McDonald’s system outage affects stores across the world

McDonald’s Corp. has been hit by a system outage that appears to have started in the Asia-Pacific region and spread to other markets globally, leaving customers unable to order at its stores and through electronic platforms.

The issue, caused by a problem with the fast-food giant’s computer system, rippled from Japan to Australia, New Zealand and several European countries on Friday, leaving some restaurants unable to take orders or serve food.

The outage began around midnight Chicago time and the company is working with markets that are still experiencing issues, McDonald’s said on its website. Many markets are back online, the company said.

“Notably, this issue was not directly caused by a cybersecurity event; rather, it was caused by a third-party provider during a configuration change,” according to the statement.

Social media users in the UK had reported being unable to place orders online on Friday morning. Issues there and in Ireland have now been resolved.

Problems were also occurring in Germany and other markets during the morning in Europe, a spokesperson said.

McDonald’s shares fell 0.95% in trading Friday.

The problems first appeared in Asia. Taiwan halted phone and online ordering while McDonald’s Japan said many outlets were forced to suspend their operations as the outage worsened.

McDonald’s in Hong Kong began resuming normal operations and customers were able to use its app and self-ordering kiosks again, according to a post published around 5 p.m. local time on its official Facebook page.

Online ordering had also restarted in mainland China, according to a Weibo post.