Recorded Y2K Failures

http://www.usatoday.com/news/ndsfri02.htm

12/31/1998 Accounting software, Act Plus, reverted to the date 1944 when users tried to close the books for 1998. Updated software was rushed to them by the vendor.

http://www.sundaytelegraph.com.au/

12/31/1998 POLICE at three Swedish airports got a foretaste of the much-feared Year 2000 bug  their computers malfunctioned at the stroke of midnight on December 31, causing distress for passport-less travellers. The bug hit police offices at airports that issue immediate, temporary passports to last-minute or forgetful travellers.

http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,30004467,00.html

12/31/1998 STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP)  For a while, some taxi passengers got unexpectedly cheap rides and some motorists had trouble buying gas due to computer glitches that accompanied the new year in Sweden.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-01/05/041l-010599-idx.html

12/31/1998 The company that manages drug benefits for 3.7 million federal employees, retirees and their dependents nationwide erroneously disqualified many of them from prescription coverage on New Year's Eve, making it more difficult for nearly 100,000 patients to get medicine they needed, officials said yesterday.

http://www.bergen.com/biz/early05199901052.htm

In Anchorage, Alaska, the AM radio station KFQD was unable to receive The Associated Press' news stories when the date changed. Jay White, chief engineer for the station, said the software for reading the incoming stories went down Saturday morning and wasn't brought back up until Monday morning. When the date changed to Jan. 1, 1999, a bug in the out-of-date software hit the "99" and ceased to function.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1998-12/23/051l-122398-idx.html

Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, December 23, 1998; Page A03

Thirteen states and the District will have to put electronic bandages on their computers next month so they can pay new unemployment insurance claims into the year 2000, Clinton administration officials said yesterday.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/washtech/daily/dec98/fda31.htm

The Food and Drug Administration is warning doctors, hospitals and emergency medical centers that one kind of computer dating problem expected to cause glitches on Jan. 1, 2000, will affect two medical devices a year early, officials said yesterday. One of the products with a problem, the Hewlett-Packard 43100A/43200A external defibrillator, will work properly but will print out "set clock" rather than the month, day, hour and minute on its paper record, FDA said. The second device, Invivo Research Inc.'s Millennia 3500 multiparameter patient monitor, has a potential New Year's Eve problem every year, including 1998 and 1999, the FDA said.

http://chicagotribune.com/version1/article/0,1575,SAV-9812290161,00.html

12/29/1998 OSWEGO The Millennium Bug has struck early in Oswego.

Village President Budd Bieber said that while ComEd was transferring its records to address the Y2K computer issue for 2000, the power company sent the village a bill for more than $7 million in mid-December as a "corrected" bill for two erroneous August bills of $29,000 and $26,000.

these are the ones i've found so far - anyone find any others? s

-- Sharon Schultz (shalom100@aol.com), January 05, 1999

Answers

My Brother's pay was screwed up at year end this year, could not handle 1999, special cheques cut.

CLAVAL Engineering, Costa Mesa, CA.

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), January 05, 1999.

Thanks for taking the time to compile this list...

-- Thanks (thanks@thanks.thanks), January 05, 1999.

"An NHS trust discovered its computers would not process appointments after December 1999"

http://www.sunday- times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/99/01/03/stifocnws01005.html?1733620#bug

-- Reporter (foo@foo.bar), January 05, 1999.

Another link to what's probably the same article Sharon posted is:

http://www.stlnet.com/postnet/home/nsf/Newsbreak/86256421005F483E86256 6F00047AB39

"Most computers work fine at new year, but scattered glitches reported"

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), January 05, 1999.

Sharon,

I believe that the federal employees' drug benefits problems was not Y2K-related. I'm pretty sure that story said so, if you go back & look. FYI.

Drew Parkhill/CBN News

-- Drew Parkhill (y2k@cbn.org), January 05, 1999.

This is the tip of the iceberg. Most of the rollover failures are happening silently as we speak, irretrievably corrupting data. Check out Cory Hamasakis posts today for details:

a href="http://www.dejanews.com/dnquery.xp?QRY=*&DBS=2&ST=PS&defaultOp=A ND&LNG=ALL&format=terse&showsort=score&maxhits=100&subjects=&groups=co mp.software.year-2000&authors=cory+hamasaki&fromdate=&todate=">

Oh, and pollyannas -- same goes for the euro. The fun has started.

-- a (a@a.a), January 06, 1999.

This is the tip of the iceberg. Most of the rollover failures are happening silently as we speak, irretrievably corrupting data. Check out Cory Hamasakis posts today for details:

Oh, and pollyannas -- same goes for the euro. The fun has started.

-- a (a@a.a), January 06, 1999.

USA today or AOL had an article that said, in addition to the Swedish taxis mentioned, Singapore taxi meters were down for a few hours.

I don't have the reference anymore but one of the major Y2K fixers that has reviewed a LOT of code had figures on how many 1999 bugs there were in relation to the number of 2000 bugs. I think it was on the order of 1 to 4 percent depending on the type of business.

-- John Recktenwald (JFRmail@aol.com), January 06, 1999.

John,

The statistics that there could be 30 Y2K failures on January 1, 2000 for every one failure in January 1999 can be read in this article by Ed Yourdon:

http://www.yourdon.com/articles/y2kdejavu.html "Y2K Software Projects: deja vu all over again"

Best article I've seen on January 1999 problems:

http://detnews.com/1999/technology/9901/05/01050148.htm "Most computers work fine at new year, but scattered glitches reported"

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), January 06, 1999.

Bug puts byte on harbour master's chips

"We can reveal that on New Year's Eve, something we'd call ''the year before 2000 bug'' did hit the Marine Department."

See whole story at:

http://www.scmp.com/news/template/Mar- Template.idc?artid=19990105015238060&top=mar&template=Default.htx&maxf ieldsize=4797

-- John Callon (jcallon@gate.net), January 06, 1999.

Thanks for the FYI and additional news. The list is edited. I'll keep looking and will appreciate any links or corrections or anything. the city of albuquerque is wanting to keep this list and publish it on our website (http://cabq.gov/y2k) under our community awareness stuff although i think i'll go nuts keeping it current. s

-- Sharon Schultz (shalom100@aol.com), January 06, 1999.

# # # 19990108

This news item demonstrates one of the "oldest" IT tricks/excuses in the field. Change functionality of systems--an absolute no-no in conjunction with Y2K remediation--then, shift the blame for "foul ups" from Y2K ( actually date computation defects ) into the realm of the "new software." It's a variation of "bait and switch."

There are a number of large unscrupulous software firms that are masters of this technique. If system flaws are insurmountable, redefine them out of existance by re-specification and re-scoping. Voila! No more old problems, but a "new" solution to mask an actual breach of contract.

Regards, Bob Mangus # # #

From the "GLOBE ONLINE": Computer snafu prevents issuing license tags, titles

Computer snafu prevents issuing license tags, titles

Thursday, January 07, 1999 By JOHN SKIPPER Of The Globe-Gazette MASON CITY - North Iowans haven't been able to get vehicle registrations or license plates nor could they transfer vehicle titles for two days this week because of a computer glitch in Ames.

"It had nothing to do with Y2K," said Cerro Gordo County Treasurer Michael Grandon. "I think we have Y2K under control. This was just a run-of-the-mill computer problem where I think they had to order a part. It put us and a lot of other counties into a deep, deep hole.

"It is my fervent hope that we will be up and running Thursday morning. We've been told the problem will be fixed by then," he said.

State computers in Ames control data for state motor vehicle business. The problem was discovered Tuesday morning, Grandon said. Many counties were back to normal Wednesday.

"I think the problem was fixed in some quadrants of the state but our quadrant is still out," Grandon said late Wednesday afternoon.

For him, the new year is starting with the same kind of problems he and other treasurers experienced last fall - computer foul-ups.

Mailing of tax bills was delayed in many counties because computer systems rejected new, detailed tax forms initiated by the state, because of software problems.

Grandon said this week's computer problems have not affected the handling of county tax business.

Computer snafu prevents issuing license tags, titles # # #

-- Robert Mangus (rmangus@mail.netquest.com), January 08, 1999.

turn all bold off!

-- Robert Mangus (rmangus@mail.netquest.com), January 08, 1999.