IT connectivity issues - Resolved
13 May 2020
After extensive investigation with various parties, the connectivity issues experienced over the past few days are now considered resolved
Update (8am, Thursday 14 May)
Continuous monitoring since 12 May has shown that systems and services have remained stable since the fix was put in place, and we consider the issue resolved. Anyone with any IT issues should report them directly to the IT Support Centre as normal.
Update (2.55pm, Wednesday 13 May)
Services have remained stable throughout the day. If you're experiencing any IT issues, please report them directly to the IT Support Centre. In addition, the scheduled downtime for this weekend has been postponed.
Update (11.35am, Wednesday 13 May)
Monitoring continues and still shows an improvement with stability on key systems including the IT Login Service (which manages connections to Blackboard and many other systems), and video uploads have now been re-enabled on the Video portal.
Update (9.55am, Wednesday 13 May)
Diagnosis continued through Tuesday night. Working with our partners and suppliers, an issue was identified with a service and a fix put in at 11pm. Since then, continual monitoring by our Network Operations Centre has shown that the symptoms we’d experienced over the past few days have not reoccurred, and the performance of University services has improved.
Considering the significant impact this has had on University activities we will continue to monitor thoroughly, although there are still some changes we need to make before we consider the issue completely resolved.
If you have any issues, we encourage you to report them directly to the IT Support Centre as soon as possible so they can be investigated.
Update (4.40pm, Tuesday 12 May)
As you’re aware, we have been experiencing intermittent performance issues on University services over the past few days, which has resulted in periods where people have either been unable to log in to services, or the services have been running slowly. Services affected by these issues include GlobalProtect Virtual Private Network, Blackboard, Podcasting, University websites, Library resources and more.
We know that this is having an impact on the work, study and research of our staff and students. Our teams are continuing to work together with our partners to fix the issues, so you can have reliable access to the services you rely on as quickly as possible. This is currently our most urgent priority.
We don’t yet have an estimated time to fix, however as soon as we have any more information, we will let you know.
Update (1.20pm, Tuesday 12 May)
Since the last update, we have noticed some intermittent performance issues which have been affecting access to services including the IT login service. We understand the impact this is having on our staff and students and we continue to investigate the issue as our highest priority.
Update (10.25am, Tuesday 12 May)
While we're still seeing intermittent access issues to services including the IT login service (which in turn affects login to services such as Blackboard and the IT Support Portal), we've found that many people are able to log in after trying again after a couple of minutes.
Update (8.40am, Tuesday 12 May)
After extensive work, testing and monitoring overnight, performance has improved, however we still have additional work to carry out and there may still be occasions where it could take you more than one attempt to log in.
While we continue to resolve the issues, video uploads to the podcast service have not yet been re-enabled.
Update (12.45pm, Monday 11 May)
Due to the ongoing intermittent issues with connectivity which have been causing an impact on University services, IT Services need to perform emergency maintenance from 6.30pm tonight by replacing equipment.
Usually, we would not expect work of this nature to cause an impact, however due to the issues currently being experienced, network connectivity should be considered ‘at risk’ from 6.30pm.
Colleagues will be working on and monitoring systems throughout this work.
Update (11am, Monday 11 May):
Over the weekend, we continued to experience intermittent connectivity issues which affected our staff and students’ access to various services, including GlobalProtect and the University login service. In turn, the problems with the login service meant that some people were unable to log into services including (but not limited to) Blackboard, Library resources and the IT Support Portal.
While performance of the above services is returning to normal after extensive work over the weekend, there are still issues affecting performance on some services including podcasting, University websites and Research Infrastructure services.
It may take you multiple attempts to log into the podcast service, and currently, video uploads are not working.
We fully understand the impact this is having on our staff and students and continue to treat this as our highest priority.
Help and Support
Previous message:
IT Services are investigating issues with connecting to University services including University websites and GlobalProtect VPN
Many thanks for bearing with us while we continue to work on the intermittent connectivity issues we’re experiencing, which are affecting University websites, GlobalProtect and some other services.
As these issues are intermittent, many affected colleagues have found that they are able to log in to these services after trying a few times.To get these issues resolved as soon as possible, our colleagues and partners will continue to work on and monitor the services overnight - throughout the weekend if necessary. Staff and PGRs having trouble accessing desktop email should be able to login through a web browser using two-factor authentication from Duo:
If you’ve been transferred to Office 365, you’ll no longer be able to log in using the link above. Instead, you can access your email by logging in at:
For the latest updates on service availability you can check the help and support page of the IT Services website or follow us on Twitter: