Some Spark glitches stretch into fourth day

Spark’s site, voicemail, Xtramail, app and other services went offline on Monday evening. Photo / 123rf

Spark says it has now fixed most of the foulups caused by “routine maintenance” that went haywire on Monday night. But some glitches remain.

“Our team has restored most of our back-end systems to their usual function. This means customers are now able to call Spark, use our website, access voicemail services and their Xtramail,” a Spark spokeswoman said this morning.

“Our app may still experience some intermittent issues but customers can access MySpark online to top up and see usage. Our team are working on getting these final issues resolved.”

Spark stores will be open with full functionality today.

“We know this has been very frustrating for our customers and we want to thank them for their patience,” the spokeswoman said.

Earlier, the telco ruled out foul play, saying a maintenance blunder is to blame rather than hackers. Spark’s site, voicemail, Xtramail, app and other services went offline on Monday evening, triggering customer complaints on social media.

“It is not a cyber-attack,” the spokeswoman said on Tuesday afternoon.

“We were undergoing some routine maintenance overnight on some of our back-end systems which resulted in an unforeseen outage. We are working to get this back up and running as quickly as possible.”

At 8.39am on Monday, Spark posted to Twitter, “We’re aware of an issue currently impacting our back-end systems. This means customers may be unable to call Spark, access our website, app, voicemail services, or their Xtramail. Because our systems are currently down, the opening of some stores may be delayed today.”

Spark added, “Please note customers’ broadband, landline, and mobile services are unaffected. We are working with urgency to get our back-end systems up and running and will update customers here as we know more.”

A Spark spokeswoman told the Herald, “We are aware of an issue impacting our back-end systems. As a result, customers may be unable to access our website, app, voicemail services or their XtraMail. Because our systems are currently down, we are unable to support customers with inquiries, changes, or transactions if they contact us or come in-store.”

She added, “If customers have a medical dependency on their service and require urgent support, they can call us on 123 and press ‘9,’ otherwise we’re asking customers to try calling back later.”