Throughout Winter Quarter, University Technology Services (UTS) has been working to amend reported connectivity issues with DU’s PioneerNet internet system. This included periods of disuse Monday, Feb. 24 through Thursday, Feb. 27, when the network experienced difficulties and downtime.
“The campus network demonstrated sluggishness and most technology resources were intermittently inaccessible from approximately 11:55 to 3:45 today,” said UTS Assistant Vice Chancellor Ronald Rudloff in a campus-wide email on Thursday.
Rudloff clarified that the issues with the internet were unexpected errors made by UTS when changing the certificate that allows devices to access PioneerNet.
“The certificate had to be changed by Tuesday of last week, which would have expired,” said Rudloff. “In the meantime we switched certificate providers. When we did that, there were complications with what we call ‘radius,’ or the authentication system. During the Tuesday and Wednesday period when there were people still having a lot of trouble with their wireless, the wireless was actually fine, but it came down to the trust in the system between iPhones and computers, and the access point they were trying to talk to.”
Rudloff said another complication that affected student and faculty internet access was the operating systems (OS) installed on devices, including Maverick OS, which did not work with the DU network immediately after download, and required manual installation of DU ExpressConnect software to operate again.
In the meantime, students have been dealing with on and off connectivity issues, and some have sought other temporary remedies.
“When I went into the UTS help center, they went through the whole PioneerNet installation process again and that fixed it for a while,” said first-year student Cassie Jones. “Sometimes I try to do that on my own, but when UTS does it, it works, or I just use an Ethernet cord for internet.”
Other students faced more complications and were concerned with being unable to access Blackboard, or other class-related websites, to complete work.
Students have also been faced with needing to continuously reinstall the SafeConnect software.
