Network driver issue shaves 12 more hours off Microsoft's '365' infrastructure, and yeah, it was Exchange Online again
- Reference: 1604663127
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/11/06/microsoft_365_4_3_2_1/
- Source link:
Traditionally a night for fireworks, 5 November saw some sort of detonation within the Microsoft 365 infrastructure in the form of a borked update or, as the company [1]delicately put it : "an issue wherein some users may be unable to access their mailboxes through Exchange Online via all connection methods."
There was good news, however, as just over an hour later Microsoft [2]confessed that a recent service update was "causing impact to mailbox access via Exchange Online" but a fix was being prepared that would sort it all out.
The joy was short-lived. Having realised that a network driver issue was to blame, the company then [3]admitted the fix "was taking longer than anticipated."
Six hours after its initial notification of trouble in the cloud, Microsoft also began looking at alternative options for "faster relief."
Finally, nearly eight hours after the bad news first dropped from its social media orifice, the software giant claimed [4]a fix was being rolled out . A further four hours was needed before Microsoft [5]trumpeted that everything was up and running once again.
The Register asked Microsoft how widespread the issue was, why its online email service is so fragile these days, and how its change control works. After all, the company that inflicts Windows 10 updates on unsuspecting users should have plenty of experience with an urgent need for a rollback or two. It has yet to provide an explanation.
The problem does indeed seem to have affected a subset of users around the globe, including a UK local authority where an anonymous staffer told The Register that access to email had been lost because "Microsoft rolled out a service update that's now preventing access through Exchange Online."
Others dived into the fragrant pit of Twitter to make their frustration known.
A glance at social media shows a substantial number of users struggled with the outage, with some making unkind [6]comparisons with arch-rival Gmail and others [7]expressing bewilderment that a driver could cause such an impact. Surely it was tested before hitting production systems?
Oh you sweet summer child. Have you forgotten [8]Windows 10 1809 so soon? We await anxiously the arrival of the rebrandogun. Microsoft 352, anyone? ®
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[1] https://twitter.com/MSFT365Status/status/1324444676993277957
[2] https://twitter.com/MSFT365Status/status/1324465420351336449
[3] https://twitter.com/MSFT365Status/status/1324536535069433857
[4] https://twitter.com/MSFT365Status/status/1324564577384804353
[5] https://twitter.com/MSFT365Status/status/1324629513700073474
[6] https://twitter.com/davyspain/status/1324631412046241794
[7] https://twitter.com/gerard_cullen86/status/1324487947920527360
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2018/10/11/microsoft_windows_10_october_update_fix_still_stumbling/
[9] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Down we go
[Overpaid M$ Bigwig 1]: We can't keep calling it 365 if we keep having these break-downs! We need to come up with another name. We've become the laughing-stock of IT World!
[Overpaid MS Bigwig 2]:This was the best Marketing could come up with. How 'bout we ask our World-Famous AI software to come up with a new name!
[World-Famous AI]: Office Sometimes
"Traditionally a night for fireworks, 5 November saw some sort of detonation..."
Well, I know it's just a bit of reporting fun, but to be pedantic, fireworks should only ever be undergoing deflagration rather than detonation. This is written into the Explosives Regulations 2014:
“pyrotechnic substance” means an explosive substance of a kind designed to produce an effect by heat, light, sound, gas or smoke, or a combination of any of these, as a result of non-detonative , self-sustaining, exothermic chemical reactions;
There has always been a bit of a question surrounding the speed of the shock wave in flash powder, but nobody wants to measure it too carefully in too many scenarios, just in case in turns out to sometimes be supersonic. This would result in fireworks being a lot less fun.
Bet you're fun at fireworks parties.
Point taken. I'll have you know that my firework parties are fun: the great thing is that you don't have to talk to me because I'm busy setting them off.
Oh come on, surely... just this once you can let him off.
..as long as he doesn't bottle it.
He won't but I heard Catherine wheel.
>Bet you're fun at fireworks parties.
Yeah, he's *that* guy
It always says light blue touch paper, but the ones I used last night had dark blue touch paper
I'm just going to carry on being annoying and tell you that BS 7114-1:1988 replaced the use of blue touch paper with safety fuse...
Bowl of Petunia moment...
Oh no, not again.....
UK Reseller Confusion
These outages confuse me. Are these just the "buy direct from Microsoft in the US" users?
Being a very small UK reseller of the UK hosted stuff my clients don't seem to suffer. I was directly working with one this morning in Outlook changing some settings around. So we would have noticed if it was down.
I don't pretend to know how the UK \ Europe hosting works, but does this imply UK & Europe have the sense to wait and ignore the Left Pondians doing their updates and let them test the changes first?
I don't want to defend MS on this stuff, but these reports are often a puzzle to me when I never hear complaints from my clients.
Re: UK Reseller Confusion
In the same boat here. I get loads of admin warnings from MS, but never have any problems. Last time my email stopped working was back in the days of Blackberry BIS.
Borkity Bork Bork, Borkity Bork Bork
Look at Office go
Borkity Bork Bork, Borkity Bork Bork
Is it up yet? No.
Today's reminder that cloud = "someone else's computer." You'd think MS would be better at drivers than the average punter by now...
Test environment, I do my testing in production.
Down we go
Microsoft 358 - and counting (down)!