I was affected by the Oyster problem on Saturday, 12 July.

An error message "30" appeared on the display at the gate, at Kings
Cross Station. I was told that I could go through the barriers as the
staff member on duty said that the error message referred to the the
system wide error that affected Oyster.

At Clapham Common Station, I was told by a lady there that I *had* to
renew my card there and then, as the card would never work anywhere
else. The transaction took over 30 minutes while a queue of angry
people behind me stood, accusing me of being a difficult customer and
that I must have been training the man behind the counter in how to
deal with problem passengers. At no point did any staff defend me or
explain to the people that I was only following LU staff
instructions.

To add insult to injury, my replacement card now *apparently* offers
fewer benefits than the original. My original card was an Annual Gold
Card issued by South West Trains at Wimbledon Station. I was able to
join their Gold Service and obtain Network Card discounts as well as
additional benefits from South West Trains. Today I was told that I am
no longer a member of their Gold Service, my ticket is NOT valid as a
Network Card, I am no longer entitled to Network Card discounts and
that if I want my original ticket restored, I have to get it replaced
AGAIN, by South West Trains - at a charge! Is this really correct?

More insult, more injury - I discovered that I did not have to have my
card replaced in the first place, and that I could have waited till
today to do it in my own time, rather than standing at Clapham Common
Station at 1115PM!

On 13 Jul, 11:12, Railist wrote:
An error message "30" appeared on the display at the gate, at Kings
Cross Station. I was told that I could go through the barriers as the
staff member on duty said that the error message referred to the the
system wide error that affected Oyster.

....which, at the time, they thought it did.

At Clapham Common Station, I was told by a lady there that I *had* to
renew my card there and then, as the card would never work anywhere
else.

....which, by then, they'd realised was the case. I'm not sure what the
"code 30" issue is, but it does mean that an unspecified number of
unfortunate types like yourself need a new physical Oyster card.

The transaction took over 30 minutes while a queue of angry
people behind me stood, accusing me of being a difficult customer and
that I must have been training the man behind the counter in how to
deal with problem passengers. At no point did any staff defend me or
explain to the people that I was only following LU staff
instructions.

Why didn't /you/ explain to the people that this was what you were
doing, if it bothered you so much?

To add insult to injury, my replacement card now *apparently* offers
fewer benefits than the original. My original card was an Annual Gold
Card issued by South West Trains at Wimbledon Station. I was able to
join their Gold Service and obtain Network Card discounts as well as
additional benefits from South West Trains. Today I was told that I am
no longer a member of their Gold Service, my ticket is NOT valid as a
Network Card, I am no longer entitled to Network Card discounts and
that if I want my original ticket restored, I have to get it replaced
AGAIN, by South West Trains - at a charge! Is this really correct?

You've presumably got the Gold Card Record Card issued by SWT at the
same time as they issued your original Oyster season? If so, then
you're fine - it's the record card that's required to demonstrate Gold
Card eligibility, not the Oyster.

I'm not sure what the legal rather than practical situation is, but
I'd be amazed if it were different - LUL staff aren't really trained
in the mysterious vagaries of National Rail, and don't tend to have a
clue about Gold Cards, Network Cards, etc.

More insult, more injury - I discovered that I did not have to have my
card replaced in the first place, and that I could have waited till
today to do it in my own time, rather than standing at Clapham Common
Station at 1115PM!

Well, clearly, as long as you can get out of the system - did you ask
the staff at Clapham to let you through last night and they
refused...?

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org

On Jul 13, 1:10*pm, John B wrote:
On 13 Jul, 11:12, Railist wrote:

An error message "30" appeared on the display at the gate, *at Kings
Cross Station. I was told that I could go through the barriers as the
staff member on duty said that the error message referred to the the
system wide error that affected Oyster.

...which, at the time, they thought it did.

At Clapham Common Station, I was told by a lady there that I *had* to
renew my card there and then, as the card would never work anywhere
else.

...which, by then, they'd realised was the case. I'm not sure what the
"code 30" issue is, but it does mean that an unspecified number of
unfortunate types like yourself need a new physical Oyster card.

I very much doubt that this information was clarified between me
touching in at Kings Cross at around 2230hrs, and getting off at
Clapham Common.

The transaction took over 30 minutes while a queue of angry
people behind me stood, accusing me of being a difficult customer and
that I must have been training the man behind the counter in how to
deal with problem passengers. At no point did any staff defend me or
explain to the people that I was only following LU staff
instructions.
Why didn't /you/ explain to the people that this was what you were
doing, if it bothered you so much?

Because angry people tend not to listen to the person they perceive is
the source of their anger.

To add insult to injury, my replacement card now *apparently* offers
fewer benefits than the original. My original card was an Annual Gold
Card issued by South West Trains at Wimbledon Station. I was able to
join their Gold Service and obtain Network Card discounts as well as
additional benefits from South West Trains. Today I was told that I am
no longer a member of their Gold Service, my ticket is NOT valid as a
Network Card, I am no longer entitled to Network Card discounts and
that if I want my original ticket restored, I have to get it replaced
AGAIN, by South West Trains - at a charge! Is this really correct?

You've presumably got the Gold Card Record Card issued by SWT at the
same time as they issued your original Oyster season? If so, then
you're fine - it's the record card that's required to demonstrate Gold
Card eligibility, not the Oyster.

No, LUL, despite your claim of being vague about National Rail did say
that they had to keep the original record card, and that the new one
would be fine, despite my doubts.

I'm not sure what the legal rather than practical situation is, but
I'd be amazed if it were different - LUL staff aren't really trained
in the mysterious vagaries of National Rail, and don't tend to have a
clue about Gold Cards, Network Cards, etc.

More insult, more injury - I discovered that I did not have to have my
card replaced in the first place, and that I could have waited till
today to do it in my own time, rather than standing at Clapham Common
Station at 1115PM!

Well, clearly, as long as you can get out of the system - did you ask
the staff at Clapham to let you through last night and they
refused...?

Because I had another bus journey to make, so when she said I couldn't
use the card again, I, for some reason, believed her.
Then on the bus the driver told everyone not to bother swiping in as
Oyster wasn't working.

--
John Band
john at johnband dot orgwww.johnband.org

On Sun, 13 Jul 2008, Railist wrote:

I was affected by the Oyster problem on Saturday, 12 July.

That sounds completely bloody awful. You've made a complaint, right? If
they don't fix everything for you, for free, in a timely manner (which i'm
sure they will), small-claims them.

tom

--
THE DRUMMER FROM DEF LEPPARD'S ONLY GOT ONE ARM!

On 13 Jul, 13:19, Railist wrote:
An error message "30" appeared on the display at the gate, at Kings
Cross Station. I was told that I could go through the barriers as the
staff member on duty said that the error message referred to the the
system wide error that affected Oyster.

...which, at the time, they thought it did.

At Clapham Common Station, I was told by a lady there that I *had* to
renew my card there and then, as the card would never work anywhere
else.

...which, by then, they'd realised was the case. I'm not sure what the
"code 30" issue is, but it does mean that an unspecified number of
unfortunate types like yourself need a new physical Oyster card.

I very much doubt that this information was clarified between me
touching in at Kings Cross at around 2230hrs, and getting off at
Clapham Common.

True - in which case the person at KX was at fault, there were posters
up at Whitechapel by 1900 saying that anyone whose card came up with a
Code 30 would need a new one.

To add insult to injury, my replacement card now *apparently* offers
fewer benefits than the original. My original card was an Annual Gold
Card issued by South West Trains at Wimbledon Station. I was able to
join their Gold Service and obtain Network Card discounts as well as
additional benefits from South West Trains. Today I was told that I am
no longer a member of their Gold Service, my ticket is NOT valid as a
Network Card, I am no longer entitled to Network Card discounts and
that if I want my original ticket restored, I have to get it replaced
AGAIN, by South West Trains - at a charge! Is this really correct?

You've presumably got the Gold Card Record Card issued by SWT at the
same time as they issued your original Oyster season? If so, then
you're fine - it's the record card that's required to demonstrate Gold
Card eligibility, not the Oyster.

No, LUL, despite your claim of being vague about National Rail did say
that they had to keep the original record card, and that the new one
would be fine, despite my doubts.

Hmm. In that situation I wouldn't have handed the record card over in
a million years. However, the woman was still wrong: LUL-issued annual
Travelcards are also valid as Gold Cards on National Rail. At
absolutely worst, you've lost the SWT-specific benefits.

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloa...info-07-07.pdf

More insult, more injury - I discovered that I did not have to have my
card replaced in the first place, and that I could have waited till
today to do it in my own time, rather than standing at Clapham Common
Station at 1115PM!

Well, clearly, as long as you can get out of the system - did you ask
the staff at Clapham to let you through last night and they
refused...?

Because I had another bus journey to make, so when she said I couldn't
use the card again, I, for some reason, believed her.
Then on the bus the driver told everyone not to bother swiping in as
Oyster wasn't working.

So she was right that you couldn't use the card again.

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org

On Jul 13, 1:10 pm, John B wrote:
...which, by then, they'd realised was the case. I'm not sure what the
"code 30" issue is, but it does mean that an unspecified number of
unfortunate types like yourself need a new physical Oyster card.

Looks like LUL have been disabling various Oyster cards. I wonder if a
load have been hacked to give free journeys and LUL were just
disabling any in a specific id range. I can't see any other reason why
they'd require people to get whole new cards since it should be fairly
easy to soft reset the ones they've got. No doubt we'll just get some
spin about "system problems" however and never hear any more about it.
Curious how this unique event has occured only a couple of weeks after
some hackers claim to have cracked the system.

B2003

In message
, at
01:36:46 on Mon, 14 Jul 2008, remarked:
Looks like LUL have been disabling various Oyster cards. I wonder if a
load have been hacked to give free journeys and LUL were just
disabling any in a specific id range. I can't see any other reason why
they'd require people to get whole new cards since it should be fairly
easy to soft reset the ones they've got. No doubt we'll just get some
spin about "system problems" however and never hear any more about it.

That's a fascinating conspiracy theory, but the only cards that are
supposed to be disabled are ones that were actually used early on
Saturday. Won't news leak out if lots of cards are disabled that weren't
used on Saturday?

Curious how this unique event has occured only a couple of weeks after
some hackers claim to have cracked the system.

As it seems very likely that the problem was a software update gone
wrong, that update might have indeed been about hacked cards - even if
the idea wasn't to disable all the hacked cards [1] by stealth (in
addition to making hacked cards easier to spot).

[1] And a hundred thousand non-hacked ones as collateral damage.
--
Roland Perry

On Jul 14, 10:02 am, Roland Perry wrote:
That's a fascinating conspiracy theory, but the only cards that are
supposed to be disabled are ones that were actually used early on
Saturday.

If the mechanism for permanently disabling a card means they have to
be touched to a gate that would rather follow wouldn't it?

As it seems very likely that the problem was a software update gone
wrong, that update might have indeed been about hacked cards - even if
the idea wasn't to disable all the hacked cards [1] by stealth (in
addition to making hacked cards easier to spot).

Software update to what, the cards or the gates? If the latter how can
that brick a card? If it was the former and they were doing a firmware
update to all the cards then they obviously learnt the hard way that
firmware updates should only be done very carefully, and preferably
not at all unless its really really essential. Given LULs track record
however I wouldn't put it past them to do something that dumb.
Alternatively perhaps the cards have some sort of irreversable kill
switch or flag that was enabled by mistake. Either way , I suspect
we're not going to get the whole story.

B2003

In message
, at
03:03:47 on Mon, 14 Jul 2008, remarked:
On Jul 14, 10:02 am, Roland Perry wrote:
That's a fascinating conspiracy theory, but the only cards that are
supposed to be disabled are ones that were actually used early on
Saturday.

If the mechanism for permanently disabling a card means they have to
be touched to a gate that would rather follow wouldn't it?

So you think the idea was to disable *some* cards, but the system had a
brainstorm and disabled *all* of them?

As it seems very likely that the problem was a software update gone
wrong, that update might have indeed been about hacked cards - even if
the idea wasn't to disable all the hacked cards [1] by stealth (in
addition to making hacked cards easier to spot).

Software update to what, the cards or the gates? If the latter how can
that brick a card?

I don't know if you can update the firmware in the cards. Do they even
have something to update?

If it was the former and they were doing a firmware
update to all the cards then they obviously learnt the hard way that
firmware updates should only be done very carefully, and preferably
not at all unless its really really essential.

That is always the case with any kind of critical update.

Given LULs track record however I wouldn't put it past them to do
something that dumb. Alternatively perhaps the cards have some sort of
irreversable kill switch or flag that was enabled by mistake.

This is more consistent with their inability to "reverse" the process.
It's more scalable to do it that way than to have a blacklist of cards
available at every single Oyster reader.

Either way , I suspect we're not going to get the whole story.

I have a feeling we haven't heard the end of this.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07...uter_problems/
--
Roland Perry

On Jul 14, 11:22 am, Roland Perry wrote:
If the mechanism for permanently disabling a card means they have to
be touched to a gate that would rather follow wouldn't it?

So you think the idea was to disable *some* cards, but the system had a
brainstorm and disabled *all* of them?

That would be my guess - a simple programming mistake caused some
isThisADodgyCard() test always to return true so it killed them all.

I don't know if you can update the firmware in the cards. Do they even
have something to update?

Some simple cards are hardwired with just a couple of numeric
registers to carry values but Oysters will have onboard software
because they have to store a simple database of places and times
visited plus there's encryption going on. Whether that software is in
ROM or something read-write akin to flash that can be updated I dunno.
Obviously it has some sort of R/W memory to store the DB , balance etc
anyway.

This is more consistent with their inability to "reverse" the process.
It's more scalable to do it that way than to have a blacklist of cards
available at every single Oyster reader.

Yup.

I have a feeling we haven't heard the end of this.

Certainly not from the poor buggers who got stranded with a broken
card either. )

B2003