The Obama administration’s health care website stumbled, falling out of service for nearly four hours on deadline day for new sign-ups.

This image taken March 31, 2014 in Washington, DC shows a page on the HealthCare.gov website indicating that the site is too busy for the amount of traffic. (credit: KAREN BLEIER/AFP/Getty Images)

Image: KAREN BLEIER/AFP/Getty Images

Visitors to HealthCare.gov on Monday morning saw messages that the site was down for maintenance. At times, visitors were also directed to a virtual waiting room, a feature designed to ease the strain on the site during periods of heavy use.

Administration spokesman Aaron Albright said the website  undergoes “regular nightly maintenance” during off-peak hours and that period was extended because of a “technical problem.”

He did not say what the problem was, but a statement from the Department of Health and Human Services called it “a software bug” unrelated to application volume.

Albright said consumers seeking to sign up will be able to leave their email were to be “invited back” when the system got up and running again.

Officials said the website wasn’t hacked. The site, which was receiving 1.5 million visitors a day last week, received about 2 million a day over the weekend.

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