Our Document Verification API experienced severe performance degradation causing some ID scan uploads to take 5-10 minutes instead of the expected near-instant processing. Multiple users reported these delays, with an estimated 37.5% of all verification operations potentially affected during the incident window.

User Impact

• 3-4 confirmed users reported 5-10 minute delays for ID uploads
• 10-15 total users attempted to use the service during the incident
• Successfully completed verifications showed success badges but no data was accessible
• Records were not appearing in the admin dashboard for review

Root Cause

A critical service component entered a failure state, consuming excessive CPU resources while repeatedly failing to process requests. This component handled approximately 50% of all verification traffic, causing widespread impact when it became unresponsive.

Contributing Factors

• The affected service component entered an unrecoverable state requiring manual intervention
• No automatic recovery mechanism was in place for high CPU usage scenarios

Timeline

• 2025-08-26: Normal operations, no errors reported
• 2025-08-27: Error spike began, "No scan response" errors began to appear
• 2025-08-28: Issue identified and resolved through manual intervention

Resolution

Immediate Actions Taken:

• Manual restart of the failed service component
• Traffic redistribution to reduce dependency on any single server from 50% to 25%

Planned Improvements:

• Enhanced monitoring and alerting for application-level health
• Implementation of automatic recovery mechanisms for performance degradation
• Improved health checks that can detect and isolate failing components

We have received reports of elevated "No scan response" errors. We are investigating