Microsoft admits Outlook crashes, says impact 'mitigated'

Users just need to 'refresh/restart' their sessions

Microsoft's Outlook app is crashing for European users due to memory problems, Redmond has warned, and evidence suggests the problems are spreading to the US.

"We're investigating an issue in which users in Europe may be experiencing crashing, not receiving emails or observing high memory usage when using the Outlook client," Redmond warned.

"We're analyzing data from customers experiencing crashes and high memory usage when using the New Outlook desktop app. We're reviewing service telemetry and reproducing the issue internally to develop a mitigation plan."

So far, there is no word on Microsoft's plan, but social media reports suggest the US East Coast at least is suffering similar problems. Downdetector indicates the issue appears to be spreading.

"It's been spreading across the country like the common cold now, and I can't seem to figure out what is causing it," reported one user. "There have been no changes to the environment and no updates to the Windows desktops that are having this issue."

Microsoft's engineers are working on the issue and trying to find out what the problem is. It's not a good look for a software giant's main email system.

"We're focused on isolating the source of a potential memory management issue which may be responsible for causing impact," Microsoft stated. "We're working with organizations and are replicating the issue internally to develop a mitigation. For more information, see MO907654 within the admin center."

"We’re working on a potential solution and are preparing to apply a targeted configuration update that we suspect will alleviate the impact," it said.

Meanwhile, a Microsoft spokesperson told The Register, "We're investigating an issue currently impacting a limited number of users accessing some of our services. For more information, please check Microsoft 365 Status on X."

Just before publishing this story, Microsoft says, it's implemented a fix, with the advice essentially boiling down to turning Outlook off and back on again.

"We've applied a config change and telemetry confirmed we've mitigated impact," Redmond said. "Users should refresh/restart their Outlook sessions." ®