Computers Down At All Illinois Motor Vehicle Centers Wednesday; Re-opening Thursday

A computer outage affected all of the 138 motor vehicle facilities in Illinois Wednesday.  But they're back on line Thursday morning.

Secretary of State Spokesman Dave Druker says the outage began Wednesday morning and some facilities were coming back online slowly. But Druker recommends people postpone visits if they can.

In the meanwhile, customers who showed up to take a driving test, renew a license or to get a state ID, may not be completely out of luck.

"Wherever possible, we're filling out paper forms with the information, which we can then input later into the computer, when it's up and running, long after the customers had left," said Spokesman Henry Haupt.

Late Wednesday it was discovered  the problem was like so many others in life - miscommunication. Spokesman Henry Haupt put it this way: the mainframe computer in Springfield "wasn't properly communicating with and recording data entered from the computer terminals at the facilities."

But it's been fixed now.

Staffers at the facilities were trying to do as much as possible with pen and paper.
 
Some customers were being sent home with courtesy cards allowing them to return another time without having to wait in line.