News and Updates

Thursday June 6, 2019 – We had network failure resulting from a core switch having an issue.   The outage lasted from approximately 1:11pm to 1:29pm while we tracked the issue and made the correction.  All services have returned to normal, and we do apologize for the interruption.   We do not expect any further problems from this issue.

Update:  As I posted the resolution, the problem reoccurred.  We are in the process of replacing equipment, but this does not seem to be a trivial issue.    Further updates to follow.

Update:  Definitely a core switch, but what we thought would be resolved with a reboot turned into a total hardware failure.  Because of the nature of the switch and the number of systems touched, this is affecting all services.  Some systems will take a bit of time to bring online.

Update: 2:24pm – Services are being restored now.  Most sites are up as well as email.  Some virtual servers are still awaiting recovery.

Update: Please note that our phone system and chat support are still being affected as they both reside on a virtual server which has not yet recovered.

Update: 2:42pm – Our phones and online chat are back.

Update 2:55pm – More and more VPS systems are coming online.   If you have specific status questions please use the support chat feature or email support@internetpro.net.

Update 3:15pm – It looks like all systems have recovered.   If you observe a problem with your website or service, please contact our technicians at 256-547-6817, by chat, or by emailing support@internetpro.net.

Network Solutions, Inc. is looking for an experienced network technician.  We are looking for someone with experience in these areas:

• Office365
• WIndows domains
• Exchange
• VOIP
• Routing

Bonus areas of experience include:

• Linux
• Apple
• SQL

Industry certifications are a plus.

We are a local Gadsden, Alabama based company with benefits including medical, dental, vision, retirement, and others.  Send resumes to debbie@netsolinc.com.

March 7, 2019 – We have seen many of our users receiving a phishing email which is trying to harvest usernames and passwords.   The email looks like the example below:

–BEGIN

–END

Please note that our system will not send you any warning via email.   If you do exceed storage limits, users sending to you will receive a bounce back saying that your quota has been exceeded.  We will never send out an email asking for your username and password.  Generally, any emails you receive that ask for such information are scams.   We have reported the site hosting the form which harvests the users and passwords as a malicious site so hopefully it will begin being blocked by search engines and browsers.

If you have any questions regarding this scam OR if you fell for it, please email  us at support@internetpro.net or call 256-547-6817 so we can reset your password.

January 24, 2019 – We have been made aware of issues with Comcast’s network in Etowah County this morning. Comcast is aware of the problem and has an ETA of 11:26AM for service restoration.

Some clients are experiencing complete loss of service and others are having intermittent connectivity.

December 26, 2018 – We are in the process of continuing the mandatory server updates which we had previously announced via letters to customers, socical media, and on this site (https://www.netsolinc.com/server-upgrades-2/ ).  This round of updates will affect our site as well as some customers.  We will continue updating here as we proceed.

Update 4:00pm – Most sites should be in good order now unless there are compatibility issues with the new versions of software which have been installed.  We urge customers to thoroughly check their sites for functionality issues and let us know if any are found.

Update 6:20pm – We’ve finished checking through sites and we have identified a few issues.  We will be reaching out to the customers who we know are impacted tomorrow.  However, feel free to contact us if you think there is an issue which we have not contacted you about.

For questions or concerns about these upgrades, please email support@internetpro.net or call 256-547-6817.

December 7, 2018 – We’ve received a new email scam which is going out with our company name and at least one staff member mentioned.  This scam seems to be linking to a virus-carrying spreadsheet, but there may be other versions.  It seems to have been relayed through a compromised email account.  The password on the account has been locked down, but users need to be aware that some of these legitimate looking emails did leave the system.  Below is an example of one:

–BEGIN

–END

At the bottom of the message is a link to the “Abuse Report” which is actually a document containing a virus.   If you see one of these messages, please delete and ignore it.

Thank you.

December 7, 2018 – WordPress has released a major new update (version 5.0) and it is rolling out throughout the world.  As it turns out, we are finding that some sites may not be compatible with the new update and this is causing some site owners to see the “white screen of death” when accessing their web page.  This white page indicates a fatal error on the site and steps will need to be taken to modify the site so that it will again be functional.

Although we do monitor server functionality, we are unable to check each website and each page on the sites to verify they still function when an update like this occurs.  This is very similar to the issue we are currently working where the server operating systems themselves must be upgraded – also resulting in some older, unmaintained sites producing issues.   Our staff is going through sites today to try to locate any which are not functioning normally, but as a site owner, if you see issues, please contact us at support@internetpro.net to report it.   We will do our best to get your site online, although it may be possible that your website developer may need to be enlisted to restore full functionality.

One of the main highlights of this new WordPress release is a new editor which completely changes the page editing experience.  A WordPress-produced plugin is available called “Classic Editor” which will restore the old look/feel to your editor. However, this plugin is only going to be maintained until 2021, so it will be necessary to migrate to the new editor eventually.

October 15, 2018 – 6:20am – One of our virtual machine hosts had a hardware problem this morning. It caused some of the virtual machines it was hosting to be slow to unresponsive for a brief time.  Our proactive monitoring system alerted us to the issue and we are currently troubleshooting the problem.  We will have to perform some emergency maintenance during the day today, but will migrate affected virtual machines to other hosts while this is done.   Performance may be slightly degraded during this time but most likely won’t be noticeable.   We will be posting updates here.

Update 6:55am – All machines are responding normally at this time.

Update 5:10pm – We are going to be rebooting some virtual machines to bring them up on temporary hardware. Normally, we can migrate them without a shutdown, but we are taking this opportunity to also upgrade the infrastructure, so a reboot is required. Most affected VMs will be down less than 1 minute.

October 16 10:45am – We are still running some VMs on a backup server and there was a hiccup with that server this morning.  Some servers were interrupted for approximately 10 minutes.  We are waiting on a hardware part to come in for the primary server that is not fully functional.

October 25, 5:10pm – We ran in to some issues with our backup server this morning so we’re going to perform some emergency maintenance this evening to move everything over to the primary server.  The part has arrived and the OS has been updated to the latest release.   There will be a short interruption on some machines as we perform a quick reboot.

Update 6:25pm – The work is complete and all is well with the world again (well, our little world).   This should close out this issue.

If you have any questions about this issue, please contact us at support@internetpro.net.