In the week of April 28 to May 4, 2025, the close connectivity—and simultaneous vulnerability—of our digital infrastructure was once again laid bare. A look back at the turbulent seven days in the digital universe.
DB Booking Portal in Payment Refusal Mode
The week opened with a persistent outage on the Deutsche Bahn booking portal: numerous users reported that all payment methods were suddenly rejected and no ticket purchases were possible.
Apple Watch: Ghostly Call Attempts
At the same time, the Apple Watch made waves with unexplained “Call Failed” messages, despite no active dialing taking place.
Mobile Network on the ICE: Data Drought & Dropouts
Mobile customers on the ICE between Mannheim and Stuttgart suffered drastic drops in data rates on the Vodafone network—despite continuous LTE reception. The Telekom network also showed a noticeable, if less severe, slowdown. Shortly thereafter, an iPhone 14 Pro with a Vodafone Business SIM fell back to EDGE coverage, only resolved by a reboot and persistent device reset. Meanwhile, just before Mannheim, phone calls in the ICE became extremely choppy—even with all connection services disabled on the iPhone.
Delays & Public Transport Hurdles at the Airport and in the City
At Frankfurt Airport, an inadequately short platform added fifteen minutes of delay—reassigning to a different track section had to be arranged on site. In Frankfurt itself, commuters were forced to climb into aging trams with high entry steps, a particular challenge for travelers with luggage.
Hotline Disaster at Amazon Prime
Customer service hotlines also showed weaknesses: multiple attempts to reach the German Amazon Prime hotline ended without the desired connection. Callers were repeatedly routed to English-speaking agents or abruptly disconnected.
VR Headsets and Smart Home Slip-Ups
In the virtual reality realm, Meta Quest 3S headsets proved stubborn: WhatsApp had to be fully reconfigured, screenshots remained locked, emojis were only accessible via cumbersome long lists, and system updates hung. Even Siri in the smart home disappointed by starting music instead of activating the Apple TV.
Desktop Services in Crash Mode
Finally, desktop and Mac services were not immune: the Pages app crashed sporadically, and the ChatGPT macOS app undesirably pulled in content from old conversations, despite those conversations not having been deleted.
Conclusion
Whether mobile networks, smartwatches, VR headsets, or customer service—users encountered a variety of technical stumbling blocks this week. The bottom line remains the same: even mature systems can fail unexpectedly and demand patience, restarts, and persistent workarounds from users.
Note: This report is based on documented incidents between April 28 and May 4, 2025 in Germany. All events mentioned rely on user observations and reports of various issues.
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