Some Microsoft 365 administrators are encountering a frustrating issue where their Microsoft Exchange Online tenant remains stuck in an upgrade state for days, preventing organization customization and blocking important configuration tasks.

The problem commonly appears when attempting to run:

Enable-OrganizationCustomization

and results in the following error:

Enabling customization is not allowed because the Organization is currently being upgraded.

In many cases, the tenant remains in a dehydrated state for several days, preventing Exchange Online features from being enabled and causing the Hybrid Configuration Wizard to fail.

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Symptoms of the Problem

Administrators typically report the following:

• Exchange Online tenant remains dehydrated.
• Enable-OrganizationCustomization fails.
• Organization customization cannot be enabled.
• Hybrid Configuration Wizard fails with: HCW8077
• Issue persists for 5 days or longer.
• Manual mailbox creation does not trigger tenant hydration.
• Exchange Online setup appears stuck indefinitely.

For organizations planning hybrid deployments, this can completely block migration projects and Exchange configuration tasks.

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What Does “Organization Is Currently Being Upgraded” Mean?

Exchange Online uses a process called tenant hydration.

New or lightly used tenants are often created in a simplified state known as:

Dehydrated Organization

When advanced Exchange features are needed, Microsoft automatically expands the organization configuration through a hydration process.

Normally this happens automatically and completes quickly.

However, sometimes the process becomes stuck, leaving administrators unable to enable customization.

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Why Enable-OrganizationCustomization Fails

The command:

Enable-OrganizationCustomization

can only run when the tenant is ready.

If Microsoft believes the tenant is currently being upgraded, the command will return:

Enabling customization is not allowed because the Organization is currently being upgraded.

Unfortunately, in affected tenants the upgrade state may never complete.

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How to Fix Exchange Online Stuck in Upgrade State

Step 1: Verify Organization Status

Connect to Exchange Online PowerShell and run:

Get-OrganizationConfig | Select IsDehydrated

If the result shows:

True

your organization is still dehydrated.

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Step 2: Check Service Health

Review Microsoft 365 Service Health.

Look for:

• Exchange Online incidents,
• provisioning issues,
• tenant configuration problems,
• or backend service advisories.

Sometimes Microsoft performs maintenance that temporarily delays hydration.

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Exchange Online Tenant Remains Dehydrated

Many administrators report trying:

• mailbox creation,
• license assignment,
• mailbox access,
• and Exchange administration tasks

in an attempt to trigger hydration.

While this has worked historically in some cases, it does not always resolve the issue when the tenant is stuck in an upgrade state.

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Step 3: Create Additional Exchange Objects

Although not guaranteed, some administrators attempt to trigger provisioning by creating:

• shared mailboxes,
• mail-enabled groups,
• distribution lists,
• or additional user mailboxes.

This may encourage Exchange Online to complete tenant initialization.

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Step 4: Wait 24–48 Additional Hours

Microsoft provisioning can occasionally take longer than expected.

However, if the issue persists beyond several days, especially more than five days, the problem is likely no longer normal provisioning behavior.

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Hybrid Configuration Wizard HCW8077 Error

Many organizations first discover the issue because the Hybrid Configuration Wizard fails.

Typical error:

HCW8077

This occurs because Hybrid Configuration requires organization customization to be enabled.

As long as the tenant remains dehydrated:

• Hybrid setup cannot complete,
• Exchange features remain unavailable,
• and migration projects may stall.

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Step 5: Open a Microsoft Support Case

If:

• the tenant has remained dehydrated for multiple days,
• Enable-OrganizationCustomization continues to fail,
• and mailbox creation does not trigger hydration,

the next step is contacting Microsoft Support.

Many administrators report that backend intervention is required when tenant provisioning becomes stuck.

Microsoft support engineers can:

• verify tenant provisioning status,
• identify stuck upgrade jobs,
• escalate provisioning failures,
• and manually trigger remediation if necessary.

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Is This a Known Microsoft Issue?

Several administrators have reported experiencing the same behavior:

Enabling customization is not allowed because the Organization is currently being upgraded.

The issue appears intermittently and may affect newly provisioned Exchange Online tenants or organizations undergoing backend configuration changes.

Because the problem occurs on Microsoft’s infrastructure, administrators generally have limited ability to resolve it themselves once normal troubleshooting has failed.

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Information to Provide Microsoft Support

When opening a support request, include:

• Tenant ID
• Organization name
• Date the issue began
• Output of: Get-OrganizationConfig
• HCW8077 error details
• Confirmation that mailbox creation was attempted
• Confirmation that Enable-OrganizationCustomization fails

This can help accelerate investigation.

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Final Thoughts

If your Exchange Online tenant has been stuck showing:

“Organization is currently being upgraded”

for more than five days, and Enable-OrganizationCustomization continues to fail, the issue is likely related to a stalled tenant hydration or provisioning process.

While creating mailboxes and waiting for automatic provisioning may help in some situations, persistent cases usually require intervention from Microsoft Support.