Marketnews

Incident Report: Bidding Not Possible on Some WID

Written by Admin | Sep 12, 2025 3:11:02 PM

Summary 

  • Title: Bidding not possible on some WID auctions 
  • Date & Time: Monday 21.07.2025, 18:01h (CEST) - Tuesday 22.07.2025, 08:44h (CEST)  
  • Affected Services: Bidding for within-day auctions 
  • Status: resolved 


Description 

 

Overview 

On Monday 21.07.2025 at approximately 18:01h (CEST), PRISMA was made aware that shippers had problems placing bids in within-day auctions. At this point it was not yet clear, if those were isolated issues, or a platform incident. After additional shippers reported similar problems in the following hours, the classification as platform incident was made at 19:57h (CEST). 

Technical Details 

Caused by legacy code in the frontend, shippers were not able to place bids by using the “place bid” button on the network point details page. Placing bids via the auction tiles (by accessing the overview of all running auctions) and via the “Auctions at this network point” section on the network point details page was possible during the entire incident. 

Scope of Impact 

In total 4 shippers reported issues with placing bids. Out of those only one shipper reported that they were not able to place a bid at all. This led to the cancellation of one within-day auction. 

Duration of Impact 

The total duration of the incident from classification on 21.07.2025, 19:57h (CEST) to resolution on 22.07.2025 08:44h (CEST) was 12 hours and 47 minutes. 

The fix for the “place bid” button was deployed on 22.07.2025 16:00h (CEST), restoring full bidding functionality for the “place bid” button on the network point details screen, which is an additional 7h and 16 minutes. 

 

Timeline

Date 

 Time (CEST) 

 Responsible 

 Action Type 

 Description 

21 Jun 2025 

 

18:01 

PRISMA internal 

Send MS Teams message 

Customer Success informed Emergency Guard that 3 shippers reported issues with placing a bid. 

PRISMA contacted all 3 shippers to provide further information. At this point it was not clear if the shippers were able to place a bid after all and which auctions were affected. 

21 Jun 2025 

21:00 

PRISMA Emergency Guard 

Take Decision 

Decisions: 

  1. Inform all TSO emergency contacts about issues with placing bids and that auctions which are affected will be cancelled. 

    It was decided to communicate to all TSOs and not only the one affected so far, to make sure that everybody is informed in case more issues would surface during the night. 
  2. Publish UMM to inform shipper about issues with placing bids and to reach out to Customer Success via phone in case needed as it was not identified as isolated case. 
  3. In addition for each affected auction (1 at this point):
    1. Publish dedicated UMM that auction is cancelled
    2. Cancel auction
    3. Inform affected TSO about auction cancellation
    4. Inform shippers active in the cancelled auction 

21 Jun 2025 

21:26 

PRISMA Emergency Guard 

Publish UMM 

As part of PRISMA’s business continuity measures the Emergency Guard posted a UMM to inform the market about issues with placing bids, including the request to contact Customer Success in case problems are identified. 

21 Jun 2025 

21:48 

PRISMA Emergency Guard 

Cancel auction 

As part of PRISMA’s business continuity measures the Emergency Guard cancelled the affected auction  

21 Jun 2025 

21:48 

PRISMA Emergency Guard 

Publish UMM 

As part of PRISMA’s business continuity measures the Emergency Guard posted a UMM to inform the market about the cancellation of auction  

22 Jun 2025 

01:40 

PRISMA internal 

Call 

Customer Success informed Emergency Guard, based on additional information from shippers, that placing bids is possible via auction tiles (by accessing the overview of all running auctions). 

Information is given to all shippers that contact Customer Success. 

22 Jun 2025 

08:00 

PRISMA Emergency Guard 

Analysis 

It was successfully confirmed that placing a bid is possible via auction tiles (by accessing the overview of all running auctions) and via the “Auctions at this network point” section on the network point details page. This information was passed on the engineering for providing a fix. 

 

22 Jun 2025 

08:42 

PRISMA Emergency Guard 

Publish UMM 

As part of PRISMA’s business continuity measures the Emergency Guard posted a UMM to inform the market that the cause of the issue has been found and that bidding is possible via the 2 ways mentioned above. 

22 Jun 2025 

08:44 

PRISMA Emergency Guard 

Inform TSO contacts 

As part of PRISMA’s business continuity measures the Emergency Guard informed the TSO emergency contacts that the cause of the issue has been found and that bidding is possible via the 2 ways mentioned above. 

22 Jun 2025 

16:00 

PRISMA internal 

Deploy fix 

After implementation and testing a fix was deployed to PROD. 

 

Root Cause Analysis (RCA) 

Cause: Faulty code in the legacy frontend prohibited users to use the “place bid” button for placing a bid in an auction. After clicking on the button the platform showed an error screen with the information that an unknown error occurred. The general bidding functionality of the platform was not impaired, since placing bids from other parts of the GUI worked throughout the entire incident. 

Assessment: Incident was most likely caused by a side effect of an unrelated change and the existing regression and end-to-end tests did not catch the error. 

 Detection: The problem was identified by a user report. Shippers contacted PRISMA’s Customer Success after experiencing issues with Placing bids. 

 

Resolution & Recovery

Intermediate resolution:  
PRISMA pro-actively communicated that bidding is possible via the auction tiles (by accessing the overview of all running auctions) and via the “Auctions at this network point” section on the network point details page. The communication was done by publishing a UMM and by Customer Success, when contacted by shippers. 

Long-term resolution:  
On 22.07.2025 at 16:00h (CEST) a fix was deployed to production, which corrected the error. 

Restoration of service:  
The bidding functionality was not fully impaired during the incident. Following the discovery, reproduction, and verification of the frontend error, PRISMA provided guidance to shippers on the frontend locations where bidding remained available. 

Preventive Actions:

    1. Expand regression and end-to-end test coverage, to cover bidding-related interactions, including legacy components until they are retired.