Outlook/Hotmail account showing Error 500 – StartupData / ServerError

Question

Outlook/Hotmail account showing Error 500 – StartupData / ServerError

Laura 0

I am having an issue with one specific Hotmail/Outlook account.

I am able to sign into the Microsoft account successfully, but when I try to open Outlook/Hotmail, I receive the message:

“Something went wrong. Please try the recommended action below.”

The error details show:

BootResult: fail err: Error: 500 esrc: StartupData et: ServerError

I have already tried the following:

Refreshing the application
Using Microsoft Edge
Using Google Chrome
Using a private/incognito browser window
Clearing browser/site data
Signing in through the Microsoft account page first
Trying the account on another device

The same problem continues.

Other email accounts are working normally, so this appears to be specific to this particular Hotmail account rather than my browser or device.

I can authenticate into the Microsoft account successfully, but Outlook itself will not load.

Can someone please advise whether this is a mailbox-side/server-side issue and whether Microsoft needs to reset or repair something on the account?

rodney anderson 0 Reputation points

2026-08-31T20:25:56.1233333+00:00

How do I open my outlook account
Hornblower409 16,350 Reputation points

2026-09-01T16:43:45.9966667+00:00

@rodney anderson said

How do I open my outlook account

As already noted there is an on-going Outlook outage. Does the error message you get contain the line err: Error: 500 ? If so, there is nothing you can do except wait for Microsoft to fix the problem.

1 answer

Your answer

rodney anderson 0 Reputation points

2026-08-31T20:25:56.1233333+00:00

How do I open my outlook account
Hornblower409 16,350 Reputation points

2026-09-01T16:43:45.9966667+00:00

@rodney anderson said

How do I open my outlook account

As already noted there is an on-going Outlook outage. Does the error message you get contain the line err: Error: 500 ? If so, there is nothing you can do except wait for Microsoft to fix the problem.

Answer 1

EmilyS_726 30,445 Volunteer Moderator

I think there's something going on Microsoft's end right now. I am seeing many people reporting this issue, but Microsoft has not announced this on their service status page. However, there's an active service incident report on the commercial side. It can be related. You can use Microsoft's X/Twitter account page to check for update https://x.com/MSFT365Status/status/2094465993007378744

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