Schools across Northern Ireland hit by Microsoft outage, as services go down at businesses, charities and public facilities across province
Schools across Northern Ireland have lost the ability to email in Microsoft’s global outage, a provincewide body has said, as everything from a major car dealer to a recruitment agency to a leisure centre all revealed they’d been affected.
Businesses, charities and public sector facilities in Ulster have all been hit, while the software giant scrambled to fix its problems.
The Education Authority, which oversees government controlled schools throughout Northern Ireland, stated that neither it nor those schools can currently send or receive emails.
It stated on social media: “Due to a global Microsoft outage, Outlook is currently unavailable to NI schools and the Education Authority.
“Emails cannot currently be sent or received.
"Microsoft is working to resolve the issue, and further updates will be provided throughout the day.”
Queen’s University stated staff and students are “currently unable to send or receive emails” and “may experience difficulties accessing” a range of Microsoft 365 services.
Charity the National Autistic Society Northern Ireland asked people to “please be aware” the outage had struck with them, affecting “outlook and other programs”.
Stated the body on social media: “This means we may not be able to read or reply to messages sent to us while Microsoft works to fix the issue.
"We are sharing updates with our staff via the channels we have available and our services and are following their business continuity plans.”
Agnew Belfast stated its Boucher Road dealership is “currently experiencing disruptions due to the ongoing Microsoft outage, which may cause delays in our response times”.
“We appreciate your patience and understanding during this time,” stated the Volvo sales and parts specialist.
“Our teams will be in touch as soon as possible. In the meantime, if you have any questions or need assistance, please feel free to send us a DM or contact us at 028 9009 7244.”
Kenect Recruitment posted what it described as an “important client notice” on social media, the Belfast agency stating that some of its “usual communication channels may be affected” by the outage.
In a post on social media, it said: “If you are a Kenect Recruitment NI client and need anything, please don't hesitate to give our team a call on 02890 992990 and we'll be happy to help. We are still here when you need us. Thanks for your patience and understanding.”
Also telling the public it had been hit was Roe Valley Leisure Centre in Limavady, which has also lost email access.
It advised people trying to contact staff to phone instead, stating that outdoor facility bookings and cancellations can be reached at 028 2764 9498, while all other enquiries should go through 028 7776 4009.
Stated the leisure centre: “We apologise for any inconvenience caused and thank you for your patience and understanding.”
At around 9.30am this morning Microsoft said it was seeing “early signs of stabilisation” in its efforts to resolve the problem, but said “service capacity has not yet returned to normal levels and health remains variable as traffic is carefully reintroduced”.
In a status page update, it said: “Our primary mitigation path continues to focus on service stability and controlled recovery.”
It added: “As part of this effort, we are extending the email timeout window to 48 hours to help protect delayed messages while service recovery continues.”