This morning, a wave of distress signals flooded our inboxes from users reporting major issues with their Microsoft 365 Family subscriptions. If you're the tech guru in your family or manage this suite for a small business, brace yourself—trouble is brewing!

Around 11:00 UTC, Microsoft confirmed via its Service Health page that a "licensing issue" is wreaking havoc, preventing Family subscription holders from accessing their beloved Office suite. Fully paid users are encountering alarming messages like "Your subscription expired" or even worse, "Your subscription has been canceled."

The fiasco seems to be primarily impacting shared users of the Family account rather than the primary account holder, leaving many frustrated. Despite being current on payment, users are mysteriously prompted to "renew your subscription" while their accounts remain valid for months to come.

Shout-out to Reader Mark Allen, who spent an exhausting hour troubleshooting for a client—only to discover that even with proper credentials on a Microsoft 365 Family account, access to Office was denied. This confusion was echoed by users across Reddit and Microsoft’s support forums, where many are left scratching their heads.

A community member succinctly captured the chaos: "Main user is fine, but all shared users are showing as expired. Microsoft, rising renewal costs and hoping for apologies from users—this is a system error we need sorted now!"

Others vented their frustrations, detailing long waits for customer support only to receive no substantial assistance. One user remarked, "I waited hours for a web chat, and it’s just unacceptable!"

Attempts to fix the issue by removing and re-adding users have failed for many, although some have found temporary relief through re-inviting shared users—at least until the error reappeared!

Allen humorously recommended ditching technology altogether: "Maybe just go back to pen and paper and work from the pub instead?"

We've reached out to Microsoft for more insights and a timeline for resolution, but have yet to receive a response. As of our latest update at 14:00 UTC, Microsoft is still assessing the situation and reviewing service telemetry to identify the root of the problem. Unfortunately, many users remain locked out.