Email bug on Outlook.com deletes user emails, inboxes; Microsoft issues patch

Users of Outlook.com are reportedly facing serious problems due to an email bug, with issues such as lost emails and deleted inboxes. The complaints have been filed on Microsoft's official Outlook forum. The same complaints were filed in January by users and Microsoft had fixed this issue with account renaming. However it seems that the email bug was not fixed. User complaints have come to the fore again with users reporting emails missing from the same period.

Microsoft has reverted on the complaints and has released a temporary patch for users. The company has also stated that is working on a full update that is expected to be rolled out soon. The company stated, “We fixed many user accounts that were renamed, and as a result, had trouble accessing some of their email. We recognize some customers are still experiencing issues, and we are actively working to resolve these issues as quickly as possible. We will re-enable the “rename” option when we are confident that no further issues will arise.”

Microsoft recently moved its entire Hotmail user base to Outlook.com. Initially the company has offered users a flexibly to move to Outlook.com but later on no option was given and the users were forced to switch their accounts.

Elaborating on the problem, a user stated on Microsoft's official forum: "The problem I've been having involves deleted emails. A huge section of my inbox seems to have been deleted ever since I was automatically upgraded to Outlook.com last month. My sent items have remained intact, but my inbox is now missing thousands of important emails. Strangely, not all of my inbox was deleted - I can still access the emails I received prior to around September 2012, but everything between September 2012 and March 2013 (which is when I was upgraded to Outlook.com) is missing."

Users have specifically mentioned complaints pertaining to the period when they switched their service from Hotmail to Outlook.com.