News and Updates

• June 28, 2021 4:00pm – Comcast seems to be experiencing an issue in south Gadsden.  We began receiving calls as early as 2:30pm, so this seems be an outage that is going to be lasting a bit.  Currently, the estimated time to repair (ETR) is 7:14pm central time.  That time is usually automatically generated for 4 hours from the time they declare that an area is having an outage, so we doubt it is accurate.   Unfortunately, that is all of the information that we currently have.   This outage seems to primarily be affecting the Country Club area.   We’ll post more information here as we get it.

Update 6:25pm – The ETR is still listed as 7:14 p.m. No additional updates are available.

Update 6:35pm – We are told that modems are beginning to come online right now.

Update 7:00pm – Confirmed that things are back online.

May 29, 2021 2:55pm – One of our shared web servers is having some issues and sites it is hosting are currently unreachable.  We are investigating the problem to determine if it is a hardware failure, denial of service attack, or some other problem. Sites on that server will just not respond, so if you currently are having trouble accessing your web site, this is most likely the problem.   We will post updates here as we find out more information.

Update – 3:35pm – Services have been restored.  Unfortunately, we haven’t yet been able to tell exactly what the root cause of the issue was, but we are still investigating it.  If we find anything particularly interesting, we’ll post an update here.

If you have any further concerns regarding this outage or if your site has not yet come back online, please give us a call at 256-547-6817 or email support@internetpro.net.   It is a holiday weekend, but if you hit 8 for support, you will get a technician.

05/11/21 4:42 P.M.

It has been brought to our attention by multiple customers that there has been a bug introduced into Microsoft Outlook from the latest update pushed by Microsoft. Outlook users may notice that they can not read the bodies of their emails and text may disappear while composing emails. Microsoft has acknowledged this issue and are currently working on a resolution.

As a temporary work around you can issue the following command in an Administrative command prompt to roll Office back to the previous version.

“C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\ClickToRun\OfficeC2RClient.exe” /update user updatetoversion=16.0.13901.20462

If you are uncomfortable with running this command or need assistance please call us at 256-547-6817 to speak with one of our technicians.

May 10, 2021 – We have been receiving reports from customers using Trend Micro’s Hosted Email Security that are having delayed email.  The emails seem to be coming through, but they are very delayed. The issues started around 11:30am as that is the time of delivery for the last emails some customers are seeing.  Right now, we don’t have any news from Trend Micro regarding a time of resolution but we are working to find out.  Currently this issue is “up stream” of customer servers and is not a problem on their networks.

We will post updates here.

Update 2:24pm – They have posted this statement on their website:

–BEGIN
[ONGOING ISSUE] HES, TMES & PRE-FILTER | INBOUND MAIL LATENCY ISSUE We had an issue in Hosted Email Security and Pre-filter earlier 2021-05-10 23:15 (UTC+8) where there’s a delay in delivery of emails affecting NABU, JP and EMEA region customer. We really apologize for the inconvenience it caused you but we are currently addressing the issue and will do our best to resolve it ASAP. Thank you for your understanding and patience on this matter.

–END

Update 4:26pm – We are starting to see pretty quick deliveries from Trend now.  According to them, no email was lost – just delayed.  It looks like this may now be resolved on their end, but it may take a bit for the email to be delivered.

April 18, 2021 – It seems as though we have been the target of yet another phishing attempt.  Although we don’t post an article about every one (because it would be almost every day), this one seems to be affecting many of our users.  We thought it important to post a reminder that we will not ever send out emails asking you to “verify” your password or to check your online activity.  No legitimate request from any company will be similar to that.  Every one of these emails is an attempt to compromise your password.

And since we are on the subject, there are also *many* attempts coming through phone calls (and emails) telling you that charges have gone through for the purchase you made and to call a number if you didn’t make that purchase.  NEVER call any number about charges to your credit card except for the phone number printed on the back of your card.  And remember, there will NEVER be a reason that customer service needs to take control of your computer to “help” you reverse charges.

Here is a sample of the most recent phishing attempt going around to our customers:

–BEGIN

Internetpro

New device signed in to

support@internetpro.net

Your Internetpro Account was just signed in to from a new Windows device. You’re getting this email to make sure it was you.

Check activity

You can also see security activity

mail/activities/support/ions.com

You received this email to let you know about important changes to your Internetpro Account and services.

© 2021 Internetpro LLC, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA

–END

April 16, 2021 11:00am – We have received some reports of email delivery not working.  We are currently investigating the issue, and it seems to be related to the quota system.   We will be posting more information here has we determine what is going on.  Currently, affected users are not receiving email and senders to those users are not receiving bounces.

Update 11:20am –  The issue has been resolved.  Apparently, a software update was pushed last night which caused the problem.  The update has been rolled back.  We believe email that encountered the issue was lost, but we are still investigating that.

Update 11:35am – It looks like email affected by this issue *was lost*.  The sender did NOT get a bounce indicating a problem had occurred and the recipient did not receive the message.  This is a worst-case scenario in email delivery, and we do apologize for the trouble.   Please contact anyone who may have sent you an email this morning.  We are looking into the exact time the issue started.

If you have any questions, please contact us via Chat (lower right of your screen) or email support@internetpro.net.

March 26, 2021 7:00AM – Service to all Sparklight fiber customers in the Gadsden, AL area is down. Part of the fiber plant that services the Gadsden area was severely damaged in the tornado that went through the Wellington/Ohatchee area. We will update this post as more information becomes available to us.

Update March 27 9:15am – Sparklight still does not have an estimated time to repair.  We believe this will be an extended outage possibly lasting several days.  We recommend implementing your business continuity plan if you do not have a backup internet source.  Please contact us if you need assistance with this.

Update 10:45am – Message from our contact at Sparklight “I was just informed that fiber service to your area has now been restored albeit temporary. Please note that the area where it was damaged is still undergoing major construction. In fact our service is already working even before new power poles have been installed. I just wanted to let you know that information in the event that the service goes off again due to another cut by all of the equipment in the area. Thank your for your patience during this devastating event.” 

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

March 17, 2021 – Network Solutions, Inc. will be closing at 2:00pm due to the inclement weather.  Phone and chat technical support will still be available, but our front office will be closed and we will not be dispatching technicians onsite for the rest of the day.

You can also reach support by email at support@internetpro.net.

February 8, 2021 – We’ve identified an issue with our hosted Exchange platform which is causing delays in receiving email.  Email can be sent from customers without error, but that email is also not properly being delivered in a timely manner.  No email is being lost, but it is being queued for retry later.   This issue seems to have been happening a few hours as of 2:45pm.   We are investigating the cause and working on a resolution.  Updates will be posted here.

Update 3:10pm – We’ve identified the issue as a forced update by the antivirus/antispam software being used.  It is an “engine update” which requires a reboot/reload of services.  Those actions are being performed now, but due to the size/nature of the servers and services, it does take a bit of time to complete.  We do not currently have an estimated time, but the work is in progress.

Update 3:45pm – Services are beginning to come back online.  We expect full restoration shortly.

Update 3:52pm – Internal testing indicates everything is fully back online.  If you are a hosted Exchange customer, expect email to begin coming in now if  you haven’t already seen some.  It may take a little while for emails sent earlier in the day to reach your Inbox, but they should all arrive with no further issues.  If you have any questions or concerns about this, please contact us via support@internetpro.net, 256-547-6817, or utilize the chat window to the lower right of your screen.