Microsoft restores missing e-mails from Hotmail accounts

Over on the Windows Live Solution Center, a number of Windows Live Hotmail users have been complaining about missing e-mails. For the last three days, users have reported that their e-mails have been deleted from their Inbox and other folders or that e-mails sent to them never arrived. Microsoft has since fixed the problem, after declaring that the issue was not widespread.

Yesterday, Microsoft offered the following statement: "We have identified the source of the issue [and] have restored e-mail access to those who were [a]ffected. We recognize that even though we restored email access, some of the affected users did not receive mail sent to them during the last 24-72 hours. We are in the process of rectifying that and should be finished by late tonight Pacific time."

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Microsoft Hotmail hiccuped around the New Year holiday, resulting in approximately 17,000 users finding some or all of their messages missing.

At the time, Microsoft officials declined to comment on what happened. But on January 6, they shared more details about the causes of the recent Hotmail outage that started on December 30. From a post on the “Inside Windows Live” blog:

“On December 30th, we had an error in a script that inadvertently removed the directory records of a small number of real user accounts along with a set of test accounts. Please note that the email messages and folders of impacted users were not deleted; only their inbox location in the directory servers was removed. Therefore when they logged in, a new mailbox was automatically created for them on a new storage server that didn’t contain their old messages and folders. This is why the accounts received the “Welcome to Hotmail” message.”
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