A farmer is distraught after spending hours filling in an application form for a support scheme - only to be shut out at the last minute.
Colin Clifton-Brown missed getting on the government's Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) by a whisker when it closed suddenly six hours after opening.
When the SFI 2 site did go live there was a mad scramble to get applications over the line.
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Other Suffolk farmers - even where successful - said submitting the application with the clock ticking was extremely stressful.
The sudden closure has met with a storm of criticism from farming organisations including the National Farmers' Union (NFU) and the Country Land and Business Association (CLA).
The scheme opened for entries at 10am on Tuesday - then closed at around 4pm after the £233m budget was spent.
A rush for funds - capped at £100k per application - was expected but the rapid take-up meant many were left disappointed.
Although farmers knew SFI 2 would open for applications on that date, they weren't given a time and many were checking throughout the morning to see if they could get on.
Then messages appeared to say when it was 25%, 50% then 75% full.
"I tried at about 9.30am to get on and it wasn't open," said Colin, who farms 1800 acres at Little Bradley, near Haverhill and is chairman of the Bury St Edmunds and East Cambridgeshire NFU.
"I tried again at 10.45am and I couldn't get on - presumably it was busy. I eventually got on at 12.22pm," he said.
"I worked solidly on it until around about 4pm. When I finished and tried to submit it at about 4.10pm I couldn't submit it and apparently they closed it.
"Bearing in mind there were 28,000 of us coming out of an existing agreement this year and there was a cap of £100k per applicant, potentially there were only 2,300 spots available," he said.
"I was absolutely gutted. I had been working on this scheme on and off for a couple of months to get it ready - first of all to decide what we want to do. There's a lot of background work."
The scheme didn't allow you to pre-load information, he said, which meant you had to input it all on the day.
"I have 147 parcels of land on which I could have several options. I had just over three and a half hours to input all that information in time," he said.
"I was absolutely devastated. We have been in stewardship for over 30 years."
Two of schemes come to an end shortly - one in December and the other in April.
Under the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS), Colin received quarter of a million pounds - but that was scrapped in a post-Brexit shake-up.
He also got around £30k from the stewardship schemes in return for environmental works.
"Potentially we have no funds for stewardship," he said. "If we can't get any funding for it we won't do it. It will hit the environment and it will hit our pockets."
He now has to work out what to do with land he has put into pollen and nectar margins, wildlife strips and other measures.
Diss NFU chairman David Barker, who farms at Westhorpe, near Stowmarket, described the event as "an absolute shambles".
"It was a bit like trying to find tickets for an Oasis concert," he said. "It's a complete and utter fiasco."
He added: "It's not way to run any kind of agricultural support system. Lots of small farmers have probably lost out because they are probably on their tractors. At this time of year everyone is very busy."
He would be writing to MPs to express his concern, he added.
James Nunn, of Mendlesham Green, near Stowmarket, farms around 3,000 acres including on a contract basis.
As well as his own application he submitted ones for three of the farms he works for - managing to get them over the line just in time.
"I think it was incredibly poorly done. It felt like a bit of a lottery. When you were doing it it felt like an exam. I felt rushed. It was a big panic," he said.
"It felt pressurised and 100% didn't feel right and I enormously feel for the people who didn't get it."
One farmer he contract farms for said she would submit her own application and was distraught when it didn't get across in time.
"It was just a bit of a bun fight - first come, first served and it's desperately unfair to the people who didn't make it."
CLA East director Cath Crowther pointed out many farmers were flat out in the middle of autumn drilling and had been left to scramble for funds.
NFU vice-president Robyn Munt said they had been warning the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) for months that the available budget would not meet demand.
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