We are continuing to monitor for any further issues.
Posted Jan 22, 2026 - 16:55 CST
Monitoring
Microsoft services continue to improve, and mail delivery for Rice MS365 users has returned to normal. We will continue to monitor and update if this changes. Microsoft status updates are also available at: https://status.cloud.microsoft/.
Posted Jan 22, 2026 - 16:19 CST
Update
Microsoft has initiated fixes, and services are starting to restore to normal functionality. Rice MS365/Outlook users may notice delayed delivery of inbound messages.
Posted Jan 22, 2026 - 16:04 CST
Identified
User impact: Users may be seeing degraded service functionality or be unable to access multiple Microsoft 365 services.
More info: Users may be receiving a "451 4.3.2 temporary server issue" error message when attempting to send or receive email through Outlook.
Some of the impacted service functions include, but may not be limited to: - Sending and receiving email through Exchange Online, including notification emails from Microsoft Viva Engage. - Collecting message traces. - Searching within SharePoint Online and/or Microsoft OneDrive. - Accessing the service portals, including Microsoft Purview, Microsoft Defender XDR, and the Microsoft 365 admin center. - Creating chats, meetings, teams, channels or adding members in Microsoft Teams. - Receiving presence or location information in Microsoft Teams. - Applying and managing sensitivity labels, interactive operations on reports, and artifacts with sensitivity labels in Microsoft Fabric.
Current status: While Microsoft has restored the affected infrastructure to a heathy state, further load balancing is required to mitigate persistent impact. Microsoft has identified and is implementing additional actions to direct requests and traffic to additional healthy sections of infrastructure to achieve withstanding recovery.
Scope of impact: Any users served through an affected section of service infrastructure in the North America region may be intermittently impacted.
Root cause: A portion of dependent service infrastructure in the North America region isn't processing traffic as expected.
Posted Jan 22, 2026 - 15:44 CST
This incident affected: Email, Collaboration and Storage (Exchange Mail and Calendar, Office 365).