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Worldwide tech outage affecting Florida airports, banks. Microsoft 365 working to fix problems

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Worldwide tech outage affecting Florida airports, banks. Microsoft 365 working to fix problems

Microsoft said users can restore their Windows365 Cloud PC to a ‘known good state’

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A worldwide outage is affecting airlines, media companies, banks, and telecom firms around the world this morning.

Gianna Montesano, trending reporter with TCPalm of the USA TODAY Network-Florida, was at Fort Lauderdale International Airport early Friday morning.

“I’m hearing from passengers that Spirit employees are calling passengers up by flight so they can be manually administered boarding passes.”

In the U.S., Frontier Airlines, American Airlines, Delta Airlines and United Airlines were among those who grounded flights less than an hour after Microsoft said it resolved a cloud-services-related outage that impacted several carriers.

Microsoft 365 said it was aware and working to resolve a problem “impacting users’ ability to access various Microsoft 365 apps and services.”

It is not clear at this time whether the call to ground flights was related to the Microsoft outage. 

What caused the Microsoft 365 outage?

Microsoft said the preliminary root cause of the outage was “A configuration change in a portion of our Azure backend workloads, caused interruption between storage and compute resources which resulted in connectivity failures that affected downstream Microsoft 365 services dependent on these connections.”

Current status of worldwide tech outage: ‘Underlying cause of issue fixed’

Microsoft 365 reported at 6:30 a.m. EDT:

“The underlying cause of the issue has been fixed and several Microsoft 365 apps and services have been restored to full functionality.

“Residual impact is still affecting some Microsoft 365 apps and services, and Microsoft 365 engineering are continuing to conduct additional mitigation actions to provide relief. We’re continuing to observe an increase in functionality and availability for the remaining impacted scenarios and we’re monitoring this closely to ensure we’re progressing towards full recovery.

“Microsoft is continuing to treat this event with the highest possible priority.”

What can Microsoft customers do to fix problems on their computer?

Microsoft365 Status posted on X there is something customers with computer problems can do.

“We’re aware of an issue with Windows 365 Cloud PCs caused by a recent update to CrowdStrike Falcon Sensor software.

“To fix this, users may restore their Windows 365 Cloud PC to a known good state prior to the release of the update (July 19, 2024) as documented here:

Users across several platforms report tech outages on DownDetector

DownDetector.com, which provides service outage information, showed problems people were having with several companies, including:

  • Microsoft
  • Microsoft 365
  • TD Bank
  • Bank of America
  • Amazon
  • Delta
  • Visa
  • ADT Security
  • United Airlines
  • American Airlines
  • Allegiant Air

Microsoft 365 investigating issue

Microsoft 365 Status posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, “We’re investigating an issue impacting users ability to access various Microsoft 365 apps and services.”

The company later posted it was “rerouting the impacted traffic to alternate systems to alleviate impact in a more expedient fashion.”

What Microsoft 365 apps could be affected by outage?

The Microsoft 365 Admin Center said the outage is affecting users’ ability to access various Microsoft 365 apps and services.

Impacted services include:

  • PowerBI: Users may notice that their service is in read-only mode while we address impact.
  • Microsoft Fabric: Users may notice that their service is in read-only mode while we address impact.
  • Microsoft Teams: Users may be unable to leverage Microsoft Teams functions including presence, group chats, and user registration.
  • Microsoft 365 admin center: Admins may be intermittently unable to access the Microsoft 365 admin center and any action may be delayed if accessible.

Microsoft services that have been ‘recovered’

Our internal telemetry and customer signals indicate that the following services are recovered:

  • Microsoft Defender
  • Microsoft Defender for Endpoint
  • Microsoft Defender Experts
  • Microsoft Intune
  • Microsoft OneNote
  • OneDrive for Business
  • SharePoint Online
  • Windows 365
  • Viva Engage
  • Microsoft Purview

Why are flights from Florida delayed today?

Flights to and from Florida are among those affected around the world by a Microsoft outage caused by a recent update.

Microsoft 365 announced the issue was “caused by a recent update to CrowdStrike Falcon Sensor software.”

FrontierAir lifts ground stop as systems ‘normalize’

Frontier Airlines posted a travel advisory on its website Thursday night, saying, “Frontier Airlines flight operations were impacted by a major Microsoft technical outage. This led to several flight cancellations and delays.”

The airline offered customers whose flights were delayed by more than 3 hours or canceled one of the following options:

  • Rebooking at no extra charge
  • Flight cancellation with credit
  • Flight cancellation with refund

Around midnight, the airline said the ground stop had been lifted and “systems are gradually normalizing. We are in the process of resuming flight operations.”

Spirit Airlines offering flexible travel during Microsoft outage

Spirit Airlines notified customers and posted on its website a flexible travel policy during the Microsoft outage.

The company noted the outage is affecting flights to all cities for travel dates July 19-20.

Customers who want to rebook their flights will have the fare difference waived through July 27.

Spirit also said customers can make changes to their reservations affected by this event by going to My Trips, or by calling the Spirit Reservations Center at 855-728-3555 to make flight changes.

Contact the airline by texting “Hello” to 48763 or WhatsApp directly at 855-728-3555.

What’s happening at Florida airports?

A check around Florida airports via the Federal Aviation Administration’s website shows the following message “Due to AIRLINE REQUEST, departure traffic destined to ALL airports will not be allowed to depart until at or after 11:00 UTC.” (which would be 7 a.m. EDT).

Similar messages show departure times ranging from 12:00 UTC and 10:30 UTC.

Airports with the same or similar messages include:

  • Miami International Airport, MIA
  • Fort Lauderdale International Airport, FLL
  • Orlando International Airport, MCO
  • Tampa International Airport, TPA

“Spirit Airlines has passengers waiting outside terminal doors (at FLL) due to the worldwide outage,” said Gianna Montesano, trending reporter with TCPalm.

“I’m hearing from passengers that Spirit employees are calling passengers up by flight so they can be manually administered boarding passes.”

Tech outage affecting businesses around the the world

British broadcaster Sky News went off-air and train companies in the U.K. reported long delays. 

London’s Stock Exchange also reported experiencing disruptions. Some hospitals also reported difficulties processing appointments and several chain retail stores said they couldn’t take payments.

Spanish authorities reported a “computer incident” at all its airports.

Berlin’s main airport said check-ins were delayed because of a “technical fault.”

Ryanair, Europe’s largest airline by passenger numbers, warned passengers of potential disruptions which it said would affect “all airlines operating across the Network.” 

In Australia, media, banks, and telecoms companies suffered outages, which the government said appears to be linked to an issue at global cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike. It was not immediately clear whether all reported outages were linked to Crowdstrike problems.

Reaction to tech outage on social media

Contributor: Kim Hjelmgaard, USA Today

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