Is the IRM, Account Certification Service down today?  I have an engineer working with a XLS file and suddenly he can't gain access to it.  I've tried opening myself and keep getting "An error has occured." when running through the wizard.  I've looked at https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2711170 and tried the suggestions with no help.  Then I uncover this...  http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_2010-outlook/information-rights-management-configuration-wizard/d3af5bd7-4a74-4696-a94a-793b3a184efd?auth=1 ... people with the exact same issue as of yesterday.  Anyone have an idea here?  We really need to gain access to these files.  HELP!  Thanks.  

I have the same problem...

I am having the same problem.  I am unable to activate my MS Office even though I am using a corporate account.  The error messages states 'We are unable to connect right now.  Please check with your network and try again later.'

Hi,

Recently several users got this same issue, we will pay attention in your issue, any updates please let me know and I'm glad to help and follow up your reply.

Regards,

Emi Zhang
TechNet Community Su

This is really messed up. I've been trying to open an Excel file that was protected by the IRM service for the past (2) days now. I need my passwords to do my job!! This isn't happening because the IRM service generates an error. When I called into Microsoft support yesterday this issue has something to do with the launch of Windows 10.

Every time I go through the prompts to open the 2013 excel spreadsheet, including entering the same email address/password I've been using.

I keep getting an error stating: Your computer cannot be configured at this time because the Account Certification Service is not available. Microsoft needs to turn this service back on or provide a clear fix. As I've already tried multiple options now.

Specifically all of these here and they do not work! 

I need to do my work and need access to password protected excel sheets. This really is mind boggling nobody there had thought of the effects before doing whatever it is with Win 10. I don't care at this point about a new O/S I need access to my excel files.

Hopefully somebody can look into this quickly and fix!!

I have the same problem.

Not Windows 10 specific problem, on Widows 7 is the same.

It seems, that the IRM service down...

Dear Emi Zhang!

I tried to get help on https://twitter.com/OfficeSupport. They said that I have to post the problem on https://community.office365.com. I posted on https://community.office365.com, they said, that I have to posted here. On http://answers.microsoft.com I got no answere.

Please somebody from Microsoft: where can users post this problem?

This is a very serious problem. Users can't access their files since 2015.07.27.

Regards,
Carmachy

Dear Emi Zhang!

I tried to get help on https://twitter.com/OfficeSupport. They said that I have to post the problem on https://community.office365.com. I posted on https://community.office365.com, they said, that I have to posted here. On http://answers.microsoft.com I got no answere.

Please somebody from Microsoft: where can users post this problem?

This is a very serious problem. Users can't access their files since 2015.07.27.

Regards,
Carmachy

Dear Emi Zhang,

I have tried all the above options and contacted Microsoft support who told me to upgrade to Excel 2013! This clearly hasn't worked for others, so I'm reluctant to spend 100 unless the result is guaranteed. I'm beginning to regret upgrading to Windows 10, I had no problems before with Windows 7 though I note that others have had this problem. I hope a fix can be found quickly.

Dear Emi Zhang!

I tried to get help on https://twitter.com/OfficeSupport. They said that I have to post the problem on https://community.office365.com. I posted on https://community.office365.com, they said, that I have to posted here. On http://answers.microsoft.com I got no answere.

Please somebody from Microsoft: where can users post this problem?

This is a very serious problem. Users can't access their files since 2015.07.27.

Regards,
Carmachy

• Proposed as answer by JP193 Wednesday, August 05, 2015 10:55 AM

Dear Emi Zhang!

I tried to get help on https://twitter.com/OfficeSupport. They said that I have to post the problem on https://community.office365.com. I posted on https://community.office365.com, they said, that I have to posted here. On http://answers.microsoft.com I got no answere.

Please somebody from Microsoft: where can users post this problem?

This is a very serious problem. Users can't access their files since 2015.07.27.

Regards,
Carmachy

• Proposed as answer by JP193 Wednesday, August 05, 2015 10:55 AM

Dear Emi Zhang!

I tried to get help on https://twitter.com/OfficeSupport. They said that I have to post the problem on https://community.office365.com. I posted on https://community.office365.com, they said, that I have to posted here. On http://answers.microsoft.com I got no answere.

Please somebody from Microsoft: where can users post this problem?

This is a very serious problem. Users can't access their files since 2015.07.27.

Regards,
Carmachy

Dear Emi Zhang,

I have tried all the above options and contacted Microsoft support who told me to upgrade to Excel 2013! This clearly hasn't worked for others, so I'm reluctant to spend 100 unless the result is guaranteed. I'm beginning to regret upgrading to Windows 10, I had no problems before with Windows 7 though I note that others have had this problem. I hope a fix can be found quickly.

• Proposed as answer by JP193 Wednesday, August 05, 2015 10:55 AM

Dear Emi Zhang!

I tried to get help on https://twitter.com/OfficeSupport. They said that I have to post the problem on https://community.office365.com. I posted on https://community.office365.com, they said, that I have to posted here. On http://answers.microsoft.com I got no answere.

Please somebody from Microsoft: where can users post this problem?

This is a very serious problem. Users can't access their files since 2015.07.27.

Regards,
Carmachy

Dear Emi Zhang,

I have tried all the above options and contacted Microsoft support who told me to upgrade to Excel 2013! This clearly hasn't worked for others, so I'm reluctant to spend 100 unless the result is guaranteed. I'm beginning to regret upgrading to Windows 10, I had no problems before with Windows 7 though I note that others have had this problem. I hope a fix can be found quickly.

• Proposed as answer by JP193 Wednesday, August 05, 2015 10:55 AM

Hi Emi Zhang,

We have the same problem in our company. We work with Excel 2010.

Please fix this problem very urgently. We are completely stuck and we cannot work on protected files.

Thanks,

• Edited by IACFlo Wednesday, August 05, 2015 9:57 AM Excel version
• Proposed as answer by JP193 Wednesday, August 05, 2015 10:55 AM

Hi Emi Zhang,

We have the same problem in our company. We work with Excel 2010.

Please fix this problem very urgently. We are completely stuck and we cannot work on protected files.

Thanks,

• Edited by IACFlo Wednesday, August 05, 2015 9:57 AM Excel version
• Proposed as answer by JP193 Wednesday, August 05, 2015 10:55 AM

Hey,

Same problem here also! I have tried to get access my protected very important excel file almost over a week and all I got is this:

"Information Rights Management Congiguration Wizard cannot complete.
An error has occured.

Your computer cannot be configured at this time because the Account Certification Service is not available. Please run this wizard again later."

It has been worked before on Windows 8.1 Pro with Media Center. I use Office 2010 Professional Academic on Windows 10 Pro. Three days ago I contacted Microsoft Answer Desk but they only said that uninstall Office and install again and/or manually uninstall and reinstall. According to them "the IRM service is working".

Day before yesterday I did clean install of Windows 10 and Install my Office 2010 into clean Windows system with latest updates on Office and Windows but still same issue. So no help with the Answer Desk...

So what is going on Microsoft, what's wrong with the IRM service???!?? It obviously not working if many users report the same issue in the same time frame. 

• Edited by JP193 Wednesday, August 05, 2015 10:52 AM
• Proposed as answer by JP193 Wednesday, August 05, 2015 10:55 AM

Hey,

Same problem here also! I have tried to get access my protected very important excel file almost over a week and all I got is this:

"Information Rights Management Congiguration Wizard cannot complete.
An error has occured.

Your computer cannot be configured at this time because the Account Certification Service is not available. Please run this wizard again later."

It has been worked before on Windows 8.1 Pro with Media Center. I use Office 2010 Professional Academic on Windows 10 Pro. Three days ago I contacted Microsoft Answer Desk but they only said that uninstall Office and install again and/or manually uninstall and reinstall. According to them "the IRM service is working".

Day before yesterday I did clean install of Windows 10 and Install my Office 2010 into clean Windows system with latest updates on Office and Windows but still same issue. So no help with the Answer Desk...

So what is going on Microsoft, what's wrong with the IRM service???!?? It obviously not working if many users report the same issue in the same time frame. 

• Edited by JP193 Wednesday, August 05, 2015 10:52 AM
• Proposed as answer by JP193 Wednesday, August 05, 2015 10:55 AM

Exact same problem here. We can't operate our business because all of our excel spreadsheets are locked out because "your computer cannot be configured at this time because the account certification service is not available."

This happened to us since the last week of July.

This is ridiculous, as soon as this service is up we're never using this again.

We are losing business and clients are getting mad at us.

Microsoft, do something about this urgently.

• Edited by Myron123 Thursday, August 06, 2015 1:56 AM

Exact same problem here. We can't operate our business because all of our excel spreadsheets are locked out because "your computer cannot be configured at this time because the account certification service is not available."

This happened to us since the last week of July.

This is ridiculous, as soon as this service is up we're never using this again.

We are losing business and clients are getting mad at us.

Microsoft, do something about this urgently.

• Edited by Myron123 Thursday, August 06, 2015 1:56 AM
• Proposed as answer by luckyLiberty 18 hours 11 minutes ago

Exact same problem here. We can't operate our business because all of our excel spreadsheets are locked out because "your computer cannot be configured at this time because the account certification service is not available."

This happened to us since the last week of July.

This is ridiculous, as soon as this service is up we're never using this again.

We are losing business and clients are getting mad at us.

Microsoft, do something about this urgently.

• Edited by Myron123 Thursday, August 06, 2015 1:56 AM
• Proposed as answer by luckyLiberty Friday, August 07, 2015 1:22 PM

Exact same problem here. We can't operate our business because all of our excel spreadsheets are locked out because "your computer cannot be configured at this time because the account certification service is not available."

This happened to us since the last week of July.

This is ridiculous, as soon as this service is up we're never using this again.

We are losing business and clients are getting mad at us.

Microsoft, do something about this urgently.

• Edited by Myron123 Thursday, August 06, 2015 1:56 AM
• Proposed as answer by luckyLiberty Friday, August 07, 2015 1:22 PM

Suffering from the same issue here, my project is stalled until I get authorization through the Account Certification Service.  Interestingly, the Microsoft Knowledgebase article that was supposed to fix this has been blanked out.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2711170

Same issue here, using Windows 7 and Excel 2010. Our most important KPI tracking file cannot be opened.

Microsoft needs to do something urgently.

• Edited by Localisation Manager 16 hours 45 minutes ago

Same issue here, using Windows 7 and Excel 2010. Our most important KPI tracking file cannot be opened.

Microsoft needs to do something urgently.

• Edited by Localisation Manager Thursday, August 06, 2015 2:47 PM

Same issue here, using Windows 7 and Excel 2010. Our most important KPI tracking file cannot be opened.

Microsoft needs to do something urgently.

• Edited by Localisation Manager Thursday, August 06, 2015 2:47 PM

This has to be a Microsoft issue.  I opened a 500$ case with them and their response to me was the the Account Certification Service is a beta service (for the past 3 to 4 years) and they no longer offer it!!!!!  This totally broke a function in their Office products, and totally crippled a product we offer to clients using IRM.  I have gotten this in front of an engineer at Microsoft so hopefully they figure this out soon!  My thought is they are trying to resolve this quietly.

When you have the error message, there is a link below called "Service Agreement". See section 2.2:
http://certification.drm.microsoft.com/passcb/help/en/policy.htm

Official statement from Microsoft dated August 5, 2015:
http://blogs.technet.com/b/rms/archive/2015/08/05/legacy-rms-for-microsoft-account-service-end-of-life.aspx

1) "The service will be restored to functional status as soon as possible"

2) "this service, originally introduced with Office 2000 as a trial is reaching its end of service life. It will be decommissioned on November 28th"

3) "You should decrypt any files you have protected with this legacy service and re-encrypt it using Azure RMS for Individuals using a business account. You can sign up for Azure RMS for individuals"

This has to be a Microsoft issue.  I opened a 500$ case with them and their response to me was the the Account Certification Service is a beta service (for the past 3 to 4 years) and they no longer offer it!!!!!  This totally broke a function in their Office products, and totally crippled a product we offer to clients using IRM.  I have gotten this in front of an engineer at Microsoft so hopefully they figure this out soon!  My thought is they are trying to resolve this quietly.

• Proposed as answer by luckyLiberty 18 hours 8 minutes ago

This has to be a Microsoft issue.  I opened a 500$ case with them and their response to me was the the Account Certification Service is a beta service (for the past 3 to 4 years) and they no longer offer it!!!!!  This totally broke a function in their Office products, and totally crippled a product we offer to clients using IRM.  I have gotten this in front of an engineer at Microsoft so hopefully they figure this out soon!  My thought is they are trying to resolve this quietly.

• Proposed as answer by luckyLiberty Friday, August 07, 2015 1:25 PM

This has to be a Microsoft issue.  I opened a 500$ case with them and their response to me was the the Account Certification Service is a beta service (for the past 3 to 4 years) and they no longer offer it!!!!!  This totally broke a function in their Office products, and totally crippled a product we offer to clients using IRM.  I have gotten this in front of an engineer at Microsoft so hopefully they figure this out soon!  My thought is they are trying to resolve this quietly.

• Proposed as answer by luckyLiberty Friday, August 07, 2015 1:25 PM

Hi everybody,

Please refer to the answer of Peter Almer Frederiksen, and you can refer to this blog about Legacy RMS for Microsoft Account service end of life.
http://blogs.technet.com/b/rms/archive/2015/08/05/legacy-rms-for-microsoft-account-service-end-of-life.aspx

Please wait till the service is restored, any updates I will let you know. If you also get any updates please also let me know, THANK YOU!!

Regards,

Emi Zhang
TechNet Community Su

Hi everybody,

Please refer to the answer of Peter Almer Frederiksen, and you can refer to this blog about Legacy RMS for Microsoft Account service end of life.
http://blogs.technet.com/b/rms/archive/2015/08/05/legacy-rms-for-microsoft-account-service-end-of-life.aspx

Please wait till the service is restored, any updates please pay close attention to MS official BLOG. If you also get any updates please also let me know, THANK YOU!!

Regards,

Emi Zhang
TechNet Community Su

Does Anybody know for how long should we wait?

By the way, I tried to sign in for a new Microsoft RMS account and it says that my email @hotmail.com is not a valid account...

Regards,

Mauricio.

me too. 

that won't help. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2711170

thanks for pointing to the blander not reading service agreements. at least let us open our file and get rid of the nuance. 

maybe they are not offering this any more.

Hello Emily,

I'm still having this issue with 2010 Excel files being locked, tried the Configuration tool analyzer, the result I received after scanning Excel is:

"You have Microsoft Office Single Image 2010 installed. It does not support the Information Rights Management feature."

The IRM service was working fine before and I didn't have any issues. How are we supposed to work when our passwords to many systems are now locked due to an error with this service?

Also, my general counsel would like to have the Ph. # to your legal department and mailing address. I'm now a week into this and the problem hasn't been fixed for us to read our files!! Reading the posts after my past post I see it's effecting others too. This is literally ridiculous...

The IRM Service is back in business! It's working again!!

Yes, I've verified today it's back up. Whomever at Microsoft fixed this for that we thank you!!

Please publish if this IRM service will continue or will we need to password protect docs locally?

 

Yes, I've verified today it's back up. Whomever at Microsoft fixed this for that we thank you!!

Please publish if this IRM service will continue or will we need to password protect docs locally?

 

Look at this: http://blogs.technet.com/b/rms/archive/2015/08/05/legacy-rms-for-microsoft-account-service-end-of-life.aspx

So yeah it will be shut down on November.

• Edited by JP193 15 hours 29 minutes ago

Also, my general counsel would like to have the Ph. # to your legal department and mailing address. I'm now a week into this and the problem hasn't been fixed for us to read our files!!

There is nothing we can do other than wait until MS fixes the problem, as the "Service Agreement" says it very clearly:

"We may change or cancel the Services, or remove features at any time and for any reason. We may cancel or suspend your service at any time. Our cancellation or suspension may be without cause and/or without notice. Upon service cancellation your right to use the Services stops immediately. Once the Services are cancelled or suspended, any data you have stored on the Services may not be retrieved later." (From http://certification.drm.microsoft.com/passcb/help/en/policy.htm)

It is just because we all have been using this trial service for years, we thought it would continue to run forever... - I also find it frustrating that it takes weeks to get it running again.