Date:
13 May 2026 Incident Window:
16:30 – 17:10 AEST Systems Affected:
Visualcare web application (app.visualcare.com.au) Summary
Following a scheduled deployment at approximately 16:30 on 13 May 2026, users began experiencing login failures on the Visualcare web application (app.visualcare.com.au). During the deployment process, a file intended for the API component was inadvertently deployed to the web application, overwriting an existing file of the same name (functions.php) that serves a different purpose within the web app. This caused the login authentication step to fail, preventing users from accessing the application.
Engineers responded immediately and began investigating the issue by tracing the path of the login error. Through this analysis, they identified that functions.php on the web application had been replaced with an incorrect version during the deployment. Once identified, the correct version of the file was restored from version control and redeployed to the web application, resolving the issue at 17:10.
Impact
During the incident window (16:30–17:10 on 13 May 2026), users were unable to log in to the Visualcare web application (app.visualcare.com.au). No other systems were impacted, for example vWorker remained fully operationally during the outage.
Timeline
- 16:30 — Engineers identified users were unable to log in to the Visualcare web application
- 16:36 — Communications sent to customers advising of the outage
- 16:30–16:55 — Triage and investigation to determine the cause of login failures
- 16:55 — Root cause identified: incorrect API version of functions.php deployed to web application server
- 17:00 — Correct file restored from version control and redeployed
- 17:04 — Communications sent to customers confirming resolution
Root Cause
During the 13 May 2026 deployment, the wrong source folder was selected, resulting in the API version of functions.php being uploaded to the web application server instead of the correct web application version. Both components contain a file with the same name; this was not immediately apparent during transfer and led to the web application’s authentication failing.
Resolution
The issue was resolved by restoring the correct version of functions.php from version control and uploading it to the web application server. Following the fix, the deployment was re-executed using the correct source folder to ensure all intended updates were applied to the appropriate servers.