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WiFi and network connectivity

For additional help, please contact the Technology Help Desk.

Current as of:

System Status System notes Status updates

WiFi and network connectivity

Campus WiFi, MHC VPN, etc.

Normal

On Thursday morning September 26th between 6 and 8am, LITS will perform a security update on the campus network infrastructure. 

During the maintenance window, all the wireless access points will be rebooted, meaning that there will be periods of time where internet connectivity is unavailable. 

Questions? Just AskLITS.

On Thursday morning May 2nd between 6 and 8am, LITS will perform a critical security update on the campus network infrastructure. 

During the maintenance window, all the wireless access points will be rebooted, meaning that there will be short periods of time where internet connectivity is unavailable. 

We understand that this is an unideal time, but need to apply the security patches to protect our campus network.

Questions? Just AskLITS.

LITS staff have implemented a fix that we believe has resolved the WiFi issues users reported to us this afternoon. Please let us know of any ongoing connection issues by making a WiFi ticket.

LITS is aware of some ongoing WiFi issues for eduroam and Lyonnet-Encrypt this afternoon. Our Networking team is investigating. Check back here for updates. 

On Friday morning March 22nd between 6 and 8am, LITS will perform a security update on the campus network infrastructure. 

During the maintenance window, all the wireless access points will be rebooted, meaning that there will be periods of time where internet connectivity is unavailable. 

Questions? Just AskLITS.

LITS has resolved the issue that was causing intermittent wired internet issues earlier today. If you experience ongoing challenges connecting to the campus network, please report an internet issue

LITS is aware of an issue with wired internet connectivity in pockets across campus. Staff are investigating. 

In the early morning hours on Tuesday 7/19 there will be a 5-15 minute planned internet outage (both Wi-Fi and ethernet). The outage is expected to take place during the first half hour of the 5am to 7am maintenance window.

Please contact the Technology Help Desk at helpdesk@mtholyoke.edu if you have questions about how this may affect you/your office.

On Friday 7/15 at 6am, LITS will conduct a second test of our internet failover system. We do not anticipate that people will experience any impact due to this test. If you have questions, please contact helpdesk@mtholyoke.edu.

On Wednesday 7/13 at 6am, LITS will conduct a test of our internet failover system. We do not anticipate that people will experience any impact due to this test. If you have questions, please contact helpdesk@mtholyoke.edu.

Eduroam WiFi service has been restored and should be working properly. We do recommend a restart of your computer if the connection is not restored.

Ongoing issues or concerns should be reported to the Technology Help Desk.

Due to a system outage that our technicians are currently addressing, users may encounter issues logging into eduroam.

Lyonnet-Encrypt and wired internet connections are unaffected.

If you have any questions, please contact the Technology Help Desk at helpdesk@mtholyoke.edu or 413-538-2600.

For a short time overnight and early morning of May 16th, logging into most systems (including Moodle and eduroam) was unavailable. Service is restored, though there may be a few intermittent issues through the morning. 

We recommend that you attempt a system restart as a preliminary measure before reaching out to the Technology Help Desk if you are experiencing challenges.

Lyonnet-Encrypt and wired internet connections are stable.

If you have any questions, contact the Technology Help Desk at 413-538-2600 or helpdesk@mtholyoke.edu.

Thank you for your patience and understanding.  

Our internet provider is having some service issues this morning which is causing intermittent interruptions throughout the Five Colleges. You may have experienced an internet drop or failure this morning. They are working as quickly and efficiently as possible to address these issues.

If you have any questions, contact the Technology Help Desk at 413-538-2600 or helpdesk@mtholyoke.edu.

Thank you for your patience and understanding. 

On Tuesday, March 15th, between 6 AM and 8 AM, we plan to do an upgrade to our Aruba wireless environment. It is possible that users will be disconnected from wireless internet during the maintenance window.

As you are aware, since January 25, LITS staff have been working with external experts, network engineers, and high level diagnosticians at our wireless vendors to determine and correct the root causes of intermittent issues with the wireless network. 

Yesterday’s service event appears to have resolved the last remaining issue impacting the campus wireless network. Since the work was completed, we have not seen any error messages related to the ongoing problems. While we have received six user reports in the past 24 hours, they appear to be unrelated to the issues we have been managing. We will follow up with those individuals. Therefore, please consider this message as an “all clear” update to the community.

A big “Thank you!” to all of those who contributed to the Community wi-fi reporting form.  The data collected was tremendously helpful to our diagnostic efforts. 

While we don’t anticipate further issues, we will leave the Community wi-fi reporting form active for the next 2 weeks to ensure no further issues exist. We have further updated the form with instructions to allow you to share your Media Access Control (MAC) address to help us to diagnose any further issues.

Again, thank you for your patience, understanding and contributions to the solution. 

This morning’s service event was a success!  The new architecture applied to the first portion of the Wi-Fi network is working as expected and shows signs of stabilization.  We will actively monitor the situation throughout the day.  We will apply the same changes to eduroam tomorrow, Thursday 2/10/2022 from 6:00-7:00 am.  During this time, users will experience intermittent connection issues. 

Following this service event, further Wi-FI issues can be reported using the Community wi-fi reporting form: tinyurl.com/mhcreportwifi

We continue to see indications of significantly improved performance of the wireless network. We continue to actively monitor the situation. In order to resolve remaining errors, we will need to apply a new architecture over several service events. 

The first will impact Lyon-net Encrypt and is scheduled for Wednesday 2/9/2022 from 5:30-7:30 am.  During this time, users will experience intermittent connection issues.

Following this service event, further Wi-Fi issues can be reported using the Community wi-fi reporting form: tinyurl.com/mhcreportwifi

We continue to see indications of significantly improved performance of the wireless network. We are actively monitoring the situation. If you do experience a Wi-Fi issue, you should be able to reconnect within a few minutes. Please alert us if this happens by using the Community wi-fi reporting form: tinyurl.com/mhcreportwifi

To address the abrupt wide-spread loss of wireless connectivity, a configuration change to the wireless controllers was made at 2:45 pm today. These changes were recommended by the team of engineers working to diagnose the current issues and have been made to reduce the likelihood of abrupt wide-spread loss of wireless connectivity. We will continue monitoring the situation. 

Please continue to use the Community wi-fi reporting form if you experience further disruptions: tinyurl.com/mhcreportwifi

We continue to see indications that the changes to the address allocation system have significantly improved performance of the wireless network. Thanks to help from the community, we have seen an 84% reduction in errors reported from Wednesday to Thursday, and another 95% reduction so far today. To address the abrupt wide-spread loss of wireless connectivity, a configuration change to the wireless controllers was made at 2:45 pm today. These changes were recommended by the team of engineers working to diagnose the current issues. Additional work is underway.

 

The addition of addresses earlier today has significantly improved overall performance.

We did see 2 disruptions today (around noontime and this afternoon ~1:35 pm), both traced to controllers that support the wireless network.  We continue to engage the team of engineers who designed our network as well as the manufacturer of the controllers to lead the effort to diagnose the problem. The problem has been escalated to the manufacturer’s highest (Priority One) response level. 

The data being collected by Community wi-fi reporting continues to be extremely helpful.  Please continue to use the Community wi-fi reporting form if you experience further disruptions: tinyurl.com/mhcreportwifi

3,000 additional network addresses were added to the available pools this morning.  Early indicators are that this has significantly improved the situation.   We are tracking a second parallel issue that caused the abrupt disruptions we saw yesterday afternoon (~3:40 pm) and this morning (~8:30 am). 

The data being collected by Community wi-fi reporting continues to be extremely helpful.  Please continue to use the Community wi-fi reporting form if you experience further disruptions: tinyurl.com/mhcreportwifi

LITS continues to actively work with network engineers and wireless experts to diagnose ongoing intermittent issues. Throughout the day, we made several configuration changes resulting in performance improvements with a disruption at about 3:40pm. Additional network addresses will be added to the available pool at 7 am tomorrow morning.  The data being collected by Community wi-fi reporting continues to be extremely helpful to our troubleshooting process.  Please continue to use the wi-fi reporting form if you experience further disruptions: tinyurl.com/mhcreportwifi

Around 10:45 am, LITS identified and addressed an issue that was contributing to campus Wi-Fi disruptions.  We expect this action will improve the wi-fi experience. However, we continue to actively diagnose this issue. Please use the wi-fi reporting form to report further disruptions: tinyurl.com/mhcreportwifi

We recognize the impact the ongoing intermittent Wi-Fi disruptions have been having on the College community, especially during this virtual teaching and learning phase of the semester.  We are committed to resolving the issues and need your help.



LITS is seeking information from MHC Community members about wireless disruptions they may be experiencing.  Please complete this form each time you experience a disruption: tinyurl.com/mhcreportwifi

LITS will perform maintenance on the campus wireless between 12:45 pm - 1:30 pm today (2/11/2022).  

Anyone connected to Lyon-net Encrypt or eduroam during this time may be disconnected or experience brief interruptions.  This will not impact those using wired connections.

This issue has been escalated and the LITS team is now working with additional engineering resources to determine the root cause of the troubles.  In the meantime, we have taken measures to try to reduce the impact of these issues. Thank you for your ongoing patience and understanding.

 

We have completed the network maintenance scheduled for earlier today.  Unfortunately as mentioned in our previous update as a possibility, this work did not resolve the issues with campus WiFi.   We continue to work on the investigation and resolution with the additional help of our second network vendor. 

LITS  will need to perform maintenance on Lyon-net Encrypt between 12:45 pm - 1:30 pm today (1/31/2022).  

Anyone connected to Lyon-net Encrypt during this time may be disconnected.  Anyone trying to connect to Lyon-net Encrypt during this time may be unable to do so.  If you do need to connect during this time, please try using eduroam.  This will not impact those using wired connections.

LITS Help Desk continues to receive reports of intermittent issues connecting to the campus Wi-Fi.  While we work to resolve the issues, please continue to try to connect to eduroam. Additionally, these tips may be helpful:

 -  Check your other devices, they may have a connection or restart your current device.  A manual disconnect/reconnect to the WiFi has been helping in some instances.  

 -  If you have an ethernet cable and jack in your room you can connect via a wired connection.

-  There are computers you can use across campus, including many in LITS and other academic buildings.  Please bring a headset with you.  You can review the LITS Public Computer Labs Page for locations. 

Thank you for your patience while we continue to work with our vendor to find a permanent solution to the problem. 

 

We are continuing to work on the ongoing WiFi issue. We have staff working on this now. If you have a wired connection option you should try that.   Please return to this page for updates. 

Campus WiFi service has been restored and should be working properly. We do recommend a restart of your computer if the connection is not restored.

Ongoing issues or concerns should be reported to the Help Desk.

We are continuing to work on the ongoing WiFi issue. We are working with our WiFi vendor, and are hopeful that collaboration will be fruitful. Cell Phones continue to connect to the WiFi, so they may offer a temporary alternative.  If you have a wired connection option you should try that.  

Please return to this page for updates. 

We have determined the problem with some WiFi connections failing.  We are working to resolve the issue. Cell Phones are able to connect to the WiFi, so they may offer a temporary alternative.  Please return to this page for updates.  

The LITS Technology Help Desk is receiving reports of issues connecting to the on-campus wireless network (Wi-Fi). We are currently investigating. Current workarounds include connecting to the network using a wired connection with ethernet cable, connecting from another device or from a different location on campus. Check back here for regular updates. 

We plan to apply security updates to our Aruba Clearpass controllers on Tuesday, October 19th from 6:00AM to 8:00 AM. We do not expect any degradation of service during this maintenance window.  The system is meant to be able to update while the system is running.

LITS reports as of Monday evening, 8/2/21, that all MHC services impacted by the electrical outage today have been restored.  Please restart your computer if you notice any inconsistencies.  We are sorry for the interruption in workflow, and appreciate your patience as our team worked to a final resolution.  

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