Gmail messages being re-delivered from January 23-25

Good news: Our weekend project of building a time machine seems to have worked!

Bad news: A bunch of our email got sucked into the time vortex, so email messages that we received between January 23-25 are being received again. I guess we shouldn't have hooked the flux capacitor up to a computer that has our email account on it.

Actually, we have no idea why some (many?) staff are receiving messages again that were originally sent between January 23-25. We are investigating it, but so far cannot tell what is causing it. We will continue investigating and post updates when we discover something useful. Sorry for all the confusion.

Update: workaround for problems caused by anti-virus software

Josh and Doug have spent many hours researching the cause of the slow logins and it appears to be a combination of issues related to our anti-virus software. Our server was overloaded and Kaspersky released an update which caused problems. The server couldn't keep up with the update requests, so the fix to the bad update couldn't be pushed out. So, machines were stuck with a bad version of anti-virus, and the server couldn't deliver the fix. (Arrrgh.)

We have disabled Kaspersky on startup for the endpoints, but left the service running on the server. So far we haven't heard any complaints after restarting the machines. Hopefully this will solve the problem in the short term. Our long-term solution is to provide a more powerful server for the anti-virus.

Sorry again for the loss of instructional time.

Jon

PS- Here's the official notice from Kaspersky
"If you are experiencing the following symptoms: explorer.exe and /or MS Office applications crashing, or login prompt not appearing, please be aware that Kaspersky Lab is working on a resolution. Also, please go to http://usa.kaspersky.com/support/companyaccount and open an online case. Once a resolution is available a member of the business support team will contact and assist you. Kaspersky Lab apologizes for any inconvenience this may have caused."

Slow/freezing logins

We are still having problems with computers freezing or taking a long time logging in. We thought we had a workaround yesterday but it still appears to be happening. Feel free to submit helpdesk tickets if you like, but we are aware of the issue and will keep you updated when we have more to share.

Moodle server back up

Update:

The Moodle server is working again. Sorry for the interruption.

>>>
The Moodle server is not responding. We are trying to restore service.

Navigator page moved to a new server

Kevin and Chris have moved the OSD Navigator Page to a new server, which should solve the outages which seem to keep happening on Sunday afternoons. The URL has not changed, so you don't have to change any bookmarks. (Students will have to revert to the old "dog ate my homework" excuse instead of "the nav page was down.")

Homeland security says to disable Java...but we need to post grades

The US Department of Homeland Security strongly advises that Java be disabled on all computers due to a security flaw. This is one of those situations where it's really difficult to find a balance between security and usability. The district computers need to run Java, because it is required for Infinite Campus gradebooks (as well as many other programs). At the end of the semester, entering grades is obviously a really high priority. Disabling Java until a solution is found really isn't an option, unless we were to postpone the grading window.

I would suggest that Java be disabled on any computers that don't require it. I've disabled it on my home computer for the time being, and I encourage others to do the same.

Full details of the vulnerability, and instructions for disabling Java, can be found on the CERT page, which will also post updates as available.

Navigator page down...again

The Navigator page again stopped working on Sunday evening. Not sure if it was hardware failure, or the server was just dejected from the Packers' loss, but it wasn't responding to any requests. It's back now. Sorry again for what appears to be a recurring problem. We are planning to replace this server shortly, or at least move the Navigator page to a different server to solve this issue. Thanks for your patience.