Ticketing/Entry System Crash

[tissandtully]

Ticketing data isn’t stored in the MagicBand management system database..... It actually is some amount of MagicBand/NGE data (mostly a reference ID) that’s stored in ATS.

MagicBand or not, tickets can’t be validated if ATS is down.

When you scan a MagicBand at a tapstile, an API call is made to the MagicBand system to receive the NGE reference ID for your MDX account. ATS is then checked for tickets associated with your account and if you have a valid one, you are granted admission to the park. FastPass+ and most other NGE systems work in a similar way.

The reason why MagicBands were “working” during this incident is because the tapstiles were in “Auto-Green” mode.

Is there a way to not require park entry for FP+ to work? I know this is how FP+ worked up until a year or so ago, it didn't require park entry be validated for your FP+ to work.

So would it be possible in situations like this for management to flip a switch that essentially sets a setting to Entry=Not Required for FP+? This way, people who were just let in and entry wasn't validated, their FP+ would still work?

 

[aaronml]

Is there a way to not require park entry for FP+ to work? I know this is how FP+ worked up until a year or so ago, it didn't require park entry be validated for your FP+ to work.

So would it be possible in situations like this for management to flip a switch that essentially sets a setting to Entry=Not Required for FP+? This way, people who were just let in and entry wasn't validated, their FP+ would still work?

Yes, the Park Entry requirement can be disabled and I suspect it was during the outage.

 

[BoarderPhreak]

As if the curmudgeons here were worth the bother...

Your anti-curmudgeon curmudgeoness is curmudgeonly.

 

[Thelazer]

Try calling there booking phone line for special events and listen to... 9 menu options of stuff like...

"For magical haircuts, at a old timely barber shop, in the heart of the magic kingdom, just look for the barber pole, press 2" "for experiences like no other, including those that can only happen here like a tour of the backstage of Epcot and a walk around the kingdom's best deserts, press 3"

If you want to see a real nightmare.

 

[bhg469]

With respect, a lot of the questions you ask are quite naive.

Software system issues are commonplace in our society, and the idea that Disney should somehow be immune to the effects of our entire society's increased reliance on technology makes no sense. Many companies have had software system issues in recent years, and in some cases such failures have resulted in hundreds of deaths, and in other cases exposed millions of Americans to identity theft and other forms of fraud. A few hours delay getting into a theme park pales by comparison. If anything, the fact that the problems Disney has had with technology have been comparatively infrequent and inconsequential is what is notable, but of course that rarity and lack of severity of issues is perhaps why so many people are so quick to go off the rails and blow every little problem way out of proportion whenever there is an issue.

Incidentally, just because it doesn't include the provisions you want it to include doesn't mean that Disney doesn't have backup plans. It is one thing to expect triple-redundancy when people's lives are at stake (Read: Boeing 737 MAX) or when you're responsible for safeguarding someone else's sensitive private information (Read: Equifax Data Breach), but to expect that kind of redundancy to keep a bar code reader operating is irrational. SMH

I'm going to chime in here and tell you there are redundancies. My job is to engineer the systems that validate tickets to sporting events and concerts. If there's an outage, our stuff still works, if there's a catastrophic outage, our stuff still works. The level of data that's comes back to the client is the only thing that suffers. Disney dropped the ball here big time. The people waiting outside should have just been let in. What percentage of these people showing up had invalid tickets? What is the worst that could happen? They get in free only to spend money?

 

[bUU]

That might be relevant if we weren’t talking about theme parks.

Iger isn't the chairman of the theme parks division. He is the chairman of the entire corporation.

Regardless, since you have such a purist attitude, maybe you should skip Disney and visit theme parks run by a company that just does theme parks and nothing else.

 

[bUU]

So you believe there is a backup system that also failed then

If you don't then you don't know much about software systems. If there was no backup systems, with as few incidents as we've heard about, it would be a veritable miracle. No primary software system is that reliable, except for the ones controlling spaceships and surgical lasers.

I can understand not letting everyone straight in, but is there seriously no better alternative than making everyone wait in line for guest services?

None of the talking heads here have come up with one - given how much they all seem to think they know how to run theme parks better than the experts, wouldn't that indicate that there isn't one? LOL!

 

[bUU]

If the outage was only a few hours long, I would think the risk of letting people in without verifying their access would be very small.

Which is why you'll never get a job in risk management... not only because you don't know what you don't know but because you seem quite ready to advocate for risks without adequate assurance of controls. That's an immediately disqualification.

The people waiting outside should have just been let in.

Stick to engineering systems. You don't seem to have the background for risk management.

 

[xdan0920]

If you don't then you don't know much about software systems. If there was no backup systems, with as few incidents as we've heard about, it would be a veritable miracle. No primary software system is that reliable, except for the ones controlling spaceships and surgical lasers.

None of the talking heads here have come up with one - given how much they all seem to think they know how to run theme parks better than the experts, wouldn't that indicate that there isn't one? LOL!

They always let people in when the ticket entry failed. They try and get it back up, but if it's not back up and running relatively quickly, the CMs would just let the guests in. There is zero bidness reasons to keep people out like they did the other day. You can keep LYING and MAKING UP reasons why they didn't do that this time, but you should know, that's the back up to the back up. Just let them in.

 

[bUU]

What is your business continuity plan when this system is down? That is not irrational... that is just good business sense.

What's irrational is expecting that the continuity plan must be what you want it to be and retroactively avoid the circumstances we saw last week. You can start bringing that up after the third time this happens. Then it would begin to have some small bit of relevance. But watch - the next time the same failures occur, I bet Disney will have an improved plan for dealing with it, because that's how things work in the real world.

The easiest and most customer friendly solution is to simply let people in.

Of course you would think that. Another random person on the Internet hot-to-trot to incur risks onto the company without personal accountability for having made that decision. Yeehaw! All the reckless cowboys are coming out to play today.

 

[bUU]

Your anti-curmudgeon curmudgeoness is curmudgeonly.

Perhaps, but just a pale shadow of the irrational nonsense to which I'm replying.

 

[xdan0920]

What's irrational is expecting that the continuity plan must be what you want it to be and retroactively avoid the circumstances we saw last week. You can start bringing that up after the third time this happens. Then it would begin to have some small bit of relevance. But watch - the next time the same failures occur, I bet Disney will have an improved plan for dealing with it, because that's how things work in the real world.

Of course you would think that. Another random person on the Internet hot-to-trot to incur risks onto the company without personal accountability for having made that decision. Yeehaw! All the reckless cowboys are coming out to play today.

More LIES. You are lying. These are lies.

 

[lazyboy97o]

Iger isn't the chairman of the theme parks division. He is the chairman of the entire corporation.

I will spell it out for you. Iger makes wide edicts regarding the parks and delegates not to experts, but individuals who share his lack of experience.

None of the talking heads here have come up with one - given how much they all seem to think they know how to run theme parks better than the experts, wouldn't that indicate that there isn't one? LOL!

Disney’s previous until this incident backup has been mentioned several times.

What's irrational is expecting that the continuity plan must be what you want it to be and retroactively avoid the circumstances we saw last week. You can start bringing that up after the third time this happens. Then it would begin to have some small bit of relevance. But watch - the next time the same failures occur, I bet Disney will have an improved plan for dealing with it, because that's how things work in the real world.

This is not the first time the system has gone down. At this point you either have issues with comprehension or are lying and deliberately ignoring past events as they fail to suit your narrative that the change is most appropriate and better.

Of course you would think that. Another random person on the Internet hot-to-trot to incur risks onto the company without personal accountability for having made that decision. Yeehaw! All the reckless cowboys are coming out to play today.

So now Disney’s experts are also reckless cowboys?

 

[eliza61nyc]

Try calling there booking phone line for special events and listen to... 9 menu options of stuff like...

"For magical haircuts, at a old timely barber shop, in the heart of the magic kingdom, just look for the barber pole, press 2" "for experiences like no other, including those that can only happen here like a tour of the backstage of Epcot and a walk around the kingdom's best deserts, press 3"

If you want to see a real nightmare.

lol, I just had a seizure. I hate loathe and despise those automated prompts EVERYWHERE. what bothers me is that in the time it takes to go through all the options I could have asked my question 12 different ways to a live operator.

 

[ImperfectPixie]

What's irrational is expecting that the continuity plan must be what you want it to be and retroactively avoid the circumstances we saw last week. You can start bringing that up after the third time this happens. Then it would begin to have some small bit of relevance. But watch - the next time the same failures occur, I bet Disney will have an improved plan for dealing with it, because that's how things work in the real world.

Of course you would think that. Another random person on the Internet hot-to-trot to incur risks onto the company without personal accountability for having made that decision. Yeehaw! All the reckless cowboys are coming out to play today.

Okay, Sheldon.

 

[LSLS]

If you don't then you don't know much about software systems. If there was no backup systems, with as few incidents as we've heard about, it would be a veritable miracle. No primary software system is that reliable, except for the ones controlling spaceships and surgical lasers.

I would assume they do, but no, I don't know much on software systems employed by Disney or other ticketing events/parks/arenas/etc.

None of the talking heads here have come up with one - given how much they all seem to think they know how to run theme parks better than the experts, wouldn't that indicate that there isn't one? LOL!

Sarcasm aside, are you saying that Disney in fact does not have a procedure in place for what to do if scanners are down? Or, as you have pointed out here, don't have a better answer to how to handle a situation like this than random guys on the internet that think they know how to run a park?

Honestly what's sad about this to me is that the solution of just letting them in would have worked (and has in the past). I would think you could even photo the tickets and get them scanned in later when the system was back on so that they couldn't just save that ticket for another day (if that was such a large concern). I think this just goes to the change in philosophy at the parks. Letting people in may have cost you some ticket sales, but would have ensured the guests were not inconvenienced. WDW decided that some people getting in for free (ie not getting that extra ticket money) was worth making guests sit in the sun for hours.

 

[starri42]

This entire episode has reminded me of a Root Cause Analysis at a Morbidity and Mortality conference.

 

[Kingtut]

I will spell it out for you. Iger makes wide edicts regarding the parks and delegates not to experts, but individuals who share his lack of experience.


Disney’s previous until this incident backup has been mentioned several times.


This is not the first time the system has gone down. At this point you either have issues with comprehension or are lying and deliberately ignoring past events as they fail to suit your narrative that the change is most appropriate and better.


So now Disney’s experts are also reckless cowboys?

Please stop feeding the troll. If the troll is really class of 2019 ( diaper up to and including thesis approval ) he/she has no real world experience with any kind of software system that has to be designed for non stop operation, and the processes you need to put in place for when your system inevitably goes down. Add to that non existent customer service experience and you get this as a result......

 

[danlb_2000]

Which is why you'll never get a job in risk management... not only because you don't know what you don't know but because you seem quite ready to advocate for risks without adequate assurance of controls. That's an immediately disqualification.

Stick to engineering systems. You don't seem to have the background for risk management.

Do you really enjoy acting superior of people you know nothing about?

 

[danlb_2000]

Of course you would think that. Another random person on the Internet hot-to-trot to incur risks onto the company without personal accountability for having made that decision. Yeehaw! All the reckless cowboys are coming out to play today.

You do realize that this is a fan site, and that nobody making "suggestions" on this topic actually believe they are making recommendations that Disney will read and follow? None of us, including you, have all the details and data needed to make an actual informed recommendation. On the other side of the coin, no matter you may believe, the idea of letting people in without validating tickets is no an absurd idea, I believe someone on this thread even said that it was Disney used to do.