Microsoft Azure down: What caused the outage? Which services are affected?

Microsoft’s cloud platform Azure experienced a major outage on Wednesday (October 29), disrupting access to several widely used services across the globe, including Office 365, Xbox Live, Minecraft, and Copilot.

The issue stems from problems linked to Azure Front Door—the infrastructure that routes traffic across Microsoft’s cloud environment—and its domain name system (DNS), which directs internet traffic by converting URLs into IP addresses. DNS failures can block users from reaching apps and cloud services entirely.

Microsoft said the outage began around 16:00 UTC, preventing many customers from accessing the Azure Portal and causing delays across its productivity suite.

“Customers may experience issues accessing the Azure Portal… We have failed the portal away from Azure Front Door to attempt to mitigate the portal access issues,” Microsoft stated on its status page, adding that recovery efforts are underway and more updates will follow.

Impact across services

Reports collected by outage tracker Downdetector show:

-Over 16,600 user reports of Azure downtime

-Nearly 9,000 reports of Microsoft 365 failures

Users also flagged issues with:

-Outlook connectivity and add-ins

-Minecraft login and gameplay

-Xbox Live multiplayer and account services

-Copilot functionality

-Microsoft 365 Admin Center access

Microsoft advised customers to use PowerShell, CLI, and other programmatic tools as a temporary workaround if the portal remains unavailable.

Widespread disruption

Because Azure underpins countless online platforms, even partial failures can have global residual effects—impacting businesses, gamers, and general users.

Microsoft says it's actively reviewing failover options within its infrastructure and investigating root causes while working to restore services as quickly as possible.

Drop in Azure outage reports

According to outage tracker Downdetector, user reports of Azure issues dropped to 4,584 by 1:07 p.m. ET, down from a peak of more than 18,000 earlier in the day. Downdetector compiles outage data based on user-submitted reports, so the actual number of affected users may differ.

The Microsoft outage comes just a week after a major Amazon Web Services (AWS) disruption that impacted thousands of websites globally — including popular platforms like Snapchat and Reddit. The AWS failure marked the biggest internet outage since last year’s CrowdStrike malfunction, which crippled technology systems in hospitals, banks, and airports, underscoring the fragility of the world’s interconnected digital infrastructure.