Microsoft Teams starts February with a good, old-fashioned TITSUP*

It was indeed the expired certificate wotdunnit. Popcorn time!

Updated Microsoft's Slack-for-Suits collaboration platform has decided that Mondays aren't for it and has gone back to bed, much to the distress of Office 365 customers around the world.

Problems began at around 1pm, rapidly reaching a crescendo of wailing from users unable to while away their day on chat channels and forced instead to get on with some actual work.

Microsoft has remained tight-lipped on the matter, with the status mouthpiece for Microsoft 365 only admitting that there was a problem. And that was it.

We're investigating an issue where users may be unable to access Microsoft Teams. We're reviewing systems data to determine the cause of the issue. More information can be found in the Admin center under TM202916

— Microsoft 365 Status (@MSFT365Status) February 3, 2020

As for the cause, an expired authentication certificate was apparently the root of today's woes.

latest #MicrosoftTeams update from the Service Health dashboard. #Microsoft #Authentication #OutageUpdate https://t.co/Dzmh4lsn6j pic.twitter.com/tRlRiYUfur

— Lee Mather (@leejmather) February 3, 2020

If true, then the postmortem will make for interesting reading indeed.

The Twitter orifice of Teams itself was a tad more talkative than the 365 gang (if one counts what looks suspiciously like an auto-reply bot as engineers frantically work to deal with the borkage).

We're investigating an issue where users may be unable to access Microsoft Teams. We will have further information soon. We appreciate your patience as we work to solve the problem.

— Microsoft Teams (@MicrosoftTeams) February 3, 2020

The only deviation from the script was a brief message telling one worried user that there was no ETA for the resolution of the issue.

There is no workaround at present, and the issue is global. Affected users are unable to connect to the platform through the Windows desktop application, web or via smartphone app.

While the loss of messaging might do wonders for productivity, customers also use the platform to run meetings. Microsoft has been encouraging users in recent times to do this very thing as Skype for Business reaches the end of the road. Alas, when Teams disappears, so do those potentially important calls. Unless, of course, you have a backup.

@MicrosoftTeams is down so I’m dialing into meetings on a regular phone like a savage.

— ☞ Scott Hoag (@ciphertxt) February 3, 2020

We feel your pain, Scott.

Customers and Microsoft alike will be hoping that this isn't a repeat of the outage of last February, which saw the service enjoy a cheeky topple. As with today's outage, European customers have the opportunity for a longer lunch break while Microsoft gets its cloudy act together. Those in the Americas can look forward to a little longer queuing for coffee.

The Register contacted Microsoft in order to get its take on the situation, but we've yet to hear back from the Windows behemoth. Hopefully our message wasn't forwarded via Teams, or we fear we might have a while to wait.

Many thanks to all the Register readers who got in touch about the outage. ®

* Teams Is Totally Stuffed, Users Protest

Updated at 16:08 on 03/02/20 to add:

It was indeed the expired certificate wot dunnit. Time to break out the popcorn.

We've determined that an authentication certificate has expired causing, users to have issues using the service. We're developing a fix to apply a new certificate to the service which will remediate impact. Further updates can be found under TM202916 in the admin center.

— Microsoft 365 Status (@MSFT365Status) February 3, 2020