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A global tech outrage caused major disruptions for retailers like Starbucks.
The massive outage was caused by a mishandled software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. The glitch has caused major disruptions for numerous industries and companies, including airlines like Delta, American, and United.
Meanwhile, during that time, McDonald’s Japan said that it could close 30% of its stores due to a systems outage that was unrelated to the CrowdStrike outage. The separate glitch affected the chain’s cash registers, which quickly garnered attention from users on social media during early Friday hours, who said that due to the issue, only Teriyaki and McChicken sandwiches could be ordered using cash.
McDonald’s is “currently investigating the cause and the timeline for recovery is unclear,” a local spokesperson for the company said in a statement to Bloomberg.
It marks the second system outage McDonald’s has faced this year. In March, a separate global tech outage forced the chain to close locations throughout Japan, Australia, and the U.K.
Meanwhile, kiosks at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport also appeared to be down early Friday morning.
Leo Zhadanovsky, who goes by @leozh on X, said in a post that “some of the McDonald’s order terminals were down, all due to the global outage going on.”
“This feels like episode of Mr. Robot,” Zhadanovsky said.
Starbucks is also being affected by the outage, according to Downdector, a website that tracks outages reported by users in real time. Roughly 82% of users reported that the main problem they were facing was being able order via the coffee chain’s app.
Some users said that mobile ordering was down and that the app was not working.
“Starbucks is among those companies experiencing impacts due to a widespread third-party systems outage, resulting in a temporary outage of our mobile order ahead and pay features,” said Jaci Anderson, director of corporate communications at Starbucks, in a statement.
“We continue to welcome and serve customers in the vast majority of our stores and drive-thrus and are doing everything we can to bring all systems online as quickly as possible. We apologize for any inconvenience,” she added.