You need to restart your PC 15 times to fix CrowdStrike outage

The infamous blue screen of death is causing chaos around the world — and Microsoft has suggested a bizarre way to fix it.

Everyone is seeing blue.

The massive IT outage blamed on cybersecurity technology company CrowdStrike has caused some computers running Microsoft Windows to crash and continually reboot.

Dubbed the “largest IT outage in history”, the problem began on July 19 and was caused by a faulty update to CrowdStrike’s Falcon antivirus program.

Texas-based company CrowdStrike said yesterday a “fix” had been deployed, however experts are warning it could take “weeks” to fully restore all systems.

The grim prognosis was made because many computers may need to be fixed manually.

In the meantime, CrowdStrike has recommended people take the following steps as a workaround:

1. Boot in Safe Mode

2. Navigate to Windows\System32\drivers\CrowdStrike

3. Find and delete “C-00000291*.sys”

4. Reboot normally

Another solution is to restart the computer — although you may need to do this 15 times.

“We’ve received feedback from customers that several reboots (as many as 15 have been reported) may be required, but overall feedback is that reboots are an effective troubleshooting step at this stage,” a Microsoft spokesman said, Business Insider reported.

Suffering from Crowdstrike BSOD outage?

Have you tried turning it off and on again 15 times? pic.twitter.com/nywyMFgTl8

— It's FOSS (@itsfoss2) July 19, 2024

Although quickly identified, the bug has caused cascading effects, impacting airlines, supermarkets, banks, stockmarkets and media companies around the globe.

The notorious blue screen of death (BSOD), a critical error screen displayed by Windows, has been seen across the globe — from airports in London to screens in Times Square in New York.

A blue screen is displayed at a currency exchange store at the Hong Kong International Airport on July 19, 2024 in Hong Kong, China. Picture: Anthony Kwan/Getty Images

A television screen displays a BBC announcement which reads “Sorry! Something's gone wrong” as the CBBC channel is off air due to an IT outage on July 19, 2024 in London, United Kingdom. Picture: Jack Taylor/Getty Images

A man takes a picture of the blue screen at self-checkout terminals of a supermarket in Sydney on July 19, 2024. Picture: Saeed KHAN/AFP

The blue screen of death was seen around the world. Picture: Twitter

CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz was deeply apologetic.

“Today was not a security or cyber incident. Our customers remain fully protected,” he said.

“We understand the gravity of the situation and are deeply sorry for the inconvenience and disruption. We are working with all impacted customers to ensure that systems are back up and they can deliver the services their customers are counting on.

“The issue has been identified and a fix has been deployed. There was an issue with a Falcon content update for Windows Hosts.”

Long queues of passengers form at the check-in counters at Ninoy Aquino International Airport. Picture: Ezra Acayan/Getty Images

Passengers wait for check-in counters to open at Manila’s airport. Picture: Ezra Acayan/Getty Images

Air passengers crowded into airports to wait for news as dozens of flights were cancelled and operators struggled to keep services on track.

CrowdStrike warned it could take a few days to return to normal.

In Australia, a meeting of the National Emergency Mechanism was called about 6pm on Friday.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the government was working closely with the National Cyber Security Coordinator.

In the US, President Joe Biden’s team spoke to CrowdStrike and those affected by the glitch “and is standing by to provide assistance as needed”, the White House said in a statement.

“Our understanding is that flight operations have resumed across the country, although some congestion remains,” a senior US administration official said.

Reports from the Netherlands and Britain suggested health services may have been affected by the disruption, meaning the full impact might not yet be known.

Media companies were also struggling, with Britain’s Sky News saying the glitch had ended its morning news broadcasts and Australia’s ABC similarly reporting major difficulties.

Banks in Kenya and Ukraine reported issues with their digital services, supermarkets in Australia had problems with payments, mobile phone carriers were disrupted and customer services in a number of companies went down.

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, said the outage caused “a seizure to the automotive supply chain”, while courts and jail bookings were delayed in California.

“The scale of this outage is unprecedented, and will no doubt go down in history,” said Junade Ali of Britain’s Institution of Engineering and Technology, adding that the last incident approaching the same scale was in 2017.

Shares in CrowdStrike slumped by 11 per cent in New York.

Everyone is seeing blue. Picture: Anthony Kwan/Getty Images

Office work has been severely disrupted by the “largest IT outage in history”. Picture: Twitter/sxchopea

Everywhere you look: blue screens of death pic.twitter.com/Jh1fdVflTD

— Morning Brew ☕️ (@MorningBrew) July 19, 2024

Flight chaos

From Amsterdam to Zurich, Singapore to Hong Kong, airport operators flagged technical issues that were disrupting their services.

While some airports halted all flights, in others airline staff had to check-in passengers manually.

The US Federal Aviation Administration initially ordered all flights grounded “regardless of destination”, though airlines said they were re-establishing their services and working through the backlog.

AFP footage showed frustrated and stranded passengers in airports from Milwaukee Mitchell to New York LaGuardia.

“It’s stressful. I’ve got family events going on this weekend. I don’t know if I’m going to make it to them,” said Jake Buettner, 46, trying to get to Florida from New York.

In Europe, major airports including Berlin, which had suspended all flights earlier on Friday, said departures and arrivals were gradually resuming.

Dozens of European flights were cancelled, however. Turkish Airlines said it had pulled 84 flights and Italian officials confirmed around 80 departures had been cancelled.

Across Latin America, airports were asking passengers to arrive for flights hours earlier than usual.

Chinese state media said Beijing’s airports had not been affected.

A screen informs travellers that train information is not running due to the global technical outage at Canal Street subway station on July 19, 2024 in New York City. Picture: Getty Images via AFP

Terry White Chemist at the Gasworks in Brisbane closed its doors during the outage. Picture David Clark

‘Common cause’

Companies were left patching up their systems and trying to assess the damage, even as officials tried to tamp down panic by ruling out foul play.

CrowdStrike’s Kurtz said in a statement his teams were “fully mobilised” to help affected customers and “a fix has been deployed”.

But Professor Oli Buckley of Britain’s Loughborough University was one of many experts who questioned the ease of rolling out a proper fix.

“While experienced users can implement the workaround, expecting millions to do so is impractical,” he said.

Other experts said the incident should prompt a widespread reconsideration of how reliant societies are on a handful of tech companies for such an array of services.

“We need to be aware that such software can be a common cause of failure for multiple systems at the same time,” said Professor John McDermid from Britain’s York University.

He said infrastructure should be designed “to be resilient against such common cause problems”

- with AFP

Originally published as You need to restart your PC 15 times to fix CrowdStrike outage