Personal Hotmail mailbox intermittently fails – HTTP 500 StartupData ServerError

Question

Personal Hotmail mailbox intermittently fails – HTTP 500 StartupData ServerError

Charlene G 0

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My personal Hotmail mailbox has been intermittently failing for approximately two weeks.

My Microsoft account authentication works. I can sign into my Microsoft account, so this is NOT a password or account sign-in problem.

However, [Outlook.com] intermittently fails to initialize the mailbox for several hours. During those periods I cannot send or receive email, and I also cannot add this personal account to the Outlook iOS app.

[Outlook.com] reports:

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

Example incident: UTC: **[Moderator Note: Personal Info Removed]**EFE: [Moderator Note: Personal Info Removed] Request ID: [Moderator Note: Personal Info Removed]

The mailbox eventually starts working again, but the failure keeps returning.

I cannot contact [Outlook.com] support: the Microsoft support workflow loops back to “[Outlook.com] app support,” which requires access to the affected mailbox. I also cannot use Outlook mobile support because the affected personal account cannot be added to the Outlook app.

Please escalate this as a mailbox/backend/provisioning issue and correlate the Request ID above. I need the [Outlook.com] service team to investigate the mailbox server-side.

AI helped with this text after hours of conversation trying to find a solution…

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Answer 1

Hi @Charlene G

I’m sorry you’ve been experiencing this recurring issue with your Hotmail mailbox.

Based on the details provided, your Microsoft account authentication is working, but the Outlook.com mailbox intermittently fails during initialization with Error 500, BootResult: fail, esrc: StartupData, and et: ServerError. Since the issue also prevents the account from being added to Outlook for iOS, this does not appear to be a password-related problem.

Please note that this is a user-to-user support forum. Moderators, contributors including external Microsoft employees cannot directly intervene in Microsoft product features or access back-end systems. Our role is limited to providing technical guidance on reported issues, requests, or ideas only.

Since the affected mailbox and Outlook mobile support are inaccessible, please contact Microsoft Support using another Microsoft account if necessary.

Go to Contact Microsoft Support.
Select Show expanded list of products.
Select Outlook > Get Home support.
Enter Outlook live chat, then select Get Help > Contact Support.
Sign in with the affected account. If that is not possible, use another Microsoft account to view the available support options.
Ask our Support Assistant > Type "Talk to live chat agent" > Contact Support
Under Products & Services, select Other Products > Outlook, then choose Chat with a support agent in your web browser.

Provide the support agent with the UTC timestamp, Request ID, EFE value, screenshot, and examples of multiple occurrences, and request that they review the issue as a possible service-side mailbox initialization problem.

Thank you for your understanding.

Since this is a public forum, we will hide your personal identifiable information, and I have sent that image of yours containing your personal identifiable information in a private message so we can work together to resolve the issue. Also, please check your private message in case you want to share another screenshot to avoid leaking your PII by click on the Private Message button as show below

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