News and Updates

Aug 24, 2011 – 10:00am — We are experiencing sporadic issues with our phone lines.  We are having trouble calling out and customers are also having issues calling us.  You may get a busy signal, a recording, or it may just not go through.  The phone company is aware of the issue and are working to correct it.  You can email us at support@internetpro.net for assistance if you cannot get us on the phone.

July 19, 2011 – 10:30pm – A NAS (Network Attached Storage) housing virtual server drives has stopped responding and is causing some latency in virtual servers.  We are investigating the issue.

Update – 11:00pm.  –  Looks like the issue was actually caused by a failed UPS (battery backup system).  We are in the process of brining several servers back online.  This did affect some virtual machines as well as some of our offsite backup servers.

Update – 11:25pm – Almost all services restored.  We still have 2 virtual machines having trouble due to disk corruption.  We are working to resolve this.

Update – July 20, 2011 – All services are working normally.  Please report any issues to support@internetpro.net or 256-547-6817.

July 2, 2011 9:00am  – Comcast is experiencing a system outage in the Gadsden and north Alabama area.  Internally, their system is online, but routing outside the Comcast system is down.  We are attempting to find details on the cause and estimated time of repair.  The outage started at approximately 8:45am.  We will post updates as we have them.

Update 9:50am – We’ve been informed that the service should be back online by 11:00am this morning.  We still have not been told the nature of the outage, but at least we have an ETR.  Please note:  This outage should not affect any of our customers except those using Comcast for access.  This is not an outage we have control of.  We are only providing these updates as an informational service to you.

Update 11:01am – Well, they aren’t online yet.  We contacted Comcast to get an update and they say they have two fiber cuts on Bakers Chapel Road in Guntersville that are causing the issue.  They have removed the original ETR and now do not have an estimated time of repair.  We will continue to monitor the situation and update you as we get more information.

Update 1:15pm – Comcast has updated their estimated time to repair (ETR) to 3:00pm.

Update 4:20pm – Well, they didn’t make their original ETR or their second ETR, but it looks like they have gotten the internet back up as of 4:20pm.  Woohoo!

June 20, 2011 – 8:25pm – One of our virtual server hosts has had issue and is causing some of our VPS machines to be unavailable. Our technicians are aware of the problem and are working to resolve the problem. We will post updates as information becomes available.

We’ve confirmed a hardware failure on the host with the issue. We are attempting to fix the issue on the host. If that does not work, we will redeploy the VPS machines on other hosts.

9:45pm – All servers are back online. We will be working to find the root cause of the issue so we can prevent a recurrence.

AT&T Network Engineers will be performing a planned maintenance on
Birmingham-Alabama Gigabit Access Router 1.
The work will be performed on 6/29/2011, during the maintenance window
of 12:00AM-6:00AM, CDT. AT&T's goal is to successfully complete the task
and restore service within the stated time frame. 

Although we expect the downtime to be minimal, we ask that you plan
accordingly due to possible unforeseen occurrences during the maintenance.

We apologize for any inconvenience that you may experience.
Please be assured all AT&T authorized maintenance activities are to ensure
optimal performance of their network facilities and equipment.

AT&T Network Engineers will be performing a circuit roll. 

If you have any questions regarding this maintenance, please call us
at 256-547-6817 or email support@internetpro.net.

May 21, 2011 – We are going to have to perform some emergency maintenance tonight on a couple of systems.  The maintenance will start at midnight Saturday and may take a few hours into Sunday morning.  The maintenance window is 12:00am – 3:00am on May 22, 2011.   During this time, some backups may not be available for restoration as the web interface for one backup server will be unavailable.  Also, we will be performing updates on a NAS and a virtual server host which will result in some virtual private servers being unavailable during the maintenance.   The emergency maintenance is required to replace failed hard drives in two RAID arrays on different machines which did not rebuild properly when the drives were originally replaced.   Because of the redundant nature of the arrays, no data loss is expected, but the hardware must be reset for the repairs to take place.

Update:  This maintenance is contingent on the rapture not happening tonight at 6:00pm.  If the rapture does occur, we will reevaluate the availability of our technical staff and may reschedule the maintenance window.

Update 2: May 22, 2011 – 12:43am.  The maintenance has been completed without incident and ahead of schedule.  All servers and virtual servers are reporting no errors. We are also happy to report that the end of the world seems to have not come and we look forward to providing you with quality internet services until it does!

April 27, 2011 – Due to a large complex of severe storms, Comcast is apparently having an outage in Tuscaloosa.  The Gadsden area feeds back to Tuscaloosa, so internet for Gadsden customers is down.  The Comcast system in Gadsden is OK, so traffic will pass internally (for instance from a home on Comcast to a business on Comcast), but the internet connection in Tuscaloosa being down keeps customers from getting to the internet.  We are working on finding out an ETR (estimated time to repair) from Comcast.   This outage is also affecting phone service for Comcast customers.

April 27, 2011 – 8:55am – We just got word that the damage is actually in the Cullman area.  There are Comcast crews from Gadsden and Huntsville headed to the damage, but they have not arrived to assess the problems yet, so there is still no ETR.

April 27, 2011 – 12:55pm – The word now is that the damage is actually in Tuscaloosa AND up north toward the Guntersville area.  Some of the main circuits run through Tuscaloosa, and we have heard reports that 2 miles of fiber has been ripped out as a tornado came through.  Crews are onsite working, but more storms are coming, so they are not sure if the crews are going to be able to work straight through.  Right now, they are expecting a resolution some time tomorrow.

April 27, 2011 – 11:00pm – Comcast seems to have resolved their issues or at least enough of them to restore connectivity to Gadsden.  It has been a rough day weather wise, and we applaud the Comcast crews for getting it done!

April 30, 2011 – Comcast had another outage lasting from approximately 3:30pm to 11:30pm today.  This was apparently due to the ongoing efforts in the heavily damaged Tuscaloosa area.  We expect more periodic outages in the coming days, although Comcast has not made any specific announcements.

March 17, 2011 –  We will be making a change to one of our circuits to prepare for the addition of more bandwidth and more redundancy to our network.  This change is scheduled for 12:00am on Saturday, March 19.   We expect there to be a downtime of about 10-15 minutes sometime between 12:00am and 4:00am as the routes propagate.

March 19, 2011 – Maintenance completed.  No downtime experienced.

AT&T Network Engineers will be performing a planned maintenance on
Birmingham-Alabama Gigabit Access Router 1. The work will be performed on
3/30/2011, during the maintenance window of 12:00AM-6:00AM, CDT. AT&T's
goal is to successfully complete the task and restore service within the
stated time frame. 

We apologize for any inconvenience that you may experience.
Please be assured all AT&T authorized maintenance activities are to ensure
optimal performance of our network facilities and equipment.

AT&T Network Engineers will be performing an IOS upgrade and a card
replacement. 

This work should not impact network availability.  Please contact
us at support@internetpro.netif you have any questions.

Update: March 30, 2011

The work has been rescheduled from 3/30/2011 to 4/13/2011 and it will
be performed during the standard maintenance window of 12:00AM-6:00AM
local router time.