News and Updates

March 16,2020 – As the world braces for Covid-19, we here at Network Solutions, Inc. wanted to provide updates on our activities regarding the situation.  Many non-essential jobs and activities are shutting down, but those essential to public health, safety, and even small business who can’t afford to take off for weeks are still up and running.  We understand that those businesses rely on their computer systems for essential functions.   Therefore, we are continuing to work to keep everyone up and running!

Hackers taking advantage: We’ve seen reports of hackers using “news updates” about the virus to establish control of computers.  Similar to phishing attacks, they are sending out emails which seemingly have news articles or important information about the pandemic and the links and/or attachments in the emails contain malware allowing the hackers to gain control.  For more information, please see these articles for examples:
Hackers taking advantage of COVID-19 to spread malware
Malicious coronavirus map hides AZORult info-stealing malware

Some things that are changing: We are working with many companies to enable their staff to better function using VPNs (Virtual Private Networks) allowing people to access their work systems from home.  We also offer phone systems which allow work from anywhere.  We can get your service established very quickly and even utilize cell phones as extensions.  Let us know if this is something your company needs.  We feel that many people who make the transition to working from home may tend to remain there permanently, so this event may trigger a shift in the workforce.

The good news:  On a lighter note, “social separation” is a life goal for many computer people, so some of us welcome our new Covid-19 reality. 🙂   Gas prices are going down.  Traffic is improved.  The environment is getting better in hard hit areas.  China is already returning to normal.  I finally got a really good excuse to use that virus icon.  So, it is not all bad news.  Keep calm and hang in there.  We’ll be posting updates on this page as warranted.

Update: March 24 – As employees start to quarantine, either by choice or by law decree, they are having to have VPNs setup to be able to work from home.  We understand that this is very important, but our resources don’t increase with this kind of crisis.  If anything, they decrease because children are kept at home and families worry about exposure.  We are working through our service calls, but please understand, that these things can’t be done with instant gratification.  We must put you on the schedule and plan out the setup.  This may take a few days from the time you call in until your issue is resolved.

March 8, 2020 – We’ve done some updating of the email system.  Many of the updates are in the “back end”, but there are also some changes that you will see:

• Webmail interface updates
• New Landing Page (now login.php)
• New generation Tuxedo interface (Beta preview – shown as “New Tuxedo Preview” icon)
• Multi-group support for webmail address book contacts
• Tuxedo calendar invitation improved for greater compatibility with Outlook recipients

We’ll be cleaning up the colors and look over the next few days, but we wanted to go ahead and get the new features rolled out as soon as we could.  If you have any questions, please contact us via chat using the window in the lower right of your screen, or by email at support@internetpro.net.

February 7, 2020 – We’ve gotten reports that Sparklight (formerly CableOne) is almost completely down.  Apparently a drunk driver crashed into a pole very close to their head end and damaged/destroyed the fiber connection.  This happened at approximately 12:15am on 2/7/2020.  As of 7:00am, the pole has been replaced and Alabama Power has released the pole to Sparklight personnel for repairs.  There is currently no estimated time to repair (ETR).   We will continue to post updates here as we get them.

Update 8:15am – We have received reports of some customers of Sparklight coming back online, but have not gotten a confirmation of the repair status yet.

Update 12:00pm – Most of the customers we monitor seem to be up now.  We have a few outliers but think that they may just need to reboot equipment.

Update 1:15pm – We’ve been told that there are still a few customers who are out. However, there is still no estimated time to repair.

Update 3:00pm – The remaining customers are back online.  We believe all issues have been resolved.

If you have any questions/concerns please email us at support@internetpro.net or utilize the chat window at the lower right of this page.

Friday January 3, 2020 – Due to the impending end-of-life of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, we are experiencing some staffing shortages.  As a result, we’ve temporarily removed the online chat feature from this site and response times to the support@internetpro.net email account may be increased.   We recommend that if you have a time-sensitive support request you call 256-547-6817 so that our scheduling staff can put you in touch with a technician as soon as possible.   These measures will be in effect through Wednesday, January 8th.  We do apologize for any inconvenience and will do our best to handle all requests in a timely manner.

December 19, 2019 – 7′;30pm –We are currently experiencing an outage with one of our virtual server hosts and in the process of investigating the issues.  We will update this post with further information once we have determined the issue.

Update 7:48pm – We’ve determined the host has had a RAM failure.  We are working to correct and are migrating VPS machines to alternate hosts.

Update 8:15pm –Migration is complete and all services should be normal with the exception of hosted Exchange which is experiencing authentication issues related to this outage.

Update 9:20pm –Repairs are complete. Guests are being migrated back to their primary server.

Update 9:45pm – Migration complete.  Everything is functioning normally except for hosted Exchange authentication.  We are working on that now.  No email is being lost – just users are having trouble connecting to mailboxes.  We expect a resolution shortly.

Update 10:20pm – Hosted Exchange recovery took a bit longer than we thought, but it is back online now.  All services should be functioning normally.

If you have any questions about this work, please contact us at support@internetpro.net, the chat box to the right of your window, or by calling 256-547-6817 and choosing the option for technical support.

December 5, 2019 – We discovered a slight problem with the work done on the mail server system during the last maintenance.  Although the system is working well (we in the office have noticed a huge difference in performance), there is a configuration error that affects data redundancy.   We’ve got to correct that issue which will require stopping mail services briefly once again.  We are planning on doing this Tuesday, December 10th, in a window between 11:00pm and 2:00am CST.    During that time, email services will be unavailable as data is migrated.  We will post updates here as the work proceeds.

December 10 11:00pm – Maintenance is starting.

Update 11:35pm – Maintenance completed.  All services are running normally.

Again, if you have any questions, please contact us at support@internetpro.net, call 256-547-6817, or chat using the window at the lower right of this screen.

December 2, 2019 – After completing “phase 1” of our email system changes, we’re ready do move to “phase 2”.   We will be performing this maintenance starting at 11:00pm Tuesday, December 3rd.  We expect email services to be offline for about 1.5 hours (a bit longer than Phase 1). The actual maintenance window will extend until 2:00am to give us time to complete all upgrades.  Once this is complete, there should be no more interruptions for quite a while.    We do have to block email access for the allotted time to insure that all email is completely synced to the new filesystem and so that no email gets lost.   We appreciate your understanding.   Updates to Phase 2 will be posted here.    We will also be using the time to update some web servers to newer operating systems.  These upgrades will take some web services offline briefly during the maintenance period, but we do not expect any one service to be out during the entire maintenance window.

December 3, 2019 11:00pm – This maintenance is starting. Email services have been stopped so that the data can be synced to the new storage.

Update December 4, 1:20am – The good news is that the mail server system maintenance went great and mail services were restored in right at 45 minutes.   The bad news is that some web server maintenance went badly resulting in this site as well as others going offline.   We are still working on that, but we are making progress on restoring the sites (as you can see here).

Update 3:55am – The maintenance on the affected web server is complete.  It went a bit long, but everything should be working as expected. If you experience any issues with a site, please contact us.

If you have any questions, please email support@internetpro.net, call 256-547-6817, or access the chat window on the lower right of your screen.  Please note if using chat, it may take 2-5 minutes for a response. Please allow us time to respond.

November 22, 2019 2:30pm– We’ve been seeing the spread of a virus/trojan in the Trickbot family.  These are spread using the older Word document format (files ending with .doc).  They are not being spread using the newer Word document format (ending in .docx).   We are temporarily blocking all .doc attachments to try to limit the spread of this trojan.  If you need to send someone a .doc file and you can’t convert it to .docx, we recommend that you put it into a .zip archive first and then send it.    Normally, .doc files can be converted to .docx by just using a version of Word newer than 2003 and saving it as the new format. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Update 4:00pm  –  It seems that we have inadvertently blocked .docx files as well even though we explicitly told the system not to.  We are investigating the issue.
Update 4:15pm – We’ve corrected the issue so only .doc files are being blocked as we originally intended.

November 25 – 2:30pm – We do understand that the blocking of .doc files is an inconvenience for some customers and we do apologize.  However, since 6:30am today, we have blocked very close to 3000 of these viruses and have been able to keep at least one customer from spreading this infection.

November 26 – 9:00am – We’ve seen a drastic reduction in the number of .doc files being blocked, so we believe the majority of infected computers have been found/cleaned/quarantined.  Therefore, we have removed the restriction for .doc files.

Update 11:30am – It seems that we were a bit premature at lifting this restriction.  We’ve gotten complaints of this virus continuing to spread, so we’ve applied the restriction to .doc files once again.

December 9, 2019 – 5:00pm – We’re stopping much fewer .doc files now and we feel that many of the ones we are stopping are legitimate (based on tech support contacts).   Therefore, we’ve again lifted the ban on the .doc files.  If we see an uptick of the trojan spreading again, we’ll block them and post updates here.

If you have any questions about this temporary policy, please email us at support@internetpro.net or utilize the chat window in the lower right part of your screen.

November 22, 2019 – We will be performing some planned maintenance on our mail server system starting at 11:00pm Thursday the 28th (yes, Thanksgiving).   The maintenance window is 3 hours ending a 2:00am on Friday the 29th.   During part of the maintenance window, email services will be inaccessible.   We’ll do our best to keep the time to a minimum.   We are implementing a new storage system which will improve performance and allow future growth of our email offerings.   This will be “phase 1” and after it is complete, we’ll be moving data to the new system.  Once the data has been synchronized, we’ll have another brief maintenance window to finalize the sync and make the storage system live.  We will announce this second window when we have more information on the timing.

During these windows, no email will be lost.  While the mail server system is inaccessible, any incoming email will “queue up” and wait for the system to come back online.  After the system is online, all delayed email will be delivered.

Update:  November 28 – 11:00pm – Maintenance has started.  Mail services going offline starting now.  Updates to follow when back online.

Update: 11:25pm – All services are back online.  We don’t expect any further interruptions for “phase 1”.

If you have any questions or concerns, please email us at support@internetpro.net, call 256-547-6817, or utilize the online chat window in the lower right corner of  your screen.

November 20, 2019 1:00pm – We are seeing city wide issues with Comcast today (busy day…).   These are showing up as internet down completely or very slow speeds.  For most customers, powering down the modem, waiting for about 10 seconds, and powering it back up has been resolving the issue.  Please note:  It is taking longer than usual after the power up before internet is restored.  It may take up to 10 full minutes.

We have seen these issues very widespread in Rainbow City and reaching to downtown Gadsden.