Many unable to book Covid vaccines online due to website issues
Dozens of people who attempted to book their Covid-19 vaccine appointment have received an error message when doing that, the broadcaster NOS reported. A message reading "You can’t make an appointment online" has been commonly displayed for months now, leaving people thinking that their turn for the jab has not yet come.
The problem arises if someone has logged in to the website site with DigiD, and then left the site within 15 minutes without logging out. In that case, their digital signature remains in their web browser to which the current date in that moment is linked.
When attempting to book the appointment, that digital signature can throw a spanner in the works, because the vaccination site views it as an outdated signature. As a result, the software assumes that the user should not be granted access to the booking page.
To make the issue even more frustrating, the error page offers no concrete steps to people who encounter it. Pending a concrete solution, people are advised to try using a different browser or the incognito mode, or to delete the cookies. Some NL Times readers also have had success by deleting their web browser cache.
"I find this frustrating to see because this is a pretty basic problem," said software developer Tom Verhoeff. "There are dozens of ways that could solve it."
"If you sit down with two developers, this is really solved in no time. I understand that it is a bit more difficult in this case because it is a site with higher security requirements, but to take this long is crazy," Verhoeff concluded.
The GGD said they were aware of the problem, but did not yet know when it would be solved."This is a priority for us, but I can't make it more concrete than 'soon' at the moment," a spokesperson told NOS.
