News and Updates

Tuesday, October 6, 2015 – This afternoon we have experienced some issues with our power service from Alabama Power that has caused outages for multiple city blocks around us. Our Data Center has emergency Generator Power and experienced no down time due to this issue. However our offices do not run off of the generator and  has caused a drop in our phone service. As of 3:50 P.M. line power has been restored and we are able to receive calls.We are sorry for any inconvenience this has caused.

Tuesday, September 29, 2015 3:30pm – Our phone system is currently experiencing trouble.  Our office is unreachable by phone, nor can we return calls through our normal lines.  If you are needing assistance, please email us at support@internetpro.net.  A technician will respond as quickly as possible. Please include a phone number in your email so that we may contact you by phone if necessary (using cell phones).   We apologize for the inconvenience.

 
Update 5:30pm – Telesystems has gotten our system somewhat up and going while we await a replacement part. Customers should be able to contact us normally. We may experience some additional downtime tomorrow while the replacement is installed and we will post more information as we have it.

Update September 30 2:00pm –  The part(s) have been replaced and everything is fully functional.  We have returned all calls that we have received during the outage.  If you are awaiting a call from us and haven’t received it yet, please call us back at 256-547-6817.

August 1, 2015 – We have had reports of several customer sites which have been compromised by a hacker.  The attacks seem to be confined to one server, and we have are working to restore the compromised sites.  In the mean time, we have shut down the serving of the sites so those web pages are not coming up at all while the restore runs.  We are working to find out how the attack was carried out and will do everything we can to mitigate further attacks of this kind.

The sites which were compromised look like the screen shot below.

We will post updates here as we have them. In the mean time, if you need further information, you can contact us via support@internetpro.net or call 256-547-6817.

Update:  Our estimated time to repair is 8:00pm CDT.

Update: 8:00pm – Services have been restored.

June 30, 2015 – Our phones have been having some issues today.   Some people can get through while others cannot.   We have the ability to call some customers and not others.   If you are having trouble reaching us, please email support@internetpro.net.
Update: It seems that our phone provider Telesystems is having some troubles. This issue is affecting many companies in town.

Update: It looks like everything have been resolved as of 2:30pm.

June 8, 2015 – Several anti-malware software packages are causing Yahoo to be blocked as malware.    As a company, we do see a lot of malware delivered through Yahoo’s ad network, so we are not necessarily against this “error”.  However, this issue was caused by a company called Cyren, who misclassified some of Yahoo’s pages.   Panda Antivirus, who many of our customers still use, uses Cyren to handle their URL filtering and it was this error that caused the issues with Panda and Yahoo.  Many users may still have this trouble until their machines update.

For Panda users, right-click on the Panda icon in the systray and choose Sync.   This should update the settings to include the fix for the misclassification of Yahoo’s pages.   However, we have seen some users who have trouble even after the settings have been updated. If this is the case for you, go to Windows (C:) > ProgramData > Panda Security > Panda Endpoint Protection > Cache > URL and delete the file from the URL folder.

If you are experiencing issues getting to Yahoo and you use another software for URL filtering/blocking, we recommend contacting their support for an 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.

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.

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:

Scenario 2: The computer cannot login in Windows

Please follow the steps below:

March 5, 2015 – Due to a winter weather warning and deteriorating conditions, the offices of Network Solutions, Inc. are closing early (1:00pm) 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, March 6.

Update – March 6, 2015: Our office will be open for our regular office hours today.

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.