Microsoft Exchange Online: How the Actual F*!# Do You Break Email for a Week?

17 Mar

Let me start by saying this: I’ve been in IT for over 40 years.

I built email systems before half the people working at Microsoft today were even born. I managed SMTP servers on hardware that wouldn’t even run a modern calculator. I set up email when dial-up modems screeched their way to life and a 1MB attachment was a luxury.

And yet, even back then, email freaking worked.

It worked when servers were the size of fridges.
It worked when network cables were thicker than your arm.
It worked when sysadmins had to manually tweak config files just to get things running.

So tell me, Microsoft—how the actual f* did you manage to break email for a goddamn week in 2025?

Microsoft, You Had ONE Job – And You Still Screwed It Up

This wasn’t some new-fangled AI-driven, next-gen, blockchain-infused nonsense. This was EMAIL— the most straightforward, reliable, and fundamental communication system on the planet. And you managed to screw it up so badly that businesses worldwide were left scrambling, IT teams were in full-scale panic mode, and every sysadmin on Earth was fantasising about throwing their laptops out of the window.

If you’re wondering how the hell we got here, buckle up. We’re about to dive into the clusterfuck of the year—Microsoft’s Exchange Online meltdown.

The Disaster That Should Never Have Happened

March 7, 2025: The First Signs of Bullshit

Users started noticing something weird.

Emails weren’t arriving.
Replies weren’t coming back.
Some messages bounced with the error "554 5.6.0 Corrupt message content."

For the uninitiated, this is Microsoft’s way of saying:

"We broke something, but we’re not gonna tell you what, and you’re just gonna have to deal with it."

So, naturally, IT teams went into immediate overdrive trying to figure out what the hell was happening.

Meanwhile, what was Microsoft doing?

Not a goddamn thing.

For three entire days, Microsoft didn’t even acknowledge that anything was wrong.

Three Days.

Three days of businesses losing money.
Three days of customer service teams being completely f’ed.
Three days of IT admins being absolutely slaughtered with tickets from furious executives.

It wasn’t until March 10 that Microsoft finally coughed up a half-assed statement:

"A recent update to our message transport services introduced an issue causing email delivery failures."

Translation:

"We pushed a half-baked update, didn’t test it properly, and now the entire world’s email is in the toilet. Oops."

F***ing brilliant.

How the Hell Do You Break Email Transport?

Here’s why this failure is beyond unacceptable:

Email transport is one of the most stable, oldest, and most bulletproof IT functions in existence.

It runs on protocols that have been rock solid for DECADES:

SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) – Established in 1982. Been working ever since.
IMAP & POP3 – Used for retrieving emails since the 1990s.
MIME – Allows attachments, introduced in 1992.
SPF, DKIM, and DMARC – Security layers added in the 2000s, but they don’t affect core email transport.
MAPI (Messaging Application Programming Interface) – Microsoft's own protocol, in use since 1995, designed to work with Exchange. MAPI is literally their own damn technology—and they still managed to break it.

And yet, Microsoft somehow managed to break the entire f*ing system.**

This is the equivalent of Ford releasing a new software update that accidentally removes the ability to brake.

It’s not just incompetence—it’s gross negligence.

Microsoft’s Response: A Masterclass in Bullshit

You’d think Microsoft would be scrambling to fix things at this point.

But instead, they rolled out the worst, most insulting "solutions" imaginable:

"Try sending attachments as ZIP files."

Are you f’ing kidding me?

This is 2025.
We are paying for enterprise-grade cloud email services.
And Microsoft’s best advice is "try zipping your files like it's 1995."

Next, will they tell us to burn our emails onto CDs and mail them instead, Smoke Signals, Carrier Pidgeons?

"We’ve rolled back the update, but some users may still experience issues."

Translation: "We hit the undo button, but we’re not really sure if it worked. Good luck."

"We are monitoring telemetry and investigating further."

Translation: "We have no f’ing clue what’s happening, but we’re staring at a lot of blinking lights hoping they tell us something useful."

Meanwhile, in the real world:

Law firms lost contracts because emails never arrived.
Financial services couldn’t communicate with clients.
Executives were missing critical communications.
IT departments were left explaining why one of the most basic technologies in the world had collapsed entirely.

And Microsoft?

They took their sweet-ass time fixing it.

This Isn’t a One-Off – Microsoft Keeps Screwing Up

If this were a freak accident, we could move on.

But this is a pattern.

February 2025 – Outlook and Exchange authentication failures locked users out for an entire weekend.
January 2025 – Microsoft Teams went down for hours, cutting off business communication.
Multiple Azure outages have left businesses scrambling for continuity.

At this point, Microsoft 365 is looking less like a professional enterprise service and more like a half-baked experiment.

Microsoft, Fix Your Shit!

Microsoft, you run the world’s largest cloud email service.

And yet, you still can’t keep f*ing email running.

This wasn’t an accident.
This wasn’t unavoidable.
This was your own incompetence.

And if businesses don’t start rethinking their dependence on Microsoft 365, this WILL happen again.

Because at this rate, the only thing we can count on from Microsoft 365 is another catastrophic fuck-up just waiting to happen.

Source	URL	Description
Bleeping Computer	Bleeping Computer Article	Detailed coverage of the Exchange Online outage and its impact.
The Register	The Register Article	Technical breakdown of the outage and Microsoft's response.
AP News	AP News Report	General news report on the Microsoft 365 service disruptions.
Microsoft 365 Status	Microsoft 365 Service Health	Official Microsoft status updates during the outage.
Computing.co.uk	Computing UK Article	Coverage of user experiences and business impact during the outage.

MicrosoftOutage

Noel Bradford

Noel Bradford – Head of Technology at Equate Group, Professional Bullshit Detector, and Full-Time IT Cynic

As Head of Technology at Equate Group, my job description is technically “keeping the lights on,” but in reality, it’s more like “stopping people from setting their own house on fire.” With over 40 years in tech, I’ve seen every IT horror story imaginable—most of them self-inflicted by people who think cybersecurity is just installing antivirus and praying to Saint Norton.

I specialise in cybersecurity for UK businesses, which usually means explaining the difference between ‘MFA’ and ‘WTF’ to directors who still write their passwords on Post-it notes. On Tuesdays, I also help further education colleges navigate Cyber Essentials certification, a process so unnecessarily painful it makes root canal surgery look fun.

My natural habitat? Server rooms held together with zip ties and misplaced optimism, where every cable run is a “temporary fix” from 2012. My mortal enemies? Unmanaged switches, backups that only exist in someone’s imagination, and users who think clicking “Enable Macros” is just fine because it makes the spreadsheet work.

I’m blunt, sarcastic, and genuinely allergic to bullshit. If you want gentle hand-holding and reassuring corporate waffle, you’re in the wrong place. If you want someone who’ll fix your IT, tell you exactly why it broke, and throw in some unsolicited life advice, I’m your man.

Technology isn’t hard. People make it hard. And they make me drink.

https://noelbradford.com