The Y2k24 BUG! MAJOR DIGITAL OUTAGE TODAY!

[Jim Cassedy]

There seems to be a major problem this morning that is affecting mainly SONY based systems
that is causing many ( but not all ) encrypted features not to play. It's happening across all
distributors, and is affecting both SMPTE and INTEROP DCP's.
Also, if you have a SONY system, there will be NO advance warning of this happening. All
your pre-feature trailers, etc will load and play fine. It's only when the playlist gets to the feature
content that everything locks up. Of the 5 shows that should be running on screen here right now,
only ONE is playable. So far no solution is forthcoming, but at the rate things are going, this
problem might not get fixed till next year. (literally!)

EDIT> So far, titles that are unplayable here are:
American Fiction, Ferrari , When Harry Met Sally, Burn It Down- The Boy & Heron
(both dubbed & subtitled versions) and I"m still checking our library to see what else
works & what doesn't

[Leo Enticknap]

It's not even 2024 in UTC yet! That will happen at 4p our time (Pacific). I'm expecting to receive the first calls for help from DolReMi users who slipped through the net around this time tomorrow in this time zone; obviously this will happen to service techs quite a bit earlier in Europe.

I wonder if the issue that Jim is encountering is affecting KDMs that expire in 2024, which is causing a problem with servers and media blocks processing them (e.g. if the KDM expires after a media block certificate does, it is rejected as invalid)?

[Jim Cassedy]

> LATEST UPDATE:
We just got word from HQ to shut the theater down until further notice.
Unfortunately, unlike everyone else here- - I can't go home.
(Why couldn't this have happened tomorrow, when I could be getting paid
double-time for sitting around here doing nothing all day?) lol

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

LOL! And absolutely nothing happened at the 1999 - 2000 roll over. Everyone was so worried about that...

[Pete Naples]

Today I have been manning our support line. Absolute carnage!

I feel so bad for the customers, there is nothing I can do to help them.

[Frank Cox]

Impeccable security. Access denied to all!

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Sounds like Distribution better generate, for now, a universal key for theaters that have affected servers. If they don't, I can see this turning into a big quagmire for them as I suspect many theaters will lose a lot of money this weekend.

[Jim Cassedy]

<edited> I suspect many theaters will lose a lot of money this weekend.

That ship has already sailed here. They shut everything down rather than have the staff to get paid for
standing around doing nothing, they sent everyone home... . except for me, of course. At this point, it's
looking like I might be stuck here till some time next year. I can't even get anything to eat here since they
closed the kitchen & sent the food staff home.- - and all the shops in around here are shut down today too.
I was planning on being home to for a nice dinner today- - but I don't think that's going to happen either.
Geez. . ."it's always something"
(maybe I can find some popcorn under the seats in the auditorium or something)

[Harold Hallikainen]

Can a universal key be created? I didn't think such a thing existed. They could send unencrypted versions to affected theaters. Pretty risky! Is Sony on this?

[Leo Enticknap]

As each media block has a unique certificate / decryption key, my understanding is that the KDM has to match that with the decryption key for the CPL being played in order to enable decryption: in other words, a universal key that would work on all media blocks is impossible. The system was deliberately designed that way.

Even sending an unencrypted version of a feature DCP as an emergency measure would be problematic. For theaters with Deluxe boxes or their equivalents from other online delivery services, that could be done relatively quickly. But for those that can only ingest from physical media, most would not be back up and running until well into the new working week, having missed the opportunity for holiday crowd business.

There have been no help requests to our support email address so far, but we don't have anyone still using Sony equipment among our service contract customers, and all the DolReMi users are patched. I am expecting possible contacts from pre-IMS3000 DolReMi users who don't have service contracts with us but do occasionally book one-time service calls: we reached out to all that we could think of over the last few months, but some didn't reply, or requested a quote and then never responded after receiving it, etc. Assuming that the bug will become active after midnight on January 1 UTC rather than local time, I'm expecting that fun to start in a little over an hour.

[Harold Hallikainen]

So, is the only apparent problem an expired certificate for the CPL? And some equipment is ignoring the expired certificate? Does DCI allow that?

[Jason Raftery]

So, is the only apparent problem an expired certificate for the CPL? And some equipment is ignoring the expired certificate? Does DCI allow that?

Yes, apparently yes and don't know.

I wonder if Deluxe can generate corrective VFs that overlay the expired cert in the OV signing chain or if they will have to remaster and distribute new OV content to affected sites? Either would presumably also require new KDMs be issued. What a mess!

[Jim Cassedy]

So, is the only apparent problem an expired certificate for the CPL? And some equipment is ignoring the expired certificate? Does DCI allow that?

That's a point of mystery and confusion to me too. It seems unusual to me that it works some places and not at others. I would think that DCI compliance would keep it from working anywhere. I'd be curious to know whatsupwiththat once they get this mess all sorted out.

[Frank Cox]

Here's something else that's interesting.

On my GDC SR1000 Aquaman2-3d shows up tonight on the Content-Summary screen as "not playable".

It shows on the Playback screen as unlocked, and it it's playing right now.

Shortly after I got my digital cinema setup I had a movie that played in the wrong order; just like the reels had been mixed up on a film projector I'm watching the end of the movie before I've seen the middle. I complained and the powers-that-be emailed me a tiny file and said, "Ingest this and all of your troubles will be over." I did, and they were.

Maybe they can do something similar now for the folks with Sony servers.

And there's something wrong on the GDC's as well since the movie shows as "not playable", even though it is.

[Steve Guttag]

It is my understanding that for Sony, it is just the 515 and 815 systems that are affected, not the earlier systems. If you are concerned about the GDC...pull logs and send them to GDC...I'm sure that they are all over what the problem is and just what is affected and how. This seems to be a world-wide problem.