I am writing to seek assistance regarding a domain release issue and a login error after I canceled my Microsoft 365 E5 subscription.

Question

I am writing to seek assistance regarding a domain release issue and a login error after I canceled my Microsoft 365 E5 subscription.

rosa LUO 20

Dear Microsoft Support Team,

After canceling my Microsoft 365 E5 subscription, I am unable to sign in to Office desktop applications (e.g., Word, Excel, Outlook) with my personal Microsoft account, although the same account works perfectly when logging in through the web portals (live.com or office.com). I would appreciate your help.

Background:

I previously had an E5 subscription with tenant name Alexice and custom domain [Moderator note: Personally Identifiable Information removed].

I canceled the subscription about two weeks ago and did not remove the custom domain from the tenant before cancellation.

I now try to use my personal Microsoft account [Moderator note: Personally Identifiable Information removed]to sign in to Office apps.

Symptoms:

Web access: Signing in to live.com or office.com with the same account works without issues; I can access personal services like OneDrive.

Office desktop clients (e.g., Word, Outlook): When I launch the app and enter the same account, I get the following error:

AADSTS50020: User account [Moderator note: Personally Identifiable Information removed] from identity provider 'live.com' does not exist in tenant 'Alexice' and cannot access the application ... in that tenant. The account needs to be added as an external user first. Sign out and sign in again with a different Azure AD user account. (Request Id: [Moderator note: Personally Identifiable Information removed], Correlation Id: [Moderator note: Personally Identifiable Information removed], Timestamp: 2026-08-05T16:48:03Z)

What I have tried:

Clearing browser cache and cookies

Using incognito/private mode

Signing out and back in from Office account settings

Restarting the device

None of these resolved the issue.

My questions:

Why does the same account work on the web but fail in Office desktop clients with a tenant‑not‑found error? Is it because the desktop app caches old tenant credentials? How can I completely clear that cache and force the client to use my personal account identity?

Does the fact that my custom domain alexice.cn is still tied to the deleted tenant cause this issue? When will the domain be fully released?

Is there any manual method (e.g., registry or config file changes) to make Office clients ignore the old tenant and authenticate purely as a personal Microsoft account?

I look forward to your guidance. Please let me know if you need more details or logs.

Thank you.

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Hi @rosa LUO

Based on the information provided, the behavior is most likely related to the previous tenant still being associated with the alexice.cn domain, rather than an Office desktop client cache issue.

Although a Microsoft 365 subscription can be cancelled immediately, tenant and domain cleanup occur in stages. A typical lifecycle is:

Subscription Cancelled > Grace / Expiration Period > Soft-Deleted State (~30 days) > Hard-Deleted State Backend Cleanup and Custom Domain Release

After a tenant is deleted, it enters a soft-delete state for up to 30 days before it is permanently purged. During this soft-delete period, the tenant continues to exist in Microsoft's backend systems, and associated resources, including custom domain registrations, remain attached to the tenant. The custom domain is generally not released until the tenant has been fully purged at the end of the soft-delete retention period. Following permanent deletion, additional backend cleanup may be required before the domain is fully released across Microsoft's identity services.

Since your Microsoft 365 E5 subscription was cancelled only about two weeks ago and the alexice.cn domain was not removed before cancellation, it is possible that the domain is still linked to the former tenant.

The reason the account still works on live.com is that it uses the Microsoft personal account (MSA) sign-in service. Since @alexice.cn is registered as a personal Microsoft account, authentication to consumer services can continue to succeed independently of the former Microsoft 365 tenant. The URL is specific for personal account.

Office desktop applications use a different sign-in flow and perform tenant discovery based on the email domain. Because alexice.cn was previously associated with the Alexice tenant, Office may still attempt to authenticate against that tenant, resulting in the AADSTS50020 error.

At this point, there is limited action that can be taken on the client side. Since the issue appears to be related to the previous Alexice tenant and the alexice.cn domain association, I recommend:

Removing any old Work or School accounts from Windows (Settings > Accounts > Access work or school).
Signing out of all Office applications and clearing any cached Office credentials from Credential Manager.
Testing the sign-in on another device to rule out local cache issues.

If the error persists after credential cleanup and on multiple devices, the most likely cause is that alexice.cn is still associated with the former Alexice tenant in Microsoft's identity platform, in which case you will need to wait for the tenant/domain cleanup process to complete or contact Microsoft Support to verify the domain's release status.