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Tuesday, February 1, 2000

Computer Glitch Stops MVD Traffic

By Michael Coleman Journal Capitol Bureau SANTA FE -- The Motor Vehicles Division was open for business across New Mexico on Monday, but its computers weren't.

An early morning state government computer glitch crippled operations at MVD field offices and other state agencies Monday. The problem hadn't been fixed when offices closed for business late Monday afternoon, said general services spokesman Mark Moores. Moores said a device called a router, which allows computers at state offices around New Mexico to communicate with a mainframe computer in Santa Fe, was malfunctioning.

The state Engineer Office, Treasurer's Office, Risk Management Office, the Records and Archives building and welfare offices in Clovis and Raton were also affected, Moore said. Other state offices are served by separate routers and were unaffected.

"Some of the high-profile offices, like the MVD, are experiencing communication problems," Moores said. "We will continue to work on it throughout the night. We want to make sure it's fixed and fixed right." Moores said he hoped the problem is fixed by the start of business today. But he suggested anyone needing to conduct business at the MVD or other state agencies call to check on the status of the computers before traveling to those offices today.

MVD Spokeswoman Victoria Bransford said the agency's field offices were unable to process vehicle paperwork throughout most of the day Monday, resulting in a rash of angry customers.

Long lines at MVD field offices, coupled with a registration sticker problem, have led to increasing criticism from legislators and the general public. MVD has no automobile registration stickers to distribute to drivers wanting to re-register their vehicles for the month of February.

The company MVD hired to manufacture the stickers has run out of supplies and won't be able to deliver new stickers until Feb. 11.

Bransford said most MVD field offices remained open Monday and staffers tried to explain the computer glitch to the public. But the agency finally closed its offices at Winrock and Cottonwood malls in Albuquerque about 3 p.m., Bransford said. "We were not able to process any transactions," she said.

-- Homer Beanfang (Bats@inbellfry.com), February 01, 2000

Answers

State computers crash

http://www.abqjournal.com/news/8news01-31-00.htm

-- Homer Beanfang (Bats@inbellfry.com), February 01, 2000.

January 31, 2000

State Computers Crash The Associated Press SANTA FE -- A computer crash Monday had a ripple effect on the state water agency and threw a curve at the Motor Vehicle Division, which found itself unable to process driver's license applications.

The malfunction also caused problems for the state worker-compensation administration and the state records and archives center, said Mark Moores, spokesman for the General Services Department. But there was no impact on the Legislature.

"The vast majority of state offices are up and running normally," Moores said. The General Services Department operates the state's mainframe computer. On Monday morning, technicians detected a problem with one of the computer's routers.

"The router is a kind of gateway into the mainframe," Moores said. "There are a number of routers on the system, and we are having problems with just one of them."

Technicians will work through the night attempting to either work around the problem, reconfiguring the system to adapt, or to fix or replace the router entirely, he said.

The MVD, the Worker's Compensation Administration, the State Records and Archive Center and the State Engineer's Office, which oversees state water supplies, all found their computer access impaired Monday, he said.

"It was up and down through the morning. We decided to take it down instead of having this seesaw," Moores said. "We want to make sure it's fixed and fixed properly."

The most high-profile problem was for the MVD field offices, he said. "It basically means the systems -- the Motor Vehicle Division and these others -- are not able to communicate with the mainframe computer, which means they are not able to process their applications. "If you're trying to get a new driver's license, they're not able to process them," he said.

-- Homer Beanfang (Bats@inbellfry.com), February 01, 2000.

Local news said "it wasn't Y2k" related, but these are the same on- air personalities who said, immediately after similar problems were reported early in January, "Y2k has passed and since *nothing happened*..." you can donate your supplies to a local feed-the-poor charity. They can't be bothered to do a little investigative reporting. I hope they run out of gasoline; it would serve them right...

-- Debby S. (Debby@SWCP[ham].com), February 01, 2000.