"Thousands of rail, bus and Tube passengers enjoyed free
transport on Saturday after London’s Oyster card network
collapsed.

Barriers are rail and tube stations were opened by staff after
Oyster card 'reader' machines used to register the start and end
of each journey failed to work throughout the network."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/road-and-rail-
transport/12077955/Londons-Oyster-card-system-crashes-giving-thousands-
free-travel.html

I wonder if this is a random fault, or a "Y2K" type of problem.

I remember when the Nottingham City Transport smartcard had one of the
latter at New Year in around 2006.
--
Roland Perry

Roland Perry wrote:
"Thousands of rail, bus and Tube passengers enjoyed free
transport on Saturday after London’s Oyster card network
collapsed.

Barriers are rail and tube stations were opened by staff after
Oyster card 'reader' machines used to register the start and end
of each journey failed to work throughout the network."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/road-and-rail-
transport/12077955/Londons-Oyster-card-system-crashes-giving-thousands-
free-travel.html

I wonder if this is a random fault, or a "Y2K" type of problem.

I remember when the Nottingham City Transport smartcard had one of the
latter at New Year in around 2006.

I notice that the handwritten sign says that contactless cards should be
used as normal, so the fault was specifically with the Oyster system. Apart
from the change of year, there was also the normal New Year's free travel
-- I wonder if the attempt to re-set to normal chargeable travel failed?

In message
-sept
ember.org, at 09:38:40 on Sat, 2 Jan 2016, Recliner
remarked:

I wonder if this is a random fault, or a "Y2K" type of problem.

I remember when the Nottingham City Transport smartcard had one of the
latter at New Year in around 2006.

I notice that the handwritten sign says that contactless cards should be
used as normal, so the fault was specifically with the Oyster system. Apart
from the change of year, there was also the normal New Year's free travel
-- I wonder if the attempt to re-set to normal chargeable travel failed?

The free travel thing points even more to a Y2K style problem, if the
charging system wasn't active yesterday. In the Nottingham case it
wasn't spotted until the 2nd because no buses ran on the 1st.

ps I note some NatWest debit cards had outages on the 1st: another Y2K
problem perhaps.
--
Roland Perry

Roland Perry wrote on 02 Jan 2016 at 09:50 ...
In message
-sept
ember.org, at 09:38:40 on Sat, 2 Jan 2016, Recliner
remarked:

I wonder if this is a random fault, or a "Y2K" type of problem.

I remember when the Nottingham City Transport smartcard had one of the
latter at New Year in around 2006.

I notice that the handwritten sign says that contactless cards should be
used as normal, so the fault was specifically with the Oyster system. Apart
from the change of year, there was also the normal New Year's free travel
-- I wonder if the attempt to re-set to normal chargeable travel failed?

The free travel thing points even more to a Y2K style problem, if the
charging system wasn't active yesterday. In the Nottingham case it
wasn't spotted until the 2nd because no buses ran on the 1st.

ps I note some NatWest debit cards had outages on the 1st: another Y2K
problem perhaps.

For decades, computer systems have exhibited faults after a holiday
period, caused often by problems in restarting hardware or software
after a holiday outage or reverting to normal operation after
non-standard holiday operation, or caused by changes to the system that
were applied during the holiday. Why are you assuming that this
particular instance was in any way similar to Y2K?

--
Richard J.
(to email me, swap 'uk' and 'yon' in address)

In message , at 11:12:16 on Sat, 2 Jan
2016, Richard J. remarked:
The free travel thing points even more to a Y2K style problem, if the
charging system wasn't active yesterday. In the Nottingham case it
wasn't spotted until the 2nd because no buses ran on the 1st.

ps I note some NatWest debit cards had outages on the 1st: another Y2K
problem perhaps.

For decades, computer systems have exhibited faults after a holiday
period, caused often by problems in restarting hardware or software
after a holiday outage or reverting to normal operation after
non-standard holiday operation, or caused by changes to the system that
were applied during the holiday. Why are you assuming that this
particular instance was in any way similar to Y2K?

Firstly, because a very similar incident *was* tracked down to that
cause, and secondly the other routine issues you mention ought to be
well understood and planned for during a holiday period.

Plus the fact they are having to talk to their suppliers to work out a
fix, rather than applying a clue-bat to the sysadmin-du-jour.
--
Roland Perry

"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...
In message , at 11:12:16 on Sat, 2 Jan
2016, Richard J. remarked:
The free travel thing points even more to a Y2K style problem, if the
charging system wasn't active yesterday. In the Nottingham case it
wasn't spotted until the 2nd because no buses ran on the 1st.

ps I note some NatWest debit cards had outages on the 1st: another Y2K
problem perhaps.

For decades, computer systems have exhibited faults after a holiday
period, caused often by problems in restarting hardware or software after
a holiday outage or reverting to normal operation after non-standard
holiday operation, or caused by changes to the system that were applied
during the holiday. Why are you assuming that this particular instance
was in any way similar to Y2K?

Firstly, because a very similar incident *was* tracked down to that cause,
and secondly the other routine issues you mention ought to be well
understood and planned for during a holiday period.

Plus the fact they are having to talk to their suppliers to work out a
fix, rather than applying a clue-bat to the sysadmin-du-jour.

ISTR that the "contracted out" admin and the suppliers are the same people

tim

Roland Perry wrote on 02 Jan 2016 at 11:32 ...
In message , at 11:12:16 on Sat, 2 Jan
2016, Richard J. remarked:
The free travel thing points even more to a Y2K style problem, if the
charging system wasn't active yesterday. In the Nottingham case it
wasn't spotted until the 2nd because no buses ran on the 1st.

ps I note some NatWest debit cards had outages on the 1st: another Y2K
problem perhaps.

For decades, computer systems have exhibited faults after a holiday
period, caused often by problems in restarting hardware or software
after a holiday outage or reverting to normal operation after
non-standard holiday operation, or caused by changes to the system that
were applied during the holiday. Why are you assuming that this
particular instance was in any way similar to Y2K?

Firstly, because a very similar incident *was* tracked down to that
cause,

You mean there was a very similar incident 16 years ago? But what is
special about 1/1/2016 compared to 1/1/2015, 1/1/2014, etc?

and secondly the other routine issues you mention ought to be
well understood and planned for during a holiday period.

In theory, yes, but in practice there is always a greater risk of a
problem following a period of non-standard operations. This is
especially so if you're doing a major update of fare tables across the
network, which might be "routine" in the sense that you do it every
year, but is still a more obvious likely cause than some previously
unknown fundamental problem connected with 1/1/2016.

Plus the fact they are having to talk to their suppliers to work out a
fix, rather than applying a clue-bat to the sysadmin-du-jour.

Quite normal if there's a major system outage. It doesn't tell you
anything about the cause.
--
Richard J.
(to email me, swap 'uk' and 'yon' in address)

Recliner wrote:

Roland Perry wrote:
"Thousands of rail, bus and Tube passengers enjoyed free
transport on Saturday after London’s Oyster card network
collapsed.

Barriers are rail and tube stations were opened by staff
after Oyster card 'reader' machines used to register the
start and end of each journey failed to work throughout the
network."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/road-and-rail-
transport/12077955/Londons-Oyster-card-system-crashes-giving-thousan
ds- free-travel.html

I wonder if this is a random fault, or a "Y2K" type of problem.

I remember when the Nottingham City Transport smartcard had one of
the latter at New Year in around 2006.

I notice that the handwritten sign says that contactless cards should
be used as normal, so the fault was specifically with the Oyster
system. Apart from the change of year, there was also the normal New
Year's free travel -- I wonder if the attempt to re-set to normal
chargeable travel failed?

The free travel ended at 0430 1st Jan and there weren't any reports of
problems yesterday. I'm guessing it is relating to the annual fares
increase which takes effect today, there was probably some sort of
update being pushed out to the gates overnight which has failed.

Peter Smyth

On Sat, 2 Jan 2016 11:00:45 -0000 (UTC), "Peter Smyth"
wrote:

Recliner wrote:

Roland Perry wrote:
"Thousands of rail, bus and Tube passengers enjoyed free
transport on Saturday after London’s Oyster card network
collapsed.

Barriers are rail and tube stations were opened by staff
after Oyster card 'reader' machines used to register the
start and end of each journey failed to work throughout the
network."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/road-and-rail-
transport/12077955/Londons-Oyster-card-system-crashes-giving-thousan
ds- free-travel.html

I wonder if this is a random fault, or a "Y2K" type of problem.

I remember when the Nottingham City Transport smartcard had one of
the latter at New Year in around 2006.

I notice that the handwritten sign says that contactless cards should
be used as normal, so the fault was specifically with the Oyster
system. Apart from the change of year, there was also the normal New
Year's free travel -- I wonder if the attempt to re-set to normal
chargeable travel failed?

The free travel ended at 0430 1st Jan and there weren't any reports of
problems yesterday. I'm guessing it is relating to the annual fares
increase which takes effect today, there was probably some sort of
update being pushed out to the gates overnight which has failed.

Yes, that appears to have been the problem.

On 02/01/2016 11:36, Recliner wrote:
On Sat, 2 Jan 2016 11:00:45 -0000 (UTC), "Peter Smyth"

The free travel ended at 0430 1st Jan and there weren't any reports of
problems yesterday. I'm guessing it is relating to the annual fares
increase which takes effect today, there was probably some sort of
update being pushed out to the gates overnight which has failed.

Yes, that appears to have been the problem.

If so, why would they be able to accept contact-less cards while Oyster
was u/s? Don't the same fares get charged either way?

Any why, if all you had to do to get a free trip was to claim to have an
Oyster card, would anyone during the outage try to use a contact-less card?


--
Clive Page