Service NSW app hit by two-hour outage

Service NSW experienced an “unexpected” two-hour outage of its app on Thursday afternoon that left people unable to log their visits to hospitality venues.

Under rules that started January 1, NSW residents must log their attendance at venues using the Service NSW app to scan a QR code.

However, residents started reporting that the app was not working at about 1pm, with some unable to access backup options to record their attendance at venues.

Service NSW confirmed the outage and its resolution at 4pm.

“This afternoon, the Service NSW App experienced an unexpected outage preventing some customers from checking in with the Covid safe check-in tool,” the agency said.

“The outage lasted for two hours and is now resolved.”

Service NSW said that despite the outage, it remained “vital that customer contact details are still collected digitally.”  

“In the event of an outage, customers and businesses are encouraged to use the Service NSW check-in webform for all check-ins,” it said.

“The webform was not impacted by the outage.

“Customers can access the webform by scanning the QR Code or businesses can display the check-in webform on their own devices for customers to use.”

However, at least one user reported issues with accessing even the webform backup.

Error messages displayed to users through the outage appeared to point to an authentication issue, but the agency did not immediately disclose the reason the app went down.