Originally Posted By: Steve C
tif, thanks for passing that along. I heard from Brad Horton ("hortuna" here) from SPOT, and he related that it was a software upgrade gone bad -- the upgrade failed, and the system was dead for two days.

My understanding is that it was the link between the satellite receiver system on the ground, and the web service that updates SPOT Shared pages (and that also sends email/cell phone messages) that failed.

A different system takes the 911/SOS calls and transmits to SAR people, so at least that was not down. In fact Brad said there were several rescues in operation in N.America over the weekend based on the SPOT signals, during the time the website link was down.

> I asked if they could please post something publicly to let folks know about the issue since there are a lot of people 'home' watching folks out in the field and thinking there are issues when it was Spot's server crash that is causing messages to not get through.

That is a very good suggestion, and I think my contact also brought that up within the company. It would be good if the FindMeSpot website AND their weekend customer support phone message (saying they are closed) would have an updated message. They definitely need to make the "System is down" information available.


Unfortunately they still haven't posted anything publicly on their main site, facebook, or twitter. They didn't even respond to questions folks posted on their FB page about tracks/check-ins not coming through, and the worry it was causing. (One woman was asking who to call since she hasn't gotten a check in in 2 days).

I'm guessing they don't want the bad press, especially with a new product launching right now. They absolutely need to make a system down notification so people watching/waiting for tracks or check in's don't panic. That panic could lead to hundreds of false missing persons/SAR reports being filed and lots of resources being wasted and/or misdirected.