In message , Dave Newt
writes
Kat wrote:
Even under those circumstances, the gate will show a 24 code but will
open and he wouldn't have been able to use the Oyster subsequently until
the unresolved journey or Pre Pay debit had been cleared.

...but there was no unresolved journey. It worked fine when I next used
it (the next day).

Exactly... That's why it shouldn't have been a code 24

In a way, whether Paul is right or wrong, it seems to make more sense,
logically.

Maybe but it's not the way it's been set up to work.
A Pre Pay debit should not stop you from leaving the system; it just
prevents you from re-entering until it's been cleared.

I think that I mentioned in another thread that I don't know the
reasoning behind this but I guess that it's better to have people who
need to pay the debit on the unpaid side of the gates. They then have
the choice of machines, ticket office, phone or online to add Pre Pay
and clear the debit instead of waiting at a (usually) unmanned excess
fares window on the paid side.

If Dave can remember the code which showed it might be possible to work
out what was going on. It's much more likely to have been a
communication error between the Oyster and the gate.

'Fraid I don't know - neither me nor the SAs looked (well, they might
have done, but they didn't comment). Possible, though it would have been
a bit of a coinkidink do have stumbled upon a dodgy gate as well as
everything else...

It's not impossible that there was some sort of widespread system
failure at that time... I'd gone home by then and after an afternoon of
Sunderland supporters, I was glad to.

Ah well, we live and (don't) learn!

Early days... I have great faith that it will all work beautifully in
the end.
--
Kat Me, Ambivalent? Well, yes and no.