains Intact by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Microsoft advertises a three nines SLA. 99.9% uptime.

    Despite this being the second major outage THIS MONTH and the fourth or fifth in the past 12 months, their uptime continues to exceed 99.95%

    So, they're doing a great job?

    1. Re:Uptime SLA Remains Intact by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." -- Mark Twain

      I have purchased lots of shared services. The 99.99% uptime is the biggest lie I have seen because it is not on each server but the average across the data center! So if my server is down for 8 weeks during the year it does not even affect the 99.99%, because the other 1500 servers were not down.

      Even when they do figure it on a per server basis, They will not count the scheduled downtime and it will not count ageist the 99.99% uptime. So windows servers that are scheduled for weekly reboots and monthly patching taking a total of 24hr a year in down time will still be considered 99.99% uptime even though they only had a 99.5% uptime!

  14. Uptime by ledow · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Technically, if I measure uptime for the Google Cloud, the Azure Cloud and iCloud against my in-house servers (which are nothing spectacular and most people here wouldn't be impressed), over the last three years, I win hands-down.

    And that's not counting "theoretical" outages, but actual outages where it happened in the working day in our region for services we use.

    Cloud is just another computer. Use it as such. Supplement it with a replica / backup / alternative.

    1. Re: Uptime by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Lol but how up to date on security patches are u at home? How quickly can u surpress a ddos attack and diagnose and resolve it/change WAN IP address?

    2. Re: Uptime by ledow · · Score: 1

      As quick as Windows Update.

      What makes you think they'd target my Office 365 account rather than myself directly anyway?

      And I can get another IP in about 10 minutes from my ISP, or use one of the multiple other ranges / connections that I have. Or just connect my phone.

      That's at home. In work, it's even easier.

      Nobody buys Microsoft cloud services because of DDoS protection of their office suite.

        If anything, having a cloud office suite is actually the problem there. I can work in Word just fine while my external connection is down.

    3. Re:Uptime by StormReaver · · Score: 1

      Supplement it with a replica / backup / alternative.

      Or be smart, and don't put anything you want to keep on someone else's servers.

  15. Cloud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Welcome to "London Fog" everyone.
    These are some of the reasons we have pulled back from the cloud.
    Issues.
    1. Don't worry we will get to it when we feel like it. (Hum, my internal admins never said that.)
    2. Oh sorry we had to power your servers off for internal maintenance????? (Admin miss typed??)
    3. Sales: You don't have access to Gigabit fiber for your company, Where do you live in CA? Potential Customer: Hum we are based in the Midwest. Sales: Can't find the town Midwest in CA. Where is that? Potential Customer: Really? It is not a town. Sales: You really need a minimum of 500Mbits for those types of services. Potential Customer: We can only get 50Mbits/5Mbits max. Sales: Click.
    4. Don't understand the makeup of access to the internet in the USA. Companies don't all reside in large urban areas with high speed internet. Most companies in Midwest still can't get good cheap internet. (The great company divide) Cloud will not succeed getting smaller companies without this being fixed.
    5. Oh, you have an account with us?
    6. Cloud is just nothing more than a renamed hosting service with a few more bells but missing the whistles.

  16. Re: Only apps can app apps! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    But Microsoft have Outlook and Skype apps, and they can't sign in either.

  17. Retaliation from Russia? by rapjr · · Score: 1

    Retaliation from Russia? Obama said we would retaliate for the election hack. Maybe now the Russians are retaliating against that retaliation. There have been quite a few outages of big cloud services lately.

  18. Explains all the errors on MSDN today... by Taelron · · Score: 1

    The ONE time I go to log into my MSDN account in months and its tossing errors, not displaying my subscriber benefits, and even more errors when I would try to look at my account. Thought the issue was on my end - rebooted, still tossing errors... A couple of hours later I was finally able to get in. Apparently it impacted more services than the articles author even knew about...

  19. Its also visual studio online (Microsofts VCS) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    which is / was down. I could not log in into the REPO for more than half a day! Not fun when the deadline approaches...

  20. Re: Only apps can app apps! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Until I looked it up I thought a Luddite was a christian denomination.

  21. Godless society and belief in "touch wood" by yuvcifjt · · Score: 1

    Completely off-topic, I realise, but bear with me...

    Can some athiests/agnostics explain to those of us who believe in God why they usually believe in "touch wood" / "knock wood" / tempting fate / fortune, when the belief in One God who exists outside of space and time, and created matter and the laws of physics, etc, makes more sense?

    In Islam, the concept of "touch wood" is considered "shirk" (idolatry / polytheism) as it's assigning or giving an attribute of God to an entity or thing that He has created. So it goes against the science of the perfection of "tawheed" (Oneness of God or Unity of God), which makes a person outside of Islam.

    1. Re: Godless society and belief in "touch wood" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That is the stupidest thing I've read all week.

  22. Welcome to the cloud! by MoarSauce123 · · Score: 1

    The cloud does not fare any better than on-premise as it seems. Once such cloud providers issues are resolved rest assured that your ISP has a problem. Not much is gained running 2017 tech on a 1960s network.

  23. Cloud! by Miser · · Score: 1

    But of course, it's all better when it's in the cloud!!!!1111(one)