Widebody; Low Wing; 2 Turbojet Eng
Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Air Traffic Control Time Certified In Pos 1 (yrs) 6
Troubleshooting; Time Pressure; Distraction; Workload; Confusion
ATC Issue All Types; Inflight Event / Encounter Other / Unknown
Air Traffic Control Provided Assistance; Air Traffic Control Separated Traffic
ATC Equipment / Nav Facility / Buildings; Procedure
As I took the position ATOPS system lost many functions including FDP (Flight Data Processing) interface; ADS/CPDLC processing. Lots of separation was predicated on function data link capabilities; which we lost. I had to move at least 6 aircraft via voice relay; as the planes formally using CPDLC were not responding to my clearances via Commercial Radio. As the data link went down ATOPS generated a ridiculous amount of messages that meant nothing to me. All coordination to the east (FDP) had to be done manually. Commercial Radio helped a lot but we lost ability to receive messages from them; so all communication had to be done via landlines. I have never seen 30 messages in my sector cue before; today I had over 140; 98% of these were worthless. Aircraft X had to descend 1000 ft.; I had another aircraft relay this clearance 'For traffic'. Aircraft X asked to climb; I relay; 'Unable' no response. I go through Commercial Radio Aircraft X descend 1000 ft for traffic; Aircraft X climb 1000 ft; unable descend 1000 ft. This was not ideal as other altitude movement was necessary and this guy had to first be level. He seemingly stopped talking to the relay aircraft when he was not hearing the clearance he wanted. This made a difficult situation worse; and should not have been a factor.ATOP should filter some of those messages that mean nothing. Have the messages that mean nothing auto route to one of the other cues (maybe make this a selectable function). Loss of separation messages are in this instance and all others; worthless; as these are visually depicted on the display. Make the messages for loss of separation cease or route to another cue.
ZAN Controller describes situation where ATOPS doesn't work correctly and is issued numerous messages from it. Consequently; he deems it worthless.