Kafkaesque cloud outage traps Microsoft Hotmailers

You are offline and that is why you are lost

Microsoft has apologized for a cloud outage that saw its customer support services evaporate.

The Windows Live Solutions Center was offline for several hours on Tuesday thanks to what Microsoft called a "temporary server issue" that "intermittently prevented some consumers from accessing content on the site."

Which was a really problem for Hotmail users who'd turned to Windows Live Solutions Center to report the problem.

Users had been told their Hotmail accounts were undergoing "maintenance" estimated to last an hour, but that it had been days since they'd been able to access their emails.

One reader contacted The Reg to say he'd got the following error message:

Server Error: 5102 Server Response: Xfs request 'GetAccountData' failed. Response code: 'ResourceMarkedDown', server response: '721 0' Server: 'http://mail.services.live.com/DeltaSync_v2.0.0/Sync.aspx' Windows Live Mail Error ID: 0x8DE20003

Those who hit the Windows Live Solutions Center were greeted with this:

Windows Live Solution Center is currently experiencing technical difficulties. You may receive an error such as "Page Cannot be Displayed" when attempting to view the site. We are aware of the issue and are working with our Operations team to resolve the problem.

Microsoft was unable say what caused the problem with Hotmail. It said Windows Live Solutions Center was up and running again by 3:00pm Pacific time on Tuesday. A spokesperson told The Reg Wednesday there were no known Windows Live issues yesterday or today.

So, problem solved. Or not. ®