Sorry, there’s a problem with Hotmail right now…
Hotmail seems to be having an outage. Anyone else see this?
They said they have added new features, so please refresh the browser…
2/14/12 @ 10:30pm Pacific
[update: this seems to be a big massive global one.]
[update: While I have no way of knowing the cause of this, I suspect that we can help the Microsoft data center Geeks by giving them time between login attempts.]
Fixed here
[Update @ 11:56pm Pacific refreshing the page (press the F5 key) restored my Inbox (also someone in Rumania reported success).]
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Yeah, is happening to me to. I’m in California.
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
Sir or Ms,
Me too.
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Comment by techpaul | February 14, 2012 |
me too. i m in dubai
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Comment by Mehdi | February 14, 2012 |
when the problem will be solve dear brother ..i need it on urgent bases !
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
same happening with me..I am in Isb, Pakistan
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Comment by bia | February 14, 2012 |
I am getting this garbage up in Oregon.
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
This happened to me too. I am in New York, on Long Island more precisely.
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Comment by Asif | February 14, 2012 |
Wow…
That’s quite a bit bigger area than I expected… (more than one server, that’s fersher!)
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Comment by techpaul | February 14, 2012 |
i am getting this notification … in hell.
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
Me too
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
It is happening to me too…I am in Colorado…refreshed my browser…still giving me the same message.
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
Me too..I’m in Nova Scotia Canada
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
Yep here in Australia
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Comment by frustrated | February 14, 2012 |
Yes, me too. I’m in Latin America.
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
Same here. On East Coast (USA).
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
the same SF
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
I have the same problem in Minnesota
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Comment by Mavis Goebeo | February 14, 2012 |
yes, in India too
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Comment by deepak | February 14, 2012 |
It is happening to me also, I am in Mexico =(
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
Same here. Belgium.
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
This is also happening to me on 3 different accounts. I can sign in to Messenger but cannot read my email. I’m in Mexico City by the way.
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Comment by Rod | February 14, 2012 |
the same, Riyadh
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Comment by TooFy | February 14, 2012 |
It’s happening to me too. I’m in my mothers womb with a blackberry.
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
very good humor!
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
me too – australia, queensland
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
This is happening to me too.
“Sorry, there’s a problem with Hotmail right now
Hotmail wasn’t able to complete this request. Microsoft may contact you about any issues you report.”
I’m in Northern California. What is going on?
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Comment by raquii | February 14, 2012 |
raquii,
Any “guess” on my part is utter speculation, but I suspect there has been a type of cascading failure (the more people try to get on, the worse the trouble gets) and it will be some time before access is restored.
I further suspect that we can help by giving them some time between login attempts.
But I really have no idea… and I doubt they’ll tell us.
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Comment by techpaul | February 14, 2012 |
Yes Guatemala too!
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
the same …in Switzerland
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Comment by me | February 14, 2012 |
Same here in Canada. What a load of shit!
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
same same Vietnam
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
Same here!!! I am from Singapore (Asia is not spared too).
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Comment by liuyx | February 14, 2012 |
me to, Florida
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
Same in Sweden…
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
Wow (again). This really is big…
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Comment by techpaul | February 14, 2012 |
Moscow, Russia. Same.
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
same here. I am in Utah. Does anyone know what is going on?
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
Same here in TEXAS
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
Same here….from Mauritius….:S
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
It’s the end of the world as we know it…and I feel fine… :)
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
Great song.
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Comment by techpaul | February 14, 2012 |
Outage!!!- WA State – Pandemic!!!
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Comment by David | February 14, 2012 |
Same problem…Mauritius
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
Same issue in Malaysia
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
Same here in South Korea.
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
Can’t access hotmail in New Zealand!
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
its happening to me too, I am in Brisbane
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
Same issue in South Korea
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
same here in Afghanistan
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Comment by jawad | February 14, 2012 |
same here in vancouver canada
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
Happining in Ohio, too
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
same in Kuwait !!
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
Same here in India
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
same here in Japan (Tokyo)…
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Comment by rei | February 14, 2012 |
same here in ontario canada
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
Same, in Vancouver, Canada.
how come I can log in with my iphone but not my computer??
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
That is a very good question!
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Comment by techpaul | February 15, 2012 |
Same here in UAE
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Comment by PraVeeN | February 14, 2012 |
It is still down – status here – https://status.live.com/
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Comment by PraVeeN | February 14, 2012 |
Same here, in Tennessee. 1:17am
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
Happening in Athens, Greece too.
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Comment by Maria T. | February 14, 2012 |
Even in New Mexico! Go figure.
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
Same here – New Zealand
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
same in South Africa
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Comment by Leroy | February 14, 2012 |
yes here in australia;.
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
same in hong kong
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
By looking at the IP’s of these comments, I decided this was indeed a ‘global’ outage at about.11pm (Pacific).
Central America, Africa, Asia, Pacific Rim, Middle East, Scandinavia, N. America, Down Under…….. haven’t heard from S. America.. and Iceland..
Wow. How’s that for an “oopsie”?
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Comment by techpaul | February 14, 2012 |
Same here !! I’m in Houston TX.
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Comment by Hussain | February 14, 2012 |
same in london
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
same in south korea, way to go microsoft -_-;
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
same here in British Columbia, Canada…this seems to be a true world-wide event…hmm…
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
Same thing in France. Should we start to be worried about it?
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Comment by Giuseppe | February 14, 2012 |
Giuseppe,
That would depend entirely on the cause of the failure. (But I don’t know how worrying can help a body..)
If it is due to some new code (aka “a new feature”/update) they (Microsoft) introduced, than, no, I shouldn’t think so.
If it is due to some new code some hacker (or hacker group) put in, than yes. I think we could have cause to be concerned. To say the least.
But.. at this point, we need Microsoft to tell us. I am just a Hotmail user, like you. I have no “insider knowledge” of this.. um, er, “event”.
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Comment by techpaul | February 14, 2012 |
same here in Switzerland
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
wa state too!
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
yes here in Hong Kong too
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
Nothing in Nigeria either… or in New Zealand.
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
Australia also –
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
same here in Bosnia
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
I can’t access hotmail too… I’m in Melbourne, Australia
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
Same here in the moon.
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Comment by Buzz Aldrin | February 14, 2012 |
same here in the Netherlands (Holland). [expletive deleted] now I cannot check my email while being at work [expletive deleted]
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
Bosnia also
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Comment by Anonymus | February 14, 2012 |
Same in Tacoma, Washington
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
Yep – same problem – New Zealand
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Comment by Jo | February 14, 2012 |
Same in Birmingham, UK.
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
Yes problem is in Cyprus too!
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
Same in Montenegro
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
Yep, same here, Napa, CA US
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Comment by whynot | February 14, 2012 |
Still happening here in the USA. I’m in WV.
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
hotmail collapsed???? pff same thing which make me very angry..
temporary in moscow..
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
Southern California, frustrating and very bad timing!!!!
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
same here – mauritius
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Comment by Maria | February 14, 2012 |
Man, this so strange.Its happening also to me and my friends here in Africa.Angola
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
Seattle here, and as many professionals (engineers) I know that work for Microsoft, the MASSIVE OVERTIME and projects never-ending may be finally manifesting……one big hug “*#!&#&^” !!!!!!! But on Valentine’s Day…..reallllly?
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
same in France
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
I m having the same problem
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
here in China also!
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Comment by Mike | February 14, 2012 |
Same in Tacoma, Wa
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Comment by OT | February 14, 2012 |
Same here im in Lima, Peru
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
Ah. South America is confirmed.. thx
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Comment by techpaul | February 14, 2012 |
why hotmail is not working anywhere in iNDA ON 14TH FEBRUARY,2013?
WE TRIED TO FIND OUT THE CAUSE BUT GOT NO ANSWER FROM HOTMAIL.
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Comment by atanu banerji | February 14, 2012 |
I started having this problem right after I added the “Windows Ad Blocker” extension in Firefox.
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Comment by Osc | February 14, 2012 |
Osc,
That is one FF add-on I was unfamiliar with (but will look at).
(I’d be flabbergasted if the two are in any way related. I get the same in FF and IE on different machines.)
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Comment by techpaul | February 14, 2012 |
+1 in Vancouver BC
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
PS – it’s now 15th Feb here (almost midday) in Mauritius :)
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Comment by Maria | February 14, 2012 |
The same in Catalonia (free from spain)
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Comment by Català | February 14, 2012 |
I thought I had a virus or was hijacked. Uninstalling and reinstalling Firefox didn’t help. I removed the “Windows Ad Blocker” and that didn’t help. My gmail works. I HATE HOTMAIL. Unfortunately a lot of my personal stuff is on it.
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Comment by Osc | February 14, 2012 |
LOL @ Buzz Aldrin (the moon) :D
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
Problems here in Victoria, Canada…..
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
1:40 am Feb 15th in Kenora, Ontario, still not working for me. How about a note on the main page letting us know what’s going on, hotmail??
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
Sir or MS,
I assure you that if Microsoft calls, I will pick myself up off the floor, and post what they tell me.. but I’m not holding my breath.
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Comment by techpaul | February 14, 2012 |
Same in Ploiesti, Romania
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Comment by V | February 14, 2012 |
Lima, Peru too.
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
same in japan
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Comment by Holly Swift | February 14, 2012 |
Soved by browser refresh indeed.
Thank you :)
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Comment by V | February 14, 2012 |
V,
Mine just came back with a refresh (press the F5 key) as well. (@11:52 Pacific)
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Comment by techpaul | February 14, 2012 |
Thousands of accounts on web-based e-mail system Hotmail have been compromised in a phishing attack, software giant Microsoft has confirmed.
BBC News has seen a list of more than 10,000 e-mail accounts, predominantly originating from Europe, and passwords which were posted online.
Microsoft said it had launched an investigation.
Phishing involves using fake websites to lure people into revealing details such as bank accounts or login names.
“We are aware that some Windows Live Hotmail customers’ credentials were acquired illegally and exposed on a website,” said a Microsoft spokesperson.
“Upon learning of the issue, we immediately requested that the credentials be removed and launched an investigation to determine the impact to customers.”
Quick change
Graham Cluley, consultant at security firm Sophos, told BBC News the published list may just be a subset of a longer list of compromised accounts.
“We still don’t know the scale of the problem,” he told BBC News.
Technology blog neowin.net was the first to publish details of the attack. It said the accounts were posted on 1 October to pastebin.com, a website commonly used by developers to share code.
Although the details have since been removed, BBC News and Neowin has seen a list of 10,028 names beginning with the letters A and B.
BBC News has confirmed that the accounts are genuine and predominantly originate in Europe.
The list included details of Microsoft’s Windows Live Hotmail accounts with email addresses ending hotmail.com, msn.com and live.com.
Mr Cluley advised Hotmail users to change their password as soon as possible.
“I’d also recommend that people change the password on any other site where they use it,” he said.
Around 40% of people use the same password for every website they use, he added.
Hotmail is currently the largest web-based e-mail service.
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Comment by tim | February 14, 2012 |
Tim,
Uh.. this is 3 years old… (Oct, 2009)
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Comment by techpaul | February 15, 2012 |
I DIG YOUR WEBSITE MAN.
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Comment by Osc | February 15, 2012 |
Osc,
Thanks. I post daily, and there’s over 1,700 articles here.
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Comment by techpaul | February 15, 2012 |
Hey guys, my hotmail is up and running again…..first I accessed Send Mail, then Calendar, then Contacts, then Inbox. Then I signed off and signed back in and VOILA! up and running……who would’ve figured?
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Comment by Osc | February 14, 2012 |
Osc,
Not bad downtime, considering the scale…
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Comment by techpaul | February 14, 2012 |
Im back up again here in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil…
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Comment by Anonymous | February 14, 2012 |
I had the same problem in Santa Clara, CA since 11 pm PST but i got it back 1 min ago Good luck to you all! I’m totally stop using Hotmail. Switching to Gmail
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Comment by zd | February 15, 2012 |
zd,
Though it has been a while.. Gmail has outages too. All web-based services can/will/do.
(That’s just one reason why I am not a fan of “cloud computing”..)
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Comment by techpaul | February 15, 2012 |
Hit F5 and worked for me :)
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Comment by Rod | February 15, 2012 |
:)
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Comment by techpaul | February 15, 2012 |
same her in orlando and i got an essay to do!
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Comment by eddie rp | February 15, 2012 |
eddie rp,
Still down? Try pressing the F5 key. Many areas seem to be back online.. but yours may be taking a bit longer..
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Comment by techpaul | February 15, 2012 |
Started working now.
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Comment by Anonymous | February 15, 2012 |
here in Afghanistan Qala i naw it works
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Comment by jawad | February 15, 2012 |
working now… :D
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Comment by bia | February 15, 2012 |
Folks,
Here is an Microsoft explanation of (quite) recent events, which may have had something to do with tonight’s outage: What happened in the recent Hotmail outage
But this article from just a week ago blames (a different outage?) on DNS server propagation..: Hotmail, MSN outage sparks doubts about Microsoft cloud
I’ll keep my eye out for more.
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Comment by techpaul | February 15, 2012 |
Apologies
Folks,
Some comments were marked by WordPress’ spam filter, and I accidentally clicked “delete all” instead of “approve all”.. and I cannot get them back.
My only excuse is it is quite late here and I am groggy-tired.
Sorry about that.
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Comment by techpaul | February 15, 2012 |
Hello to everyone who visited here during the outage. This article generated a heck of a lot of comments. I’d like to see all of you around here commenting on TechPauls posts on a daily basis. Some days we get a good conversation going that opens the door to other tech questions and discussions. I know it gives our host a good recharge of his blogger batteries, and we might even learn a thing or two…
My hotmail account was also down but is back up and running again… Midwest USA.
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Comment by kstinman | February 15, 2012 |
kstinman,
That would be neato-keen, wouldn’t it? But the reality is those folks were all “search engine referrals” – people like me who wanted to know if their login problem was happening to others, or just to them.. so they “googled it”.
Once they get the answer, they’re gone (as a rule)(Nature of the game).
On the brighter side, I did get one compliment; and several signed up for email subscriptions.. probably a half-dozen added Tech – for Everyone to their Bookmarks/Favorites (that’s a guess). Also, as I was the only one who posted anything about the outage (I still don’t see any headlines) I did, briefly, receive hundreds of “hits” per minute – which the little robotic bean counters at Search Engine Headquarters note, and that helps my “Website Ranking”.
For what that’s worth. (Aka 0.0¢)
Watching the comments come in was a good example of Web 2.0 in action, and it was kinda cool hearing from folks around the globe.. but it kept me up way past my bedtime. Ha!
I do hope your comment stimulates some thought in people, and I do appreciate your taking the time to post it. Thank you.
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Comment by techpaul | February 15, 2012 |
Aww, man, I missed all the excitement. But then, I haven’t had a Hotmail account since MSN bought it eons ago.
Thumbs up @ kstinman.
For the next week and a half I am going to be in and out…Family stuff. I will try to comment when I can.
This is one of the reasons I support Indie developers instead of the mainstream over priced game developers…Martin Kool – Game Developer Gives 7-Year-Old Best Birthday Present Ever
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Comment by delenn13 | February 15, 2012 |
delenn13,
Pretty neat!
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Comment by techpaul | February 15, 2012 |