News and Updates

October 24, 2016 – We will be performing some emergency maintenance on Thursday, October 27, 2016 to address a critical Linux kernel vulnerability (CVE-2016-5195).  The bug is actively being exploited in the wild so we need to get the patch in place as soon as possible.  As a result, we will be operating in a maintenace window outside of our normal maintenance hours.   Maintenance will begin at 5:00pm on Thursday, October 27th.   We will do our best to minimize downtime for each host and all hosts will not be down at the same time.  However, all hosts will be affected at some point during the maintenance window.  This particular fix will require a reboot of each affected server including virtual private servers (VPS).

During the maintenance window, we will also be taking the opportunity to upgrade hardware on a limited number of servers.  This will result in a slightly longer downtime for those machines, but this will be a subset of the hosts affected by this vulnerability.

October 27 Update 6:40pm – Our website that you are currently reading was down for a bit while the upgrade was being performed.  As you can see, it is now up and we don’t expect any further interruptions on this site.  Many servers have been updated successfully, but there are still many more to go.  We will keep you posted as progress is made.

Update 8:25pm  – We encountered an unanticipated hardware failure on reboot of one of the servers.  We are working to correct it.

Update 9:55pm  – Things are still progressing.  We’ve handled the hardware failure and taken the opportunity to upgrade some virtual server hardware.  Many customers with VPS machines should notice a significant improvement in responsiveness.  We still have some machines to go and are working to test systems to make sure nothing is missed.

Update 11:00pm – We have completed the upgrades and patches.  All services should be working normally or better.  If you have an issue, please contact us at 256-547-6817 or support@internetpro.net.

If you have any questions or concerns about the maintenance being performed or the scheduling, please call 256-547-6817 or email us at support@internetpro.net.  We will be posting updates here as the maintenance progresses.

October 19, 2016 – Yahoo has adjusted the default security settings controlling sign in access to accounts. This change disables the ability of Outlook, Mail.app, and other desktop email clients as well as mobile email clients for Android and iOS, etc., from being able to sign in.
To fix this, sign in to your Yahoo account via http://account.yahoo.com. Then  choose ‘Account Security’ from the left-hand menu. Then enable the option ‘Allow apps that use less secure sign in’. Once you change this setting, you should be able to sign in via Outlook or your phone, etc.

October 19, 2016 – We are going to have to perform some maintenance on our phone system this morning which will result in calls going to our failover system.  Customers calling in may get a message asking them to leave a message for a return call.  We will be returning calls using cell phones as quickly as we can while the system is unavailable.  We hope the total disruption to the phone system will be about 45 minutes, but we do not know exactly when that time will begin.   We will be posting updates here as we know more.

8:56 am – The process has started.  The system will be going up and down a few times over the next hour or so.

9:41 am –  Work continues on the update.  It seems that the update will take longer than we initially thought.  Currently calls are still going to our failover system.  Please note that customers *must* leave a voicemail on that system for us to know about the call.  Our technicians are not notified about hang ups and we have no way of seeing missed calls.

10:43 am – Phone system is up and running!  If you experience any problems with it, please let us know.

Customers can also email us at support@internetpro.net for help.

August 10, 2016 – We’ve received reports of delayed email for our Hosted Exchange customers.  We have determined that an automatic Microsoft Update has caused an issue with the servers.  We are working to resolve that now.  No email will be lost, as it is queued up for delivery.  Exchange services may be interrupted briefly while this maintenance is performed.  We apologize for any inconvenience.

Update 12:55pm – We believe the issue is resolved.  Email is being delivered from our local queue.  Some email may still be delayed at the source, but should come in within a few hours at maximum.  Again, no email should have been lost (as long as the sender supports the standards of the internet).  Please let us know if you are still encountering issues.

For questions, please call us at 256-547-6817 or email support@internetpro.net.

August 3, 2016 – Last night CableOne covering the Calhoun County area did an update.  This update changed the routing of their IP addresses.  It seems that every customer with a static IP address has lost service and will have to obtain a new IP from CableOne and program their router with the new information.  Unfortunately, CableOne send out no updates about this happening.  Of course, we are also experiencing an unrelated phone issue which is making it difficult for our customers to reach us regarding this problem.  We are trying to reach out to customers who we know have static IPs.

August 3, 2016 – 9:30am  – For some reason, the time reset on our phone system making it think that it was after hours.  We have manually reset the time now, so everything is working.  We apologize for the inconvenience.

Update: 9:50am – Apparently, we are still not able to take incoming calls. We are checking into it.  In the mean time, please email support@internetpro.net for help.

Update: 10:15am – We just found out that the issue is with Verizon who has our main number.  The number is no longer routing properly, so even our failover system won’t work.  Our DID numbers and our toll free number is working.  If you need assistance, please call 256-467-6314 or our toll free number at 877-886-6868.

Update: 12:55pm – Phones are back online!!!   Woohoo!

We have been receiving NUMEROUS reports of computers automatically upgrading to Windows 10 without input from the owner.   Although Windows 10 is fine for many users, there may be reasons that you do not want to upgrade.  For instance, older versions of Quickbooks are not compatible with it.  There are also other software programs, like EagleSoft which may not run using Windows 10.  Or, you may just be comfortable with your current version and just don’t want to upgrade.

Lately, Microsoft has been aggressively pushing the upgrade.  The prompt for the upgrade will pop up and if the user does not decline or delay the upgrade, it will happen.  What we’ve been seeing is that people who leave their computers on overnight are frequently returning to find the machine upgraded.  This is because the computer is unattended for hours and no one is present to decline the upgrade.

If you are on a business network using a “domain”, this will not happen and you don’t have to worry about it.  However, if you are on a “workgroup” or using an individual computer (at work or home), this upgrade may present a problem.

For those of you who do NOT want to upgrade to Windows 10 unexpectedly, we have found a tool called GWX Control Panel which will allow you to turn off the “Get Windows 10” notifications and disable the “Upgrade to Windows 10” behavior on Windows 7 and 8.  You can click HERE to get that tool.  The user guide can be found here.   The tool can do many things, but to disable the notifications and the automatic upgrade, you just run the app.  A window like the one below will appear:

The computer we took this screenshot on had Windows 10 already installed, so the upper left button is grayed out.  You will see a button that says “Click to Disable ‘Get Windows 10’ App” instead of the grayed on which says “Click to Enable ‘Get Windows 10’ App (restore icon)”.   Click that one and the button which says “Click to Prevent Windows 10 Upgrades”.

After clicking those two buttons, it is safe to just delete the file you downloaded for the GWX Control Panel app.   If you have any questions or concerns, please email us at support@internetpro.net or call 256-547-6817.

We are currently experiencing an outage with  Comcast who is our upstream internet provider for our office. Due to this calls into our phone system are not stable and may be dropped. If our phone system is down when you call you will be prompted to leave a voicemail that will be delivered to our technicians to call you back. Currently we know that the outage is affecting companies as far north as Huntsville.

This outage is not affecting web hosting and email services. We have a dedicated fiber optic link that is providing internet for those services.

We will post any updates as we receive them and apologize for any inconvenience.

April 8, 2016 – We applied an update to our Hosted Exchange services to improve compatibility with the new Outlook 2016 version.  As a result, users may get a message similar to the one below.  Please place a check mark next to “Don’t ask me about this website again” and hit “Allow” if you see this popup message.   It will not affect your security in any way and once you accept the message, you will not be bothered again by it.

If you have any questions or concerns about this update, please email support@internetpro.net or call our office at 256-547-6817.

April 6, 2016 – We are experiencing some performance problems with our website (https://www.netsolinc.com) and we are trying to isolate the cause.  While we do some troubleshooting, you may notice the site not behaving properly.  This is temporary and we are aware of the issue.  We apologize for the inconvenience.

Update – April 11, 2016 – Well it took us a few days to track it down, but the issue ended up being the “Latest Virus Alerts” feed at the bottom of the site.  We pull that data from Sophos and apparently they moved the feed.  Our site was slowing down because the feed was timing out and the site was not rendering until that happened.  We’ve updated the footer with a new feed from the same company.

Additional – While working on the site, we took the opportunity to make some adjustments so that the netsolinc.com site is completely served by SSL, meaning that all of the information on the site is served to customers through encrypted traffic.  Google and other companies are making a push to move all traffic to SSL in the future.