Global tech outage: Some in Singapore stuck at carparks, others get logged out of computer systems

SINGAPORE - Motorists were stuck at carparks - some for as long as 20 minutes - when electronic gantries stopped working, while many others found themselves logged out of their computer systems when a major global technology outage hit on July 19.

It was not all bad, though, with some deciding to call it a day and start their weekend early.

Freelance writer Allyson Thomas, 50, and her husband sat in their car in Toa Payoh for about 20 minutes while waiting for the carpark gantry barrier to be lifted.

Repeated calls to the carpark operator went unanswered. Islandwide, nearly 200 carparks were affected. Eventually, an employee from carpark operator Wilson Parking arrived to rescue them. He explained that he had to rush to release more gantries, said Ms Thomas, who added: "I can't imagine how many he must have had to go to today."

Roughly 185 carparks, or 10 per cent of all carparks, in Housing Board estates were affected by the outage, HDB said in a Facebook post.

For many, it was a day of confusion and frustration as they were locked out of networks essential for their daily services and work during a worldwide tech outage linked to a faulty system update rolled out by global cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike.

The Ministry of Digital Development and Information (MDDI) said in a statement on July 19 that while government services, local banks, telcos and hospitals were not affected, the outage had affected several companies in delivering services to the public here.

The disruption here is hard to quantify, but at 2pm, user report website Downdetector.com showed a spike in outages reported on Microsoft 365, which had more than 150 recorded, and more than 50 reported for Microsoft Azure in Singapore.

Another motorist, Ms May Tan, 50, who was caught in a line of roughly 10 cars that waited at least 10 minutes behind a carpark gantry in Tiong Bahru, said some drivers grew frustrated and got out of their vehicles to ask what was happening. After making several calls, the driver of the first car managed to reach the carpark operator and was instructed on how to activate the barrier, which lifted for one car at a time, she said.

"A very kind uncle offered to help lift the barrier for each car," said Ms Tan, who works in finance. "We asked him what about himself, but he kindly insisted everyone else go first."

Said Ms Tan: "It was a nice moment that came from the mess today."

Mr Zhou Zhi Teng, 34, who works in private equity, said he and his colleagues were unable to work since lunch time as they were locked out of their company's private network portal, which went down. "Without the intranet, we can't set up meetings, send mail. Any work we do on Excel won't be saved," said Mr Zhou.

Realising no work could be done, his colleagues went to a bar for drinks at 4pm, he said.

"It turned out to be a relaxing afternoon," said Mr Zhou, "but I know many people here will have a big backlog of work to catch up on."

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Much of the chaos here centred at the airport, where snaking queues formed before AirAsia and Scoot's check-in counters, which stopped working, forcing airport staff to work manually with pen and paper.

Other affected companies include SingPost, which alerted users that its tracking system and shipping platforms had been affected. Bill payments, self-service kiosks and label printing at SingPost's POPStations were also temporarily unavailable.

This article was first published in The Straits Times. Permission required for reproduction.