Travellers planning on a trip to the US were not going anywhere after the US State Bureau of Consular Affairs suffered a systems outage as it performed a software update to the Oracle-based US consular consolidated database (CCD).

The systems outage affected US consulates worldwide resulting in a massive backlog of visa and passport applications.

Systems administrators at the State Bureau of Consular Affairs started the CCD update on July 20 in line with Oracle recommendations which resulted in a three day systems outage.

On a post on the department’s website stated; “we have experienced CCD outages in the past, but they have never disrupted our ability to perform consular tasks to this extent.” 

Spokesperson Marie Harf said the problem is worldwide and not specific to any particular country, citizenship document, or visa category.

“We apologize to applicants and recognize this may cause hardship to applicants waiting on visas and passports. We are working to correct the issue as quickly as possible," Harf said.

The department stated it was trying to minimize economic impact.

The department’s embassies and consulates have printed close to 250,000 non-immigrant visas globally. 

“Based on our average production figures, we would have anticipated issuing closer to 480,000 non-immigrant visas in that time period, indicating we have been able to print documents for just over half of all approved travellers,” the website post said.