Would Flow have seen the outage?

Not directly: it stops at the payment page and never approves a payment. It would have shown that the site itself was working, which points the search in the right direction straight away.

Would a Ping have been enough?

No. The site answered normally. A Ping tells you whether the server answers, not whether a customer can finish a purchase.

Where do these facts come from?

From the Les Nouvelles Calédoniennes article published on 6 October 2026 and updated since. No merchant site was scanned or tested to write this article.

November 2026

Incident of the month: in New Caledonia, online payments blocked by a text message that never arrived

AgenciesJourneys

By The Pathly teamWeb journey monitoring · 3 min read · November 13, 2026

October 2026: the 3D Secure code stopped arriving by text, and online payments stalled. What a Ping and a Flow could see, and what agencies can learn.

On Monday 5 October 2026, in New Caledonia, online payments made through traditional banks stopped going through. According to Les Nouvelles Calédoniennes, the 3D Secure code sent by text message to approve a payment no longer reached phones, because of an incident on the network of OPT, the postal and telecoms operator, which traced it back to Orange. On 6 October, OPT mentioned a return to normal during the night of the 6th to the 7th, without being able to confirm it.

What each tool could see

A Ping on a shop: green. The site answered, and so did the payment page.
A Flow up to the payment page: green as well. The cart, the order and the payment provider’s page all loaded. The block came after, at the text message approval, a step Flow never takes: it pays nothing.
The end customer: stuck. The payment was waiting for a code that never came.

Why a green Flow still helped

When orders stop, a merchant’s first question to the agency is simple: is it the site? A green Flow up to the payment page answers it in a minute. The cart works, the payment page loads: the outage is elsewhere. The agency can tell the client so, with a screenshot of the last successful step, instead of digging through the code for hours. Conversely, a red Flow on add to cart or the payment page says the problem is indeed on the site, with a screenshot of the step that breaks.

What an agency can do next time

Look at the checkout Flow first: green, the outage is outside the site. Red, it is on the site.
Tell the client with facts: what works, what does not, and the public source of the incident.
Suggest, if the shop allows it, another payment method that does not depend on a text message.
Record the incident in the monthly report, with how long it lasted and what was done.

Would Flow have seen the outage?: Not directly: it stops at the payment page and never approves a payment. It would have shown that the site itself was working, which points the search in the right direction straight away.
Would a Ping have been enough?: No. The site answered normally. A Ping tells you whether the server answers, not whether a customer can finish a purchase.
Where do these facts come from?: From the Les Nouvelles Calédoniennes article published on 6 October 2026 and updated since. No merchant site was scanned or tested to write this article.