I don't know the exact flow but I suspect this is what happens
If you a first time user (registering) then you details needs to be verified against a DB at DMV which is probably accessed using APIs.
Once you register your data is kept in a local DB which gets accessed when ever an already registered user logins .i.e. no more going to the DMV DBs.
The former is broken but the latter is working.
I think first time reigistration is also working. (If the vehicle was never registred with the QR system)
Problem is, (when you don't have access to the already registered phone number)
- if the vehicle is transferrd to someone and QR is still registered to the previous owner's phone number
- Don't have access to the QR registered phone number
In these situations, if someone try to do a new registration, it would fail, This is not a bug or failure in the app. This is a scenario that wasn't covered in the original requirment.
This was addressed in-directly, person who has access to the QR phone number, can delete profile so a new person can register. I don't think no one did that when they sell the vehicle.
Since there were a lot of vehicle transfers happend during last year or so, significant number of people are facing this problem.
it looks like RMV API integrations are working, for an example chassis number validation works. But not sure how they did it (Via an API call or database dump)