The Curative Analysis team in IT is tasked with finding the causes of significant IT issues that affect campus. In this news update, we draw your attention to some of the problems being investigated or issues handled recently.
Personal Services Access: Personal Services access has been a known issue for some time in some K-12 schools, hospitals, and other government stations. IT staff are currently working with the UNC System Office to test a new setup which may provide a solution for anyone trying to connect from a military or similarly secured network.
MS Office Activation: An issue developed when Microsoft has stopped allowing device-based activation with Office products, impacting the imaging process for new MS Office installations. IT staff built and tested a replacement Office installation package and implemented the new installation package to resolve the issue.
Campus Network Issue Recent maintenance to the campus network introduced some issues for about 2/3 of campus. Action was quickly taken by Networking staff to correct a configuration issue which occurred during the recabling of the University Center.
WCU-Guest WiFi Issues: Clients attempting to connect to the WCU-Guest wireless network recently received an error message stating “No access.” Eduroam and WCU-Media networks were not impacted. Networking staff discovered that the firewall was blocking DHCP sessions. Networking staff cleared the blocked sessions on the firewall to resolve the issue.
Network Outage in Multiple Buildings: On August 4, multiple buildings experienced intermittent network connectivity which affected wired, wireless and VoIP connections. Networking staff removed a network loop created by a user connecting both cables to a Mitel phone in the Belk building.
Issues Connecting New Devices to Eduroam: On August 7, new Windows 10 devices attempting to connect to Eduroam via the Eduroam onboarding tool (ExpressConnect) began receiving an unexpected popup asking for a URL and were unable to proceed. As a workaround, Windows 10 users who are experiencing this issue can use https://cloud.securew2.com/public/54166/eduroam/ to connect to Eduroam. Networking staff continue to work with the vendor to determine the cause of the issue.
Residential Living Phones: On August 5, about 50 phones connected to in-room network access points were not connecting correctly to the network and were displaying ‘No Service’. Networking staff worked with the vendor to push new firmware to resolve the issue.
Campus-wide Network Outage: On August 8, a hardware failure of a core network device caused a campus-wide outage of the network. The outage will not occur in the future when we were are moved to the new core which offers redundancy. Networking staff transferred all network traffic to an HHS core device and replaced the failed core network device with a spare.
Class List Access Issues: Faculty recently experienced error messages when attempting to access class lists from within myWCU. IT staff discovered that a URL entered into Web Tailor was missing a component. Once the URL was updated, access was restored.
Network Issues: On August 10, fiber was cut between the Forsyth and HHS data centers near the new apartments on Little Savannah Road. An outage will not occur in the future when we were are moved to the new core which offers redundancy. Client services are now up due to the dual fiber path available running to HHS.
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August 2020 Problem Tickets: (Total 23)
Alertus Server (alertus.wcu.edu): 1
Banner Self-Service Applications: 3
Killian 219 Classroom: 1
doitnews.wcu.edu: 1
Network Connectivity: 9
Phone Services: 4
VCAT: 3
Zoom: 1
The Division of IT is committed to adopting a proactive, process-oriented approach to prevent problems before they arise. We will continue to keep you informed on our progress.
Contact the IT Help Desk
Monday-Friday, 7:30 a.m. – 6:30 p.m.
Closed weekends and university holidays
Call: 227-7487 or 866-928-7487 (toll free)
E-mail: ithelp@wcu.edu
Log in: ithelp.wcu.edu
Visit the Technology Commons
On the ground floor of Hunter Library
For walk-up technology assistance for faculty, staff, and students
See our hours at tc.wcu.edu