Digital Railcard Issues (National Rail Railcard App)

[bakerstreet]

Not my railcard, but an experience of a friend of mine.

Railcard had been working fine and contained photo.

Suddenly this afternoon, this message appeared




Upon pressing refresh, railcard displayed successfully again, with photo.

A few questions.

– Has anyone else experienced this?

– anyone with any insider knowledge, is it caused by general outage or an issue with the app on the specific phone itself?

– does the refresh require Wi-Fi/4G?

- Is this likely to happen again?

– If it requires Wi-Fi – 4G to refresh, what’s the best way of approaching this during an inspection. If you are a guard or RPI, what would you suggest?

Some further information

The app displayed the railcard successfully this morning, including photo, but this afternoon it did not.

We are not sure whether there was Wi-Fi/3G/4G when the refresh button was pressed

It is a disabled person’s rail card (adult).

 

[MrJeeves]

Hmmm... Coincidence?

Senior Railcard No Photo on App

Hello all, first time on this forum. My far better half purchased a 3-year senior railcard today online. We entered the passport details and took a photo, which we uploaded. When on the app it displays her name, issue - online and valid until date; it also has, a barcode with a long number...

www.railforums.co.uk

 

[bakerstreet]

Hmmm... Coincidence?

Senior Railcard No Photo on App

Hello all, first time on this forum. My far better half purchased a 3-year senior railcard today online. We entered the passport details and took a photo, which we uploaded. When on the app it displays her name, issue - online and valid until date; it also has, a barcode with a long number...

www.railforums.co.uk

Well spotted. Could be connected

 

[jamiearmley]

That message displays when there is insufficient data - bandwidth - whatever you want to call it to download the full rail card image.

It occurs when the rail card requires to be downloaded, - from memory - and I stand ready to be corrected on this- a download is required when the rail card has not been opened for 7 days.

Basically the rail card requires to be redownloaded every 7 days (or if not redownloaded some other kind of check with the main server) to ensure that it is a valid rail card on the correct device.

What we have been told is that when this screen presents itself as long as the top and the bottom of the screen are the correct colour, the Railcard is valid. If not valid, such as expired, the whole image is grey.

It is happening a lot more often than previously and I'm not sure why that might be. However, you should have no issue presenting the above screen if the refresh does not produce the full digital picture.

 

[bakerstreet]

That message displays when there is insufficient data - bandwidth - whatever you want to call it to download the full rail card image.

It occurs when the rail card requires to be downloaded, - from memory - and I stand ready to be corrected on this- a download is required when the rail card has not been opened for 7 days.

Basically the rail card requires to be redownloaded every 7 days (or if not redownloaded some other kind of check with the main server) to ensure that it is a valid rail card on the correct device.

What we have been told is that when this screen presents itself as long as the top and the bottom of the screen are the correct colour, the Railcard is valid. If not valid, such as expired, the whole image is grey.

It is happening a lot more often than previously and I'm not sure why that might be. However, you should have no issue presenting the above screen if the refresh does not produce the full digital picture.

Thank you for this, that’s really useful information.
Just to let you know, in case it helps with background, this is a new railcard, and it was downloaded to the app less than seven days ago. It was opened successfully yesterday, and then opened again today. It failed today.
I wonder if it’s happening more because something else strange is going on

 

[jamiearmley]

Thank you for this, that’s really useful information.
Just to let you know, in case it helps with background, this is a new railcard, and it was downloaded to the app less than seven days ago. It was opened successfully yesterday, and then opened again today. It failed today.
I wonder if it’s happening more because something else strange is going on

It's quite possible that's the case.

You shouldn't have any trouble, however - most customer facing staff are well aware of the issue - and we aren't all as bad as is made out!

Enjoy your journeys

 

[bakerstreet]

It's quite possible that's the case.

You shouldn't have any trouble, however - most customer facing staff are well aware of the issue - and we aren't all as bad as is made out!

Enjoy your journeys

Thank you :- )

 

[MrJeeves]

however - most customer facing staff are well aware of the issue

"The issue" implies there is ongoing problems with the official Railcards app. Is that the case?

 

[Adam Williams]

"The issue" implies there is ongoing problems with the official Railcards app. Is that the case?

Sounds like maybe a brief got issued to frontline staff?