As part of a programme of continued improvement and upgrades to the network, there will be interruptions to the network service at Langford on:

Tuesday 25 January between 07:30 - 09:00

At this time there will be an interruption to the data network of up to an hour during which the main Langford router will be replaced.

This will affect the Academic and ResNet data network for the entire site.  The telephone service will be unaffected during this outage.

We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.

Update 2011-01-12 15:10 Because of the extent of the impact this work would have, it has been cancelled and will be rearranged for a later date.

(more...)

It seems that one of our servers which provides My ResNet, the in-room registration system  and DNS for half of ResNet fell over on Friday evening.  Some people will have experienced slow connections as their connections failed over to the secondary DNS server.

As the office isn't staffed at weekends, I only happened to notice it by chance.  I've restarted the server and normal service was restored at around 14:45 on Sunday.

Sorry for the inconvenience caused.

The ResNet Service at Hillside Woodside is currently unavailable.

This appears to be because the connection between Hillside Woodside and the rest of the university goes through Burwalls, and Burwalls currently has the power turned off due to some flooding.

We'll update this post when we've got more information.

Update 2011-01-05: Following a site visit by our networking team, it is due to the flooding at Burwalls.  The pipe which burst was directly above part of the equipment which maintains the link back to the campus.  We're currently trying to determine how best to go about replacing the damaged equipment.

As we don't have any spares for that kit, it's looking like we're talking days to fix it rather than hours.  More info as and when we get it.

Update 2011-01-05: We've managed to acquire a replacement for the damaged kit (just about!  We managed to get the last one in stock!) They're going to ship it out to us tomorrow, so with a bit of luck we should be able to get it fitted in time for the weekend.

Update 2011-01-07: The replacement hardware has been delivered...

Update 2011-01-07: The replacement hardware has been fitted, and service has been restored to Hillside Woodside.

The networking in the North wing of Deans Court has been down since Mon 29-11-2010 at 10:30, we're not sure why at the moment although workmen have reportedly been seen in the vicinity of the cabinet.  We're looking into it, and will update this post when we know what's going on.

Update: 12:50 - it all seems to be back up now.

We've got a new version of the ResNet bandwidth quota monitoring sidebar gadget, which fixes a problem experienced by Windows Vista and Windows 7 users, where the gadget refused to accept their keys.

If you tried the sidebar gadget and it didn't work, upgrade to the latest version from http://toys.resnet.bris.ac.uk and give it another go!

Student Laptop Clinic

Computer running very slow, got a virus, or won't start up? Take your laptop to the Student Laptop Clinic! We can't fix all problems but will help as much as we can. Clinics are free of charge and first come first served.

For the latest times and locations of the laptop clinic see http://www.bristol.ac.uk/laptopclinic

MyResNet

MyResNet is a control panel to manage your ResNet connection. With MyResNet you can transfer your connection if you move rooms or get a new computer, check your usage, print receipts and buy top-ups for your connection, such as ResNet Wireless or extra bandwidth allowance.

Go to http://www.resnet.bristol.ac.uk/myresnet to try it out!

Student IT Training Courses

Training courses in IT skills are available to book at http://www.bris.ac.uk/studentskills/

Courses cover a variety of subjects including Microsoft Office packages, web design and image manipulation. New titles this year include:

• Word 2007: Using foreign languages
• Excel 2007 level 3: Making the most of Excel.

There are also links to self-study resources for IT and information about other development opportunities in areas such as Careers skills and Information Literacy.

We appear to be having some problems at Deans Court.

Flats in the east wing have been unable to access the internet since about 7pm on Friday 23rd July, and the north wing has been down since about 3am Monday 26th July.  We're also receiving reports of problems in the West wing, although as yet these are unconfirmed.

We're investigating it carefully, and will update this post when we've got more information.

Update: 2010-07-26 09:40 East wing has come back up

Update: 2010-07-26 10:00 North wing is down because of power problems, hopefully it will come back up when power is restored.  The fault with East wing was due to a faulty fiber connection so should be stable now.

Update: 2010-07-27 08:30 North wing is still down.  Deans Court contractors are sourcing a replacement fuse which is the cause of the problem.  They expect this to be fixed today.

Update: 2010-07-27 11:20 Deans Court contractors appear to have fixed the power problem.  ResNet for North wing is back up.  All of Deans Court is now working.

It's clearly not a good week this week.  We've now lost connection to a network device at Woodland Court, which means that 35 rooms at Woodland Court are currently without ResNet access.

We've been out to site, and it looks as though there's a problem with the uplink on the switch.  We're pulling together the spare parts required to narrow down the issue further, and will update this post when we've got more information.

Update Weds, 12:41
First trip back with the spare parts makes us think it's not the uplink, so it's probably the switch afterall.  Time to head back out there with a spare switch.

Update Weds, 16:22
OK, this is not an easy one.  We've tried swapping out the switch for a new one, we've tried new patch leads, we've tried a different port on the upstream switch, we've tried new fiber interfaces on both ends, we've tested the fiber run and yet we still can't find the fault.

It's very unlikely at this point that we'll be able to restore service before close of business today (Wednesday), however we will get right back on it first thing tomorrow morning.

Update Thurs 9:40am
We've traced the fault to the upstream swtich (which seems to have about 8 dead ports), we happened to have a spare one so we've replaced it.  Service has now been restored to Woodland Court.

We're really sorry about the inconvenience this has caused!

We've been experiencing some problems with the ResNet Wireless service at Northwell House and Winkworth House.  The wired service, and wireless access in other locations around the university are not affected.

There are two distinct issues, which have combined to cause a rather complicated and confusing result, so much so that I'm not really sure how best to describe the situation!

The main symptoms people have been seeing are:

• The wireless connectivity became unstable (we think on Monday, but possibly over the weekend), meaning that peoples wireless connections were unreliable.
• The wireless bandwidth accounting encountered a problem and started counting peoples traffic multiple times, leading to people being cut off for going over their quota - without them actually doing so.

We've made some changes to the wireless network which we think will improve the stability again, hopefully returning us to normal service stability, and we're busy fixing the bandwidth accounting.

We are picking our way through those who are affected by the accounting issue, restoring their bandwidth quotas and putting things back to normal.  Until we've completed this work, Wireless ResNet data isn't being updated through My ResNet or the RSS feed/bandwidth gadgets We will be emailing those affected with more details in due course.

We're really sorry for the inconvenience, especially during the exam season!