On Thursday morning, a significant Microsoft outage disrupted search capabilities for platforms including ChatGPT, Copilot, DuckDuckGo, and others.
The issues, which started around 3 AM ET, were traced to problems with Bing’s API, affecting any service dependent on it. Even Microsoft’s own Bing search engine experienced disruptions, although it eventually resumed operation, as reported by TechCrunch.
This is what Microsoft said –
We’re broadening our mitigation efforts following signs of partial recovery for https://t.co/5QGpEMg7SR and other features. We’re closely monitoring to determine if further actions are needed to resolve the issue. Further details can be found in the admin center under CP795190.
— Microsoft 365 Status (@MSFT365Status) May 23, 2024
By 11 AM ET, OpenAI addressed the situation, noting that “Between around 10:10 PM PT yesterday and 6:50 AM PT today, we experienced a partial outage affecting ChatGPT’s web-browsing capabilities due to Bing being unavailable.”
DuckDuckGo informed users that it was “coming back up” at approximately 10:30 AM ET, with Ecosia, the eco-friendly search engine, following suit. Shortly after noon, Microsoft’s 365 Status account on X announced, “We’re broadening our mitigation efforts following signs of partial recovery for http://copilot.microsoft.com and other features.”
During the outage, search engines like DuckDuckGo and Ecosia, which rely on Bing’s API, were unable to load search results. Microsoft’s Copilot also faced similar issues, displaying a continuous loading loop that blocked user access. ChatGPT, offering web search capabilities to Plus subscribers, showed an error message when users attempted to make search inquiries.
Netizens Reaction
Though Netizens seemed to have pretty fun about the Outage.
For example one ‘X’ user wrote, “Can’t copilot fix itself”?
Can’t copilot fix itself?
— Guy Leech (@guyrleech) May 23, 2024
Other users seemed to be pretty frustrated,
User Juan Andreas wrote, “man, it still broken. i can;t even login with my acc on Bing search”.
man, it still broken. i can;t even login with my acc on Bing search
— Juan Andreas (@Brenniebon97) May 23, 2024
Another user wrote, “Gonna be great when the shittiest OS on earth absolutely relies on it to function, won’t it”.
Gonna be great when the shittiest OS on earth absolutely relies on it to function, won’t it
— Microsoft is incompetent (@IncompetentIs) May 23, 2024
