Issues with logging in - Resolved

29 Sep 2015

Issues with the Central Authentication System (CAS)

Original message (Approx. midday 28 September)

We're aware of issues with logging in to some University systems, with some people experiencing slow logins, and others unable to log in at all.

This is under investigation as a high priority, and technical updates will be posted on the Service Notification System.

Update 1: (15:32, 28 September)

After reconfiguring some services, performance has improved but the situation is being closely monitored and a full investigation will take place. The next update is expected to be posted on the Service Notification System at approximately 10:30am on Tuesday 29 September.

Update 2: (09:46, 29 September)

As you may be aware, there was an issue yesterday causing people being unable to log into a number of University systems, such as My Manchester, Blackboard, Timetabling and other services. The issue was with the Central Authentication System (CAS), and not the services above.

We made changes yesterday to the CAS service to better deal with the load.

As of 9:28 on September 29, connections are currently working. Staff and students should continue to contact us if they have any IT queries.

Our staff are taking part in additional monitoring, checking the number of connections and other aspects of the system. There is also currently an urgent technical review taking place to analyse the root cause of the problem.

We plan to issue a further update later on this morning.

Update 3: (11:28, 29 September)

Due to the system tuning and reconfiguration we performed on the Central Authentication System, the service appears to be handling the logins as expected, with a similar load to yesterday.

Even though the reconfiguration has improved the reliability of the service, we are now in the process of upgrading the memory of the equipment, and we will continue to monitor the infrastructure over the coming days.

Next update: By 3pm today.

Update 4: (14:25, 29 September)

Although the CAS is mainly back and working, we are aware that some people are experiencing problems with MyView (Staff Payslips).

There was also a problem with students accessing email on their mobile devices, but this should now be resolved.

Work to resolve this issue continues as a high priority.

We completely understand the impact of these incidents on our staff and students and apologise for the inconvenience caused.

Next update: by 4pm today.

Update 5: (15:35, 29 September)

We now consider the above incident to be resolved. Directory services staff investigated the issue with capacity on the Central Authentication System load balancing servers, and reconfigured the service to deal with the load put on them.

Remedial work will take place in the coming days to increase capacity of these servers.

We would like to thank all of our staff and students for their patience in dealing with this, and we will also be conducting a full review of the incident very soon.

If you do experience any IT related issues, please contact the IT Support Centre.

IT Services