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Driving licence renewal

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stockton
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Driving licence renewal

#516981

Postby stockton » July 25th, 2022, 11:25 am

I am trying make an entirely straightforward online renewal of my over-70 driving licence, but the system says that it cannot identify me. Has anybody any suggestions as to what is going wrong ?

monabri
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Re: Driving licence renewal

#516985

Postby monabri » July 25th, 2022, 11:32 am


stockton
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Re: Driving licence renewal

#516989

Postby stockton » July 25th, 2022, 11:50 am

Thanks, Monabri.
It looks to be very relevant.

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Re: Driving licence renewal

#516993

Postby XFool » July 25th, 2022, 12:28 pm

WARNING: This may be of no help whatsoever!

About four years ago - so four years before the last four years! - I needed to renew my licence. I had received the paper reminder early and suddenly realised I had left it rather late. So I thought I might try applying online. I soon learned I could only do that if I held a current passport, which I didn't. Nevertheless I decided to press on. 8-)

I was thinking: "They will need a photo. Perhaps I can take one myself and process it online to format it correctly and they might allow me to upload it." They didn't. When it came to confirming I had a current UK passport I clicked on "No". The online process then paused and instead of saying "Good Bye!" it said a short paper form would be dispatched. It was, I filled it in with photo and signature and returned it.

The process completed - I believe I may even have received an email saying I was good to go before I received the physical licence.

Just something to perhaps look into - but I realise this may be of no help whatsoever these days.

(I know nothing about a "digital signature")

stockton
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Re: Driving licence renewal

#517268

Postby stockton » July 26th, 2022, 9:28 am

Now confirmed to be the problem. DVLA seems to be unbelievably incompetent in that the problem has been known for over a year and they cannot even put out the correct error message.

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Re: Driving licence renewal

#517299

Postby didds » July 26th, 2022, 11:48 am

stockton wrote:Now confirmed to be the problem. DVLA seems to be unbelievably incompetent in that the problem has been known for over a year and they cannot even put out the correct error message.



unrelated to the OP but... friend of my mum asked me to have a gander at her new laptop. She was trying to install an anti-virus package. But when she/we tried it had an error message that she was running windows 10 -S .

Thing is she was running windows 11 -S.

We overcame the -S rubbish easily enough. But the point being that Microsoft are so inept their error message mentions the wrong OS to start with...

didds

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Re: Driving licence renewal

#517334

Postby Alaric » July 26th, 2022, 1:21 pm

stockton wrote:Now confirmed to be the problem. DVLA seems to be unbelievably incompetent in that the problem has been known for over a year and they cannot even put out the correct error message.


Experiences seem to vary. I renewed my passport last October and the driving licence which had been due early the next year very soon after. Both went through very smoothly and quickly using the online processes. Do I get the impression that during the lockdown, both DVLA and the passport offices went home, but left the computers running? Anything the software could cope with would go through without any trouble, problems arising when an absent human had to intervene.

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Re: Driving licence renewal

#517339

Postby Breelander » July 26th, 2022, 1:44 pm

didds wrote: But when she/we tried it had an error message that she was running windows 10 -S .
Thing is she was running windows 11 -S.

We overcame the -S rubbish easily enough. But the point being that Microsoft are so inept their error message mentions the wrong OS to start with...

Windows 11 identifies itself to any software that asks as "OS Version: 10.0.22000" and Windows 10 as "10.0.19044". The point being that Windows 10 and Windows 11 are identical at the OS kernel level, which is what determines software compatibility.

Oh, and I've just had to renew my old paper licence as I approach 70 and get my first ever photo card licence. Took 5 minutes on-line and both my photo and signature were picked up from my passport records. Licence arrived in under 2 weeks.

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Re: Driving licence renewal

#517347

Postby didds » July 26th, 2022, 2:15 pm

Breelander wrote:Windows 11 identifies itself to any software that asks as "OS Version: 10.0.22000" and Windows 10 as "10.0.19044". The point being that Windows 10 and Windows 11 are identical at the OS kernel level, which is what determines software compatibility..


Ah! Thanks BL... that does make some sense.

But we can surely also see that's phenomenally odd/confusing to most people that aren't in the know and are nervous around such stuff :-)

didds

Moderator Message:
This is off-topic (as acknowledged!) so can we leave this digression for elsewhere please (chas49)

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Re: Driving licence renewal

#517355

Postby scrumpyjack » July 26th, 2022, 2:39 pm

I was unable to renew mine online and had to do it by post. I submitted it a couple of months before expiry and it took about 5 months to come, so I had no physical driving licence for that time and no acknowledgement that they had received my application. One is allowed to continue driving in these circumstances but if you were to go abroad you would have a big problem! Appalling incompetence.

stockton
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Re: Driving licence renewal

#520606

Postby stockton » August 7th, 2022, 9:28 pm

There does appear to be a surprising contrast between the article cited above and the evidence given by the DVLA to the Transport Select Committee in July 2021.

"our online services have worked perfectly throughout the pandemic and continue to do so."

( https://committees.parliament.uk/oralev ... 2613/html/ Q23 )


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