McDonald's Locations Worldwide Temporarily Close Over Mysterious System Outage

Stacey Ritzen
·2 min read

McDonald's locations worldwide are experiencing widespread system technology outages, with issues being reported over wide swaths of the United States, Europe, Asia, and Australia. And for customers across the globe, it remains unclear as to what is causing the interruptions.

The chain's corporate headquarters based out of Chicago told media outlets on Friday that the issue was not due to a cybersecurity attack, but declined to provide additional information.

“We are aware of a technology outage, which impacted our restaurants; the issue is now being resolved,” McDonald's said in a statement, per the Associated Press. “We thank customers for their patience and apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.”

Downdetector, an outage tracking platform, has reported technical issues with the McDonald’s app in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Austria, Netherlands, and Sweden. In some instances, locations asked that customers order directly at the restaurant counter until the issue was resolved, while other stores temporarily closed altogether.

Social media users are likewise flagging issues across the globe. In China, the phrase "McDonald’s crashed" was trending on the country's social media platform Weibo on Friday, with around 50 million view on posts pertaining to the outages. McDonald’s Hong Kong posted on Facebook that "due to a computer system failure, "mobile ordering and self-ordering kiosks are not functioning."

The website for McDonald’s Taiwan likewise alerted customers that delivery service has been suspended for "system maintenance," while one location in Bangkok, Thailand reportedly had a plywood covering the door with a sign stating that technicians were updating the system.

Similar reports have come in from locations in Denmark, London, Milan, Singapore, Japan, and New Zealand. The owner of several McDonald’s restaurants in central Sweden told the local newspaper Nya Wermlands Tidning that "all McDonald’s restaurants are connected to a global network and that is what’s messed up."

The company has not provided a timeline on when the outages would be fixed, but it seems as though mobile and app ordering was resuming service in some locations by midday Friday.