Organisers are confident all 1400 runners and walkers will get their placing and times confirmed, but some may have to be a little patient.
Race timer Ray O’Brien said the borrowed "reader mats" had been successfully tested over several weeks before the event, "pinging every time" a runner-carried transponder passed over it.
However, yesterday the mats became "less sensitive", and hundreds of results were "likely" to have been affected, he said.
Compounding this was a software package which crashed, still recording times but failing to continue compiling the places.
Mr O’Brien said the mats showed no discrimination, missing sometimes fast runners, other times slower ones, in all four divisions — marathon, half, quarter and walkers.
Race director Phil Coakes said "it’s very important to people on the day, and they have paid [to participate] and we expect to give them their times".
"Please be patient," he said, if some people’s times and places did not appear, or were out of sync with their own timepieces or digital location equipment.
Jonah Smith, an Otago 10,000m champion, bettered his second place in last year’s event, posting a resounding win and finishing about five minutes faster than last year.
Women’s winner Mel Aitken won a fourth consecutive title yesterday, at one point stretching her lead to a commanding seven minutes.
Mr O’Brien said results either online or published in the Otago Daily Times today should be considered "provisional", as they would have been even without the technical meltdown.
The annual Cadbury Dunedin Marathon had attracted 1300 entrants, including several from overseas, but latecomers boosted the final tally to around 1400.
Organisers switched to manual counting and a video backup system once it was realised the reader mats were giving faulty readings.
Mr Coakes noted that when he helped organise his first Dunedin marathon 27 years ago, results were posted out to competitors.
Technology, when it worked, now placed new demands on organisers, he said.
