Tag: internet outage

  • The 7 most common network issues and how to fix them

    The 7 most common network issues and how to fix them

    “The internet is down” is a phrase no one enjoys hearing. Beyond the disruption to your day, troubleshooting network issues is also a notoriously frustrating experience. Questions like why is it down, is it us or our service provider, when will it come back up? are common place in this universally shared experience. These questions don’t always have easy answers, but we have 7 easy solutions you can try if your internet is out (even if you’re currently looking at this list from your cell phone).

    1. The tried and true, have you tried turning it off and on? When in doubt, a quick router reset is sometimes all it takes to get your network back online. If you’re curious why this works, it’s often because like with a computer resetting the device clears its memory which allows it to run more efficiently.

      Hello It Have You Tried GIFfrom Hello It GIFs

    2. Do a quick inspection. Is everything plugged in? Even if it looks like everything is plugged in snuggly and securely, we still suggest double-checking cables etc. for loose connections or whether a cable is showing signs of failure (fraying, loose or damaged connectors, things of that nature).
    3. Run a network test. We promise this tip is actually easy even if it sounds complicated. First, open a Command Prompt by typing CMD in the search bar of your device, from there simply cut and paste this command ping -n 100 1.1.1.1 (1.1.1.1 is a public DNS service provided by CloudFlare) and hit enter. Your device will start giving you the ping results, this can also help you if your internet is online but slow as it will tell you if your pings take a long time to reach the service.
    4. Try this command. Before you close that command prompt, we also suggest trying the simple command ipconfig /release followed by ipconfig /renew . What this will do is refresh your computer’s IP address and it may solve the problem if only one device in your office is affected.
    5. See if you’re due for an update. We’ve touched on this before, but small devices like routers and Wi-Fi connectors often fly under the radar when it comes to receiving updates. A firmware update may be all it takes to get you back online, and your device will also be more secure from being updated as an added benefit.
    6. Check if it’s you or your provider. Tried the above steps and still no dice? At this point we recommend reaching out to your internet provider to see if there’s a known issue in your area (this information may also be available online). You can also see if they can reset things on their end to possibly resolve the issue for you if there Isn’t a more widespread outage going on.
    7. Call for backup. If you’ve tried the above steps and your internet is still out, it’s time to reach out to your IT support team for escalating and more complex troubleshooting.

    Don’t currently have an IT support team for your California business? Valley Techlogic can help, networking support and troubleshooting is included in all of our service plans. We have personally assisted customers with persistent network outage situations, developing complex and creative internet connectivity solutions for more remote locations and more.

    Don’t let a bad connection get between you and your ability to run your business, reach out today for a consultation.

    Looking for more to read? We suggest these other articles from our site.

    This article was powered by Valley Techlogic, leading provider of trouble free IT services for businesses in California including Merced, Fresno, Stockton & More. You can find more information at https://www.valleytechlogic.com/ or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/valleytechlogic/ . Follow us on Twitter at https://x.com/valleytechlogic and LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/valley-techlogic-inc/.

  • Reddit experienced a major outage yesterday, and our 5 tips for what to say to customers when your website goes down

    Reddit experienced a major outage yesterday, and our 5 tips for what to say to customers when your website goes down

    Reddit was down for several hours yesterday due to an “internal systems issue”. While the mobile version of the site fluctuated between being semi usable to being completed down, the desktop version was unusable for nearly five hours.

    Outages like this that occur to major website are a newsworthy event, as users flock to social media to report the outage and speculate on the cause. A fix was implemented and the site slowly came back up just before 7:30 PM Eastern Standard Time. By the time it was back up it had already been reported on by major tech news sites such as the Verge, Apple Insider, TechCrunch and more.

    We’ve discussed outages before on this site because as we just said, they’re newsworthy events, but what about when your company’s website goes down?

    It might be less news worthy than Facebook, Reddit, Amazon, Twitter etc. having an outage but depending on the type of business you’re in it may still be noticeable to your customers if your website has a major outage.

    When something goes wrong there’s often a knee jerk reaction to move along and pretend it never happened, but outages these days often go hand in hand with cyber threat events and moving along mums the word may leave your customers with the wrong idea (and rightfully concerned).

    If you’re in a business sector that saves customer data at all, and there aren’t many that aren’t, it’s always good to be transparent when you have a major outage. Even if your website was down briefly it still might have been noticed by some and it’s best to keep ahead of the rumor mill.

    Here are our five tips for what to say to your customers when your website experiences an outage:

    1. If the outage is ongoing, update your social media. Customers often look to your social media pages for news about your business and this will be the first place many will check to find out what’s going on. You don’t have to cover everything about the outage, a summary of what’s happening and that you’re aware of it will be enough.
    2. Let your customers know how they can reach if you needed (especially if going through your website is how customers usually contact you). Having an email address available specifically for customer concerns is a good idea.
    3. Also send an email proactively, especially if the outage extends longer than a day. Not every user will check social media, sending an email covers the rest of your digital bases for letting customers know.
    4. Be sure to post an update when the issue is resolved. Again, it’s best to stay ahead of your own narrative for outages within your business, posting an update and a brief description of what the issue was is a good idea.
    5. Finally, if your outage was the result of a breach, follow state and country guidelines for notifying customers of any data leaks that may have occurred.

    Your business reputation can be affected by major outages, we wrote an article on how to protect your reputation and recover. You can find it here.

    Providing advice like this is a service that comes with being a Valley Techlogic customer, here are four other benefits to being a Valley Techlogic customer.

    4 Reasons to Choose Valley TechlogicReach out today to learn more.

    Looking for more to read? We suggest these other articles from our site.

    This article was powered by Valley Techlogic, an IT service provider in Atwater, CA. You can find more information at https://www.valleytechlogic.com/ or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/valleytechlogic/ . Follow us on Twitter at https://x.com/valleytechlogic.

  • The Massive Internet Outage and The Human Error Behind It

    The Massive Internet Outage and The Human Error Behind It

    A number of major websites were down yesterday morning, including Google, Amazon, Reddit and Twitch. The outage lasted for an hour and even broke services such as Twitter’s emoji.

    The outage occurred through Fastly which is a cloud computing provider and highlights how interconnected (and sensitive) the world wide web really is.

    The error occurred with something called the Content Delivery Network (CDN) which is a geographically distributed network of proxy services and data centers. They came about when performance bottlenecks in the 90’s were causing slowdowns, especially as use exploded.

    By distributing the load it allowed for the faster connectivity and increased bandwidth we enjoy today, along with better reliability. CDN nodes are deployed at multiple locations, and while the entire internet won’t go down if one is affected, as yesterday proves it can still cause significant issues.

    So, what caused yesterday’s issue in the first place?

    Believe it or not the thing that brought down all those major players was actually a customer error. A dormant bug in Fastly’s code reared it’s head on Tuesday when a customer changed updated their settings.

    This setting change (which was a valid configuration) triggered a specific circumstance which activated the bug and caused Fastly servers to begin reporting errors throughout 85% of their network.

    Fastly claims they detected the error within one minute which allowed them to contain the incident within an hour. They say they should have anticipated this error could occur in their messaging on the incident. Fastly maintains one of the largest CDN’s on the internet.

    While it was a relatively short outage, the cost to the websites that were down is still staggering, Early estimates indicated Amazon alone could have lost $32 million in sales.

    This outage indicates how truly disruptive technology related downtime is. Even for small business’s the costs can be extreme. Look at our chart below to see just how much downtime costs can add up.

    A Chart With Downtime Costs

    We know these numbers seem extreme, but if you tally up potential sales lost and the cost of just running your business during an outage – it really can add up fast.

    If you’d like to learn more about what downtime really costs you, as well as how to prevent it, we have a free report on this topic you can find here.

    We help the business’s we support prevent unnecessarily downtime every day. If you’re finding yourself navigating this and other technical problems – we can help. Visit our plan page to see if Valley Techlogic could be a good fit for your business.

    Looking for more to read? We suggest these tech articles from the last week.

    This article was powered by Valley TechLogic, an IT provider in Atwater, CA. You can find more information at https://www.valleytechlogic.com/ or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/valleytechlogic/ . Follow us on Twitter at https://x.com/valleytechlogic.