Tech Outage Leads McDonald's Across The Country To Shut Down Temporarily

If you're old enough to remember the turn of the millennium, chances are you have not-so-fond memories of the Y2K panic. It had everyone in a dither that there'd be a universal computer shutdown, and technology would presumably glitch us all back to the Edwardian era by failing to recognize any year beginning with "2" and "0." Well, obviously this didn't happen (much to the dismay of anyone fond of a good handlebar mustache or full-coverage bathing suit), but it did point out just how desperately dependent we are on computers to keep running smoothly. Case in point: When McDonald's experienced a system outage on March 15, not only were app users affected, but certain restaurants in countries all over the world actually had to shut down until the problem was addressed.

The outage began at 1 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time, but it was first noticed in Australia where it would have been afternoon. While it took around 12 hours for the problem to be fully resolved, many locations were offline for a much shorter time. In the U.S., where the affected cities included Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Phoenix, and Seattle, much of the impact was likely lessened by the timing. As one NYC McDonald's worker told CNN, while their location did experience a four-hour outage, they were up and running again by 5 a.m.