Microsoft fixing Hotmail outage

Microsoft acknowledged on Tuesday a problem that is preventing Hotmail users from accessing their accounts.

"The issue is purely impacting the log-in process for customers and largely does not impact customers who were already logged in," Microsoft said in a statement. "We have made significant progress in decreasing the number of customers currently affected since initial reports, but the issue has not yet been completely resolved. Microsoft is working quickly and aggressively to resolve the issue and expects to restore normal operation to all customers shortly."

Commenters on a Seattle Post-Intelligencer blog from countries around the world, including the Netherlands, Finland, France, Canada, and across the U.S., said they weren't able to access their Hotmail accounts.

Some customers have also reported trouble accessing the Messenger service.

Despite Microsoft's statement acknowledging the problem, its Hotmail network status page reported that the service is available and there are no known network issues, as of around 2 p.m. on the West Coast of the U.S.

Microsoft did not say when the problem started, except to say it began happening earlier Tuesday. The company said the issue was affecting some Windows Live customers around the world.

Hotmail had an outage of several hours late last year that left some users unable to access their accounts. That issue arose during maintenance work on the service.