McDonald’s has apologised for a global software outage that left customers unable to buy Big Macs at stores around New Zealand yesterday. 

The Herald heard directly from an employee of one Auckland store on Friday evening who said a computer server crash meant they couldn’t take any orders or serve any food. 

Now McDonald’s has confirmed it “experienced a global technology system outage” that it “quickly identified and corrected”. 

It said the outage was not a cybersecurity issue but was instead caused by a “third-party provider during a configuration change”. 

“Many markets are back online, and the rest are in the process of coming back online,” Brian Rice, the Chicago-based company’s global chief information officer said. 

“Reliability and stability of our technology are a priority, and I know how frustrating it can be when there are outages.” 

“What happened today has been an exception to the norm, and we are working with absolute urgency to resolve it.” 

Rice thanked customers for their patience and apologised. 

Media outlets in Australia, Japan, UK, Sweden and the US all reported outages at restaurants yesterday. 

A McDonald’s NZ spokesperson yesterday said: “McDonald’s restaurants are experiencing an IT issue that’s impacting their ability to process orders. Our team is working to rectify the issues as soon as possible and we thank customers for their patience.” 

The staff member spoken to by the Herald said she understood the issue had affected all branches nationwide. 

She said the computer screens they used to take and receive orders were not working. 

The Herald understood several Auckland stores were affected, and had seen reports from Palmerston North and Wellington that stores there were unable to serve customers.