Narrative:

Aircraft checked on my frequency slightly off route ; no issue. I descended the aircraft to FL270 ; updated his route in uret and handed the aircraft off to ZJX sector 66 . Everything appeared to be working fine ; I was not busy at all or distracted ; it was business as usual. I noticed the aircraft stopped flashing to J66 and switched it to J66' s frequency as usual . Later ; I switched the following AC to J66 and went to go drop the aircraft X data block off my scope ; but somehow still had track control of the aircraft. The target was no longer in ZTL airspace and was now in ZJX airspace which alarmed me. I called J66 to make sure they were aware of the aircraft and that everything was ok and when I asked if they had radar(track control) on aircraft X ; J66 said yeah ; no problem . I hung up the line ; reflashed aircraft X to J66 . The datablock flashed just a few times and stopped flashing . I reflashed the aircraft a 3rd time ; and J66 took track control of the aircraft . I'm not sure why it took so many times to flash the aircraft before it was accepted ; but this is not normal . I spoke to a fellow controller about this situation and he said he has seen this issue at other sectors in the past ; but never at ZTL sector 32 . It may have been an automation issue with this one aircraft ; I'm not sure . The problem was solved via coordination ; and no unsafe situation regarding separation was noted. Since I believe this was a rare occurrence and might have been the result of an unknown automation issue ; I don't see any way this could have been prevented ; but I will alert my supervision and fellow controllers to keep an eye out for this kind of anomaly in the future .

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Enroute Controller described an automated hand off problem when the data did not transfer to the receiving controller as expected.

Narrative: Aircraft checked on my frequency slightly off route ; no issue. I descended the aircraft to FL270 ; updated his route in URET and handed the aircraft off to ZJX sector 66 . Everything appeared to be working fine ; I was not busy at all or distracted ; it was business as usual. I noticed the aircraft stopped flashing to J66 and switched it to J66' s frequency as usual . later ; I switched the following AC to J66 and went to go drop the Aircraft X data block off my scope ; but somehow still had track control of the aircraft. The target was no longer in ZTL airspace and was now in ZJX airspace which alarmed me. I called J66 to make sure they were aware of the aircraft and that everything was OK and when I asked if they had radar(track control) on Aircraft X ; J66 said yeah ; no problem . I hung up the line ; reflashed Aircraft X to J66 . the datablock flashed just a few times and stopped flashing . I reflashed the aircraft a 3rd time ; and J66 took track control of the aircraft . I'm not sure why it took so many times to flash the aircraft before it was accepted ; but this is not normal . I spoke to a fellow controller about this situation and he said he has seen this issue at other sectors in the past ; but never at ZTL sector 32 . It may have been an automation issue with this one aircraft ; I'm not sure . The problem was solved via coordination ; and no unsafe situation regarding separation was noted. Since I believe this was a rare occurrence and might have been the result of an unknown automation issue ; I don't see any way this could have been prevented ; but I will alert my supervision and fellow controllers to keep an eye out for this kind of anomaly in the future .

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.