tnolen, Author at Network Solutions, Inc.

Faulty Windows Update

Wednesday, May 13, 2015 – It seems that an automatic update sent down by Microsoft is causing some issues this morning. Many (but not all) computers are “stuck” at a “Updating Stage 3 of 3 Preparing to configure Windows Do not turn off your computer” screen at the end of a Windows update. We are seeing that this can easily be resolved by going ahead and hitting Ctrl-Alt-Delete and logging in normally.

Note: Windows 8 has a slightly different message that says “Keep your PC on until this done”, but the same solution applies.

tnolen2015-05-13T13:25:04-05:00May 13, 2015|News and Updates|Comments Off

Chrome Browser Showing SSL Error

April 30, 2015 – We’ve had some technical support questions regarding the Chrome browser showing an error on the secure certificate on our webmail and on some other pages. We are using a “wildcard” certificate which matches any host at the internetpro.net domain (for example webmail.internetpro.net or mail.internetpro.net). The certificate we have in place was issued for 5 years and is valid until June 7, 2017, but because of changes in technology the cipher that created the certificate is no longer considered adequate. The Chrome browser has started showing an error for certificates generated with this cipher. We will be replacing the certificate with an updated version shortly, but because of the nature of the certificate and the fact that when we issue a new one the old one will be invalidated, we must plan our deployment carefully to avoid disruptions in service.

For now, please do not be alarmed if you are using the newest Chrome browser and get a notification of a problem with the secure certificate on *.internetpro.net sites. We will post an update here when we have finished the upgrade of the affected certificates.

Update – May 6, 2015 – The certificate has been updated for all email services, so you should not receive the warning in Chrome on webmail. If you see a certificate error in your email client, please let us know. Most services have been updated now, with only some lesser-used pages still needing an update. We will be tending to those soon as well. Additionally, WordPress released an important security update for a critical vulnerability in the core product as well as many themes. We have updated the WordPress sites which we manage.

tnolen2015-05-07T03:32:27-05:00April 30, 2015|News and Updates|Comments Off

Massive Windows Issues (Panda Antivirus)

Note: These instructions are changing as we get more information. Please do not print these instructions for reference as they change often. Also, there are many links on this page which cannot be clicked on a printed page. Please read the entire page as some instructions have superseded earlier posts.

March 11, 2015 – MANY of our customers are experiencing issues today on their workstations and servers. Our working theory right now is that the problem is a combination of an update from Microsoft Update and a Panda Antivirus update which has caused Panda to think almost every file is a virus. Files which are important to the functionality of Windows are being removed, causing issues. Our phone system has also had some problems this morning due to the call volume we are receiving. We are working to call everyone back and are working on a fix to the issue. We will be posting updates here as soon as we have them.

If you do have access to a working computer, and need to contact us, emailing us at support@internetpro.net may be a better option than calling at this time.

Update: – We have tracked the issue down to Panda Antivirus only. It is not a Microsoft Update. It is an issue being experienced by all customers of Panda Cloud. We are working to globally disable Panda for all of our customers which use it.

Update 2: – We are being asked a lot of questions about what to do. Unfortunately, we do not have much information. Here is our advice so far:

If you have a computer which has been off since yesterday, DO NOT TURN IT ON.
Rebooting the computer will NOT fix the issue and most likely will cause more issues.
We do not know if shutting the computers is the correct move. The computer may be further damaged by the boot up process when it is turned back on.
We do not know if leaving the computer alone is the correct move either, but we do recommend using the computers as little as possible to minimize the damage.
We have found that the act of uninstalling Panda is causing issues, so we do NOT recommend attempting to uninstall it at this time.

Update 3: – We just got a call from Panda and they said DO NOT REBOOT any computer with Panda installed on it.

Update 4: – Panda is creating a tool to recover the affected computers. https://www.facebook.com/PandaSecurity?rf=102166246492072

Update 5: – Panda has released an official statement about the issue: http://www.pandasecurity.com/uk/homeusers/support/card?id=100045 The “good” news is that the problem with Panda has been fixed upstream. This means that if you had a computer which was off and not affected by this issue, you can now turn it on and use it as the problem should not recur. The “bad” news is that they still do not have a tool to fix the computers already affected by this issue.

Update 6: – Panda is also working on a tool to fix the computers which have been rebooted! The tool is currently undergoing testing and as soon as it is published, it will appear in this article: http://www.pandasecurity.com/uk/homeusers/support/card?id=100045.

Update 7: – We are now getting reports that computers which have NOT been rebooted seem to be getting repaired. Panda had announced that they would be pushing out a fix through the internet to those computers, and it looks like that is happening. The repair tool for computers which have been rebooted is still not available online.

Update 8: – Panda has emailed us an official statement confirming what we were seeing in the field: The repair is coming in two stages. Stage 1 is for computers which are up in Windows and still connected to Panda’s servers. Those are the ones we are seeing automatically repairing themselves. Stage 2 is a stand alone repair tool which will fix the computers which have been rebooted or did not get back into Windows. The repair tool is not yet available, but is in “the late stages of quality assurance testing of the solution”.

Update 9 (~~being updated regularly~~ superseded by Update 13): – Panda has released the tool to fix the issue. Here are the instructions (also found on the article above):

Scenario 1: The computer boots up normally

Please, follow the steps below:

Click the Start button and put your cursor in the Search blank just above the Start button
Type in cmd in that blank (but don’t hit Enter).
You will see the Command Prompt icon in the list above the Search blank you are typing in. Right-click that icon and choose “Run as administrator” If this has been done correctly, the prompt you are at will say “C:\Windows\system32\>” Note: You do not have to be logged in as an administrator to choose the “Run as administrator” menu item.
From the cmd window, type in the following and press Enter after each command.
sc stop psinprot
sc stop psinaflt
sc stop nanoservicemain
Run the ps-recovery.exe file (click the word ps-recovery.exe to download the file) as administrator. To do so, right-click the file and select Run as administrator. (Note: Don’t just run it in the browser. Make sure you open your downloads, right click the file, and choose Run as administrator)
Restart the computer and check the issue is solved.

***Please Note*** In certain situations it might be necessary to preform the steps above twice to resolve all issues.

Scenario 2: The computer cannot login in Windows

Please follow the steps below:

Start your computer in Safe Mode with Networking. (Click the Safe Mode with Networking link for instructions on how to enter that mode)
Click the Start button and put your cursor in the Search blank just above the Start button
Run cmd (command line) as administrator (but don’t hit Enter).
You will see the Command Prompt icon in the list above the Search blank you are typing in. Right-click that icon and choose “Run as administrator”. If this has been done correctly, the prompt you are at will say “C:\Windows\system32\>”
From the cmd window, type in the following and press Enter after each command.
sc stop psinprot
sc stop psinaflt
sc stop nanoservicemain
Run the ps-recovery.exe file (click the word ps-recovery.exe to download the file) as administrator. To do so, right-click the file and select Run as administrator. (Note: Don’t just run it in the browser. Make sure you open your downloads, right click the file, and choose Run as administrator)
Restart the computer and check the issue is solved.

***Please Note*** In certain situations it might be necessary to preform the steps above twice to resolve all issues.

Other possible scenarios

For other possible scenarios, please click here.

Update 10 – Due to the high call volume this morning, we are asking that customers please attempt the instructions above (in Update 9) before calling. If you do need help, our technicians will assist and train you on the above procedure on one computer so that we may assist as many customers as possible. We ask that you use that training to fix any other affected computers. If, after attempting those, you need further assistance, please contact us again to have a technician scheduled to work with you over the phone or at your location. Questions can also be directed to support@internetpro.net.

Update 11: – We have been updating Update 9 above to add more clarification on the steps and we have added “Other possible scenarios”.

Update 12: – The vast majority of customer computers we have been working with are now fixed. We are dispatching technicians to repair machines which were unable to be repaired by other means. We are working from our list of customers whom we have worked with but still have issues left unresolved. If you think you need to be added to that list, please contact us at support@internetpro.net.

Update 13: – Panda has released new tools and instructions to fix computers which were not fixed by the procedure outlined in Update 9. These new tools are improvements and these instructions should be used INSTEAD OF those in Update 9. The updated procedures are below:

Scenario 1: The computer boots up normally

Please, follow the steps below:

Run cmd (command line) as administrator.
From the cmd window, type in the following and press Enter after each command.sc stop psinprot
sc stop psinaflt
sc stop nanoservicemain
Download and unzip the quarantinefix.zip file.
Now, double click either the LauncherNano32.exe or LauncherNano64.exe file, depending on the type of operating system (32/64 bits).
A window showing the progress of the quarantinefix tool will be displayed. It may take a few minutes. Please wait for the process to conclude.
Once it is completed, the tool window will disappear.
Restart the computer and check the issue is solved.

Scenario 2: The computer cannot login in Windows

Please, follow the instructions of article: My computer will not start – Issue with the signature file of 11 March 2015 in PCOP and Retail 2015.

Update 14 – Panda has released another new tool. This one addresses the errors in comctl32.dll, msvcr90.dll and other DLL files. See the steps below if you are having that issue after performing the steps above:

The following messages are displayed in some scenarios:

“The program can’t start because COMCTL32.dll is missing from your computer. Try installating the program to fix this problem.”

“The application failed to initialize properly (0xc0000135). Click OK to terminate the application.”

Solution

Please, follow the steps below:

Run cmd (command line) as administrator.
From the cmd window, type in the following and press Enter after each command.
sc stop psinprot
sc stop psinaflt
sc stop nanoservicemain
Download and unzip the restorelf.zip file in the C:\ drive, for example.
IMPORTANT: Do not try running the tool from a pendrive. Always run the tool from your hard drive.
Now, double click the restorelf.exe file for the restoration process to begin.
A window showing the progress of the restore tool will be displayed. It may take a few minutes. Please wait for the process to conclude.

Once it is completed, the tool window will disappear.
Restart the computer and check the issue is solved.

tnolen2015-03-17T15:18:45-05:00March 11, 2015|News and Updates|Comments Off

Office Closing for Weather

February 25, 2015 – Due to a winter weather warning and deteriorating conditions, the offices of Network Solutions, Inc. are closing early (12:00pm) today. Phone support will still be available by calling 256-547-6817 and pressing 8. Email support will also be available at support@internetpro.net. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Please check back here for updates on whether the office will open on time tomorrow, February 26.

Update – February 26: Due to the very significant weather event and roads in the area which have been deemed impassible, our office will remain closed today.

Update – February 27: Our office will be resuming normal business hours today.

tnolen2015-02-27T13:14:18-06:00February 25, 2015|News and Updates|Comments Off

Emergency Maintenance

Date: Tuesday, January 27, 2015: A critical vulnerability has been found in most Linux operating systems including the distributions we use for all web hosting, email services, and backups. This vulnerability, nicknamed “Ghost”, is outlined in this article. We have already patched all servers, but this particular bug requires a reboot of the servers for the fix to take effect. Therefore, we are scheduling an emergency maintenance window for Thursday the 29th from 12:00am – 3:00am CST (this is Wednesday night into Thursday morning) to perform reboots of all systems affected. During this time, all services will beaffected at some point. We do not expect any service to be down for the entire window.

Update: Maintenance completed as of 2:20am. All services are functioning normally and the Ghost vulnerability has been patched on all servers.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance, please contact us at support@internetpro.net or 256-547-6817.

tnolen2015-01-29T08:21:50-06:00January 27, 2015|News and Updates|Comments Off

Website/Server Issues

December 23, 2014 – 12:00pm – We experienced a thunderstorm at our datacenter which caused a short power failure. Unfortunately, we had one UPS system fail for that outage and it affected several VPS machines. It also affected our monitoring system, so we were unaware of the outage on some hosts. This did impact our response time, and some machines were out for about 45 minutes. All systems are currently back up or are in the process of coming online now.

We do apologize for any trouble this may have caused. We will be doing an investigation into the UPS failure in a scheduled maintenance window as it will likely cause a small amount of downtime for some hosts when it is checked/replaced.

tnolen2014-12-23T18:14:01-06:00December 23, 2014|News and Updates|Comments Off

Web Form Authentication (Updated)

Why won’t the form on my website send email?

Beginning January 1, 2015, Network Solutions, Inc. requires SMTP authentication for all form on websites. This it to prevent spammers from exploiting web forms (like contact forms, applications, and such) to send out unsolicited email. By using SMTP authentication, we are able to limit the number of emails a form can generate, and if one becomes exploited, we are able to stop just that form and not block an entire web server.

Most (if not all) modern email libraries support SMTP authentication. For example, in WordPress, we recommend the “FluentSMTP” plugin. Other Content Management Systems will have similar plugins and even standalone form handlers should support this protocol. If you are a web designer and are having trouble finding a suitable library for delivering email, please contact us at support@internetpro.net.

If we host your email, we recommend using the email account which will be receiving the webform information. The FROM on your forms MUST be the same as the email address you use for authentication. If we do not host your email, please take a look at this article.

If you want your form to send email out as webform@yourdomain.com, then create an alias with that address on the account who will be monitoring the email.

Settings for the email library:

Use SMTP-Auth
Authentication type: Plain or Login
Security: TLS
SMTP server: smtp.internetpro.net
Port: 587
Username: entire email address (in our example, webform@yourdomain.com)
Password: Your configured password (minimum 5 characters with 1 number and 1 letter)

Update February 26, 2024 – The Username used for authentication *MUST* match the FROM EMAIL address now. This is because of new policies by other providers to help prevent spam. Please update your email authentication plugins. Our staff will be updating sites we have access to.

tnolen2024-03-19T11:04:36-05:00December 17, 2014|Documentation, FAQ|Comments Off

Signatures in Tuxedo Webmail

When using webmail, you may want to have a signature automatically append to your messages. These are the instructions for accessing/managing signatures in the Tuxedo Webmail,

To access your signature and set or change it follow these steps as shown in the screenshot below:
	1 - click on Settings on the bottom left
	2 - click on Identities at the top center of the screen.
	3 - click on your email address on the top left

To set when your signature is used, follow these steps as shown in the screenshot below:
	1 - click on Settings on the bottom left
	2 - click on Composing Messages
	3 - set when you want your signature to be used

tnolen2014-12-11T17:33:35-06:00December 11, 2014|Documentation|Comments Off

New Email System

We are bringing the new email system online around 11:00am CST on 12/9/2014. We are bringing it online during the day instead of during a maintenance window so that we can better troubleshoot issues while people are using their email instead of possibly missing messages in the middle of the night when people aren’t using the system. Also, we’ll have a full staff available to address any problems which may arise.

Fundamental Change in Dealing with SPAM

The new system brings with it a fundamental change to the way we deal with spam. In the past, we have tagged messages our system thought were spam with *****SPAM***** in the subject line. The idea was to leave filtering of the spam to the end user. However, as global spam volume has increased, people are wanting to just not see spam at all. Also, devices such as phones and tablets have become more prevalent and those devices generally don’t have good filtering capabilities built in. So, the new system will concentrate on just keeping spam out of your inbox completely. Spam messages will now be rejected back to sender by default.

What This Means to You

You will now be able to maintain your own “whitelist” (list of email addresses whose email you always receive) and “blacklist” (list of email addresses you always block). Using these lists, you will be able to “tweak” your Inbox so that you receive very little spam. We are also providing templates which will allow you to be more or less aggressive in your spam blocking – more aggressive if you want a cleaner Inbox and less aggressive if you want to insure nothing is ever missed by accident. You can also set up a “quarantine” which is like a server-side junk folder to hold email which our server thinks might be spam. However, we recommend you only use this quarantine to perfect your rules so you no longer even have to check that folder. Messages which are quarantined will automatically be removed by the server after 14 days.

Known Issues with Migration

We’ve been working hard to make the migration as seamless as possible and to minimize downtime. However, with any large change like this, there will be some issues. Some of those issues we know about and some will be unforeseen. Issues we do know about are:

Webmail-based address books aren’t going to automatically transfer over. If you have a large address book stored in the webmail, please drop us a line at support@internetpro.net and we will move it for you. Please let us know if the address book is stored in the webmail located at https://webmail.internetpro.net or the one at https://mail.internetpro.net (Legacy).
There will be an increase in spam email when the server first comes online. We have relaxed our spam rules so that we can address any delivery issues which may arise from the new server. We will be tightening those rules again as soon as we are sure everything is running smoothly. Please bear with us during this transition as it will be worth the trouble!

We will be continuing to post more updates and documentation as we get closer to the Go Live time, so please keep checking our website.

tnolen2014-12-08T18:07:25-06:00December 8, 2014|Documentation, Internet, News and Updates|Comments Off

Comcast Outage

November 24, 2014 – 1:45pm – Comcast is experiencing a large outage in the Gadsden area. It seems to be a non-local event so it is affecting the entire area. We have made contact with Comcast, and they do not currently have an accurate estimated time to repair (ETR). Right now, we just have the generic automatic ETR of 5:56pm. We’ll be posting updates here as quickly as we get them.

Our phones were also affected by this event, but we have now rerouted our voice traffic so our phones are back up. We are returning calls as quickly as possible.

Update 3:25pm – No real update we’re afraid. Repeated calls to Comcast reveal that the issue is still unknown. The estimated time to repair remains the initially generated time of 5:56pm. For a nice map detailing the nationwide issues Comcast is experiencing, go here: https://downdetector.com/status/comcast-xfinity/map/

Update 3:50pm – It looks like Comcast has come back up and has been stable for about 10 minutes. Hopefully, the outage is over.

tnolen2014-11-24T21:53:48-06:00November 24, 2014|News and Updates|Comments Off

tnolen

About tnolen