Major Bing outage disrupts services on ChatGPT Search, Copilot, DuckDuckGo and others
A major Microsoft outage early Thursday morning left users globally struggling to access key services. The issues started around 3 AM ET (8 AM WAT) and seem to be linked to Bing’s API and any service that depends on it.
Bing, the popular search engine, was a major casualty, with its homepage showing a blank page or an error message for many users.
Microsoft's coding assistant tool, Copilot, also went down, stuck in a loading loop. Users across the web, mobile apps, and even Windows integration couldn't use Copilot's features.
The outage affected more than just Microsoft's products. Search services like ChatGPT search, DuckDuckGo, and Ecosia, which use Bing's API, were also impacted.
While the cause of the outage remains unknown, Microsoft has since acknowledged the issues with Copilot, saying they’re “working to isolate the cause.” Meanwhile, Microsoft’s service health platform doesn’t show any other outages.
We're investigating an issue where users may be unable to access the Microsoft Copilot service. We're working to isolate the cause of the issue. More information can be found in the admin center under CP795190.
— Microsoft 365 Status (@MSFT365Status) May 23, 2024
OpenAI and Ecosia have also confirmed the issue with their platform's search features on their support page. OpenAI says it is investigating the issue.
As of this writing, the service on Bing now appears to be correctly loading search results, however, DuckDuckGo and Ecosia are still displaying an error in displaying the search results.
This is a developing story...