BART traces foul-up to botched software upgrade
(11-22) 11:34 PST OAKLAND -- BART has traced the technical problem that shut down the system for hours Friday and fouled the morning commute to a software upgrade that crashed its main computer, officials said.
Late-night trains were slowed to a crawl and morning service started three hours behind schedule after the computer and its backup went down. By the time trains were rolling, freeways leading to the Bay Bridge were a hopeless mess, packed with would-be riders who had taken to their cars.
The problem was rooted in a software upgrade that BART made to one of its network servers Thursday, said Alicia Trost, a spokeswoman for the agency. Twelve hours later, around midnight, the upgrade began to cause problems with the other servers on the system, crashing the central computer and delaying the last trains of the night for up to two hours as they moved under manual control.
"BART worked through the night to identify the root of the computer problem and tracked it to the upgrade made the day before," Trost said in a statement. "The server was returned to its original configuration and the problem was fixed."
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/BART-traces-foul-up-to-botched-software-upgrade-5001191.php