Punching record verification error in SPORTident stations BSF 7/8

An error in SPORTident stations with firmware 6.56 has been identified.

Under rare circumstances, an athlete's SPORTident card may miss a punch that is recorded as a successful punch in the corresponding station's backup memory.

We have identified that the station erroneously marks an interrupted punch (i.e. removing the SPORTident card too fast from the station) as successful. The correct behaviour is to mark an interrupted punch with an error code in the station backup memory. Because the station erroneously treats the punch as successful, it also gives feedback (beep and flash), making the incorrect punch indiscernible from a correct punch to the athlete. Effectively, the interrupted punch is missing on the athlete's card but present in the station's backup memory. In such a case, the athlete's presence at a control can be verified only by evaluating the control station's backup memory.

Firmware 6.56 has been published in October 2016. Since March 2017 we have seen five verified cases of this error, all with firmware 6.56 and with either the SPORTident card 9 or SPORTident card 10. Firmware 6.56 is used in tens of thousands of SPORTident stations worldwide. There are hundreds of thousands of punches every weekend. The error therefore occurs extremely rarely.

Fixing this issue is our highest priority. Reproducing, identifying and finally resolving the issue is challenging, because of its rare occurrence. We are aiming for a new firmware release that fixes the error in December 2017.

 

Your SPORTident team