Random Actual Y2K Glitches (16 items)

• (#1) US Spy Satellites Stopped Working For Days

  As Y2K approached, there was reportedly significant worry within the United States' intelligence community that the celebrations surrounding the new century could be tainted by terrorist activity. Determined to be as prepared as possible, a computer patch meant to avert any potential Y2K glitches was put into place.

  But instead of averting glitches, this computer patch ended up turning the data being sent from five US spy satellites into a garbled mess that no one was able to decipher. The glitch, which occurred in an intelligence program called "Talent Keyhole," took about three days to fix. Pentagon spokesperson Susan Hansen stated:

  "The outage diminished capacity for a while ... a couple of days, but backup procedures were put in place almost immediately."
• (#2) The NHS Sent False Down Syndrome Test Results To Pregnant Women

  As a result of a Y2K bug, more than 150 pregnant women in the United Kingdom may have received incorrect results from a test for Down Syndrome. From January 24 to May 4, 2000, the PathLAN system at Northern General Hospital, which was responsible for processing the results of the tests given to women at nine hospitals in South Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, and the East Midlands gave these potentially incorrect results out.

  According to a U.K. government report, the computer system incorrectly calculated the ages of the mothers-to-be, which meant many of the women were incorrectly told their babies would be at low risk for contracting Down Syndrome. If the ages had been correctly calculated during a routine screening, the women would have been identified as having high-risk pregnancies and would have had the chance to get a more conclusive amniocentesis test earlier in their pregnancies. 

  Four of these women are known to have later given birth to Down Syndrome babies, while two others terminated their pregnancies.
• (#3) Some Slot Machines In Delaware Went Haywire

  Computers reading the date as January 1,1900, rather than January 1, 2000, was a very common Y2K glitch. In Delaware, around 800 slot machines shut down because of this date malfunction.

  At least 150 of these machines were located at racetracks. According to John A. Koskinen of the President's Council on Year 2000 Conversion, these slot machines shut down because their software had been programmed to look three days ahead.
• (#4) The US Naval Observatory Temporarily Didn't Know What The Date Was

  The US Naval Observatory was established in 1830 and has been the official timekeeper for the country since 1845. But for 45 minutes on New Year's Day 2000, the observatory's millennium countdown website incorrectly listed the date as January 1, 19100 in the time zones that had already entered the new century.

  This glitch, which the Navy described as a "bump in the road" and a "black eye," didn't affect the official master clock in Washington, DC.  Navy spokesperson John Fleming stated the glitch was caused by an error in a JavaScript written in a programming language that wasn't Y2K ready.

  "This really is a non-problem," Fleming said. "It was almost like a typo that was fixed within 45 minutes [after it was discovered by a technician] at about 1:30 or 1:45 am.''
• (#5) Medicare Payments Were Delayed By One Day

  Medicare officials had long been worried about its computer system's ability to avoid any problems associated with the calendar rolling over to 2000. In August 1997, a billion-dollar project called the Medicare Transaction System that was meant to replace the old computer system had been scrapped by the Clinton administration due to poor management and cost overruns.

  In 1998, Nancy-Ann Min DeParle, the head of the Health Care Financing Administration (which oversees Medicare), told a House Ways and Means subcommittee that Medicare claims payments could be delayed if the agency's computer system wasn't Y2K compliant.

  WBut by early 1999, DeParle was optimistic the agency would have its system Y2K-ready by the White House-mandated deadline of March 31 of that year. Although the Y2K bug was thought to maybe affect the Medicare system in some way, DeParle didn't expect any large-scale problems.

  In the end, $50 million in Medicare payments got delayed by one day because of a Y2K bug in the electronic fund transfer process at a bank that handled the transactions. And some Medicare provider claims got rejected because the date on the claims were incorrectly listed as either 1900 or 2099.
• (#6) 911 Systems In Parts Of North Carolina Faltered

  The 911 emergency system for Charlotte, NC, broke down on December 29, 1999, while it was undergoing testing to make sure it was Y2K ready.

  911 systems in other parts of the country, such as Minneapolis, MN, and Orange County, Florida, also experienced problems connected to the Y2K bug. 
• (#7) Employees Of Opera Company Were Unable To Collect Child Subsidies After Payroll System Changed The Ages Of Their Children

  The Berlin-based Deutsche Opera company accidentally wiped out government child subsidies due to its staff members when its computer system erroneously set its date back to 1900. By doing so, the ages of anyone listed in the system - including the children of the employees - were altered. For instance, if a child was born in 1990, the computer system registered the person as 90 years old, which in turn automatically stopped the child allowance payment the employee should have received.

  The company reset the computer system date to December 1999 as a temporary fix, then called in outside programmers to repair the system.

  Heinz-Dieter Sense, the Opera company's financial director, downplayed the issue caused by the Y2K bug. ''It's an unpleasant problem, but it is limited in scope,'' he said. ''Our employees were not that terribly upset.''
• (#8) A Newborn Baby Was Accidentally Registered As Being 100 Years Old

  Due to a Y2K glitch, the first baby born in Denmark in the 21st century was accidentally registered in the hospital's computer system as being 100 years old. Talk about skipping over an entire lifetime!
• (#9) Knoxville Utility Bills Were Printed With Incorrect Due Dates

  Hundreds of customers received bills from the Knoxville Utilities Board with incorrect due dates. Instead of January 2000, the due dates were listed as either January 1900 or January 2099. 
• (#10) A Video Store Customer Got Charged $91,000 For Renting 'The General's Daughter'

  A customer got quite a shock when he tried to try to return his rented copy of The General's Daughter to a Super Video in upstate New York. A Y2K glitch resulted in the store's computer billing the customer $91,250 - an amount equivalent to the return being 100 years overdue!

  The owner of the store, Terry Field, told Reuters: "The clerk and I were shocked and then zeroed out the late charge and gave the customer a free video rental and wished him 'Happy New Year.'"
• (#11) Godiva Chocolatier’s New York City Store Experienced Total Systems Failure

  Customers at Godiva's store in New York likely had their chocolate craving interrupted as the establishment experienced a complete systems failure, including its cash registers going down. Luckily for lovers of that brand of chocolate, the store was back up and running within three hours.
• (#12) People In Central Montana Couldn’t Make Long-Distance Calls For Three Hours

  As the calendar turned to 2000, people in parts of central Montana found they were unable to make any long-distance phone calls. The outage lasted for about three hours.
• (#13) Lamonts Department Store Blamed Bankruptcy On Y2K Prep

  Lamonts Apparel Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The company, which operated 38 department stores in the Pacific Northwest, claimed its cash flow had been badly affected by poor spring and summer sales. They also claimed there were unexpected costs while attempting to make the stores' computer systems Y2K ready. Lamonts spent $10 million to install new computerized cash registers and other equipment in an attempt to combat the Y2K bug.
• (#14) Government Phone Numbers In The Milwaukee White Pages Were Way Off

  Ameritech Corp. had to agree to reprint the government listings section of the Milwaukee, WI, white pages and hand deliver the section for free to customers because the listings had so many mistakes in them. Although the company had updated its software to make it Y2K compliant, the software had a bug(s) in it that caused the errors in the government listings.
• (#15) Washington, DC Budget Reports Were Delayed

  The District of Columbia replaced its old computerized financial management system with a new, Y2K-compliant system in late 1999. However, this upgrade did not keep some budget reports from being delayed.
• (#16) There Was A 30-Minute Power Outage In Carson City, NV

  This power outage, which disrupted service for thousands of residents, was originally thought to be the result of a Y2K glitch. But it may have actually been caused by a mylar balloon that was launched shortly after midnight to celebrate the new millennium. Because these helium-filled balloons have a metallic coating, they can cause equipment failure if they come into contact with power lines.

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