MA Car Inspections Back Online For First Time Since Global Outage

MASSACHUSETTS — Massachusetts drivers who have been waiting nearly a week since the global computer outage to get their vehicles inspected will be able to do so as of Wednesday morning, according to the state Department of Transportation.

MassDOT said inspections would resume after being out of commission since a Microsoft outage linked to CrowdStrike shut down computers at the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles system, as well as hospitals, airports, banks and transportation systems across the region, and the world.

MassDOT said the state RMV continues to coordinate with its vendor, OPUS, and inspection sites with the remaining issues. Because of the delay, the RMV is giving vehicle owners who need re-tests on failed inspections more time to get them.

Anyone whose re-inspection date was between July 19 and July 31 will now have until Aug. 10 to get their free re-inspection.

Motorcycle owners have been able to get inspections throughout this week.

While most of the outages were restored late Friday afternoon, airports across the country have experienced continued flight cancellations and delays related to the shutdown since then.

Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike said that the issue believed to be behind the outage was not a security incident or cyberattack and that the problem occurred when it deployed a faulty update to computers running Microsoft Windows.

The problem was first detected early Friday when computers in Australia running Microsoft Windows would not turn on, showing users the "blue screen of death."

The Associated Press contributed material to this report

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. X/Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)