Microsoft apologises for sudden Hotmail wipes

by Steven Mostyn - Jan 4 2011, 09:55

Redmond-based software titan Microsoft Corp. has apologised for a sudden Hotmail glitch that inexplicably wiped the accounts of more than 17,000 users over the New Year.

The problem surfaced on December 30 and soon saw Microsoft fielding complaints regarding completely emptied inboxes and similarly empty folder files (i.e., Sent, Drafts, Deleted).

“Customers impacted temporarily lost the contents of their mailbox through the course of mailbox load balancing between servers,” outlined an apologetic Microsoft via an official blog post.

“We identified the root cause and restored mail to the impacted accounts as of yesterday evening, January 2nd,” it added.

According to Microsoft, which is apparently “very sorry” for the inconvenience, all lost emails had been fully restored to affected accounts by January 3.

An investigation into the service failure is to be launched and Microsoft has said it will “take steps” to prevent it from happening again.

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