McDonald's restaurants across Australia have been forced to temporarily close, and other branches around the world have reported a widespread technology issue meaning customers can't pay for food.
Internal systems at Australian restaurants went offline since around 3:10pm local time, according to a report by News.com.au.
Online IT issues have also been reported in China including Hong Kong, Japan, Canada, South Korea, Taiwan and Germany.
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What we know
In Australia, internal systems at some restaurants have been down since around 3:10pm local time. Some stores have been forced to close completely, while others are only accepting cash orders, according to a report by news.com.au.
McDonald's Japan previously said on Twitter that there had been a “system failure” and that the company apologized “for any inconvenience this may cause and asks you to wait for some time until service is restored.” It does not explain why the outage occurred.
[お知らせ]
That's why that's why.
It's really cool.— マクドナルド (@McDonaldsJapan) March 15, 2024
A McDonald's employee in New Zealand told… New Zealand Herald A computer server crash means they are unable to take any orders or serve any food, as the screens used to take orders are not currently working.
Customers in Hong Kong were able to purchase food, but could not use mobile kiosks and self-order kiosks, according to a Facebook post on Friday. It says the outage was due to a “computer system failure.”
The statement continues: “Please order directly from the restaurant window.”
Taiwanese company McDonald's issued a similar statement, saying that its “24-hour Happy Delivery” service and phone ordering had been temporarily suspended due to the system undergoing maintenance.
UK social media users said they were unable to order food, but this has not been confirmed by McDonald's UK according to data from Downdetector On the website, UK-based McDonald's app users began reporting issues with orders this morning at around 5:30 a.m. local time.
Other issues have been reported from the US, Canada, and the Netherlands by Reddit users. Issues have also been reported in Germany by X users.
Newsweek I contacted McDonald's for comment via email.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
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