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Service status

CURRENT ISSUES 

PLANNED MAINTENANCE - Moodle downtime – New login method in Birkbeck Moodle - 7am to 11am Tuesday 21st September 

  • Moodle will be unavailable from 7am – 11am on Tuesday 21st September while we set up a new login method. During this period services are considered at risk and might be unavailable for short periods. Other scheduled maintenance will be noted below.
  • When Moodle comes back online you will find a redesigned login screen where you will no longer be required to enter your username and password but are instead re-routed to the Microsoft 365 sign on screen. You will then be prompted to login using your Birkbeck Microsoft Exchange Online @bbk.ac.uk or @student.bbk.ac.uk email address. All other users e.g. those who do not have a Birkbeck Microsoft Exchange Online email address or who login as guests will need to access the second login screen by selecting ‘All other users login here’ below the M365 login button and enter the appropriate credentials as indicated.
  • This change also means that Multi-Factor-Authentication (MFA) will now apply when logging in to Moodle.

Security issues with Printing (raised 2 August 2021 - updated 13 August)

  • Update 13/8/2021: Microsoft has just disclosed a further unpatched serious bug in the Windows Print Service (CVE-2021-36958). Network printing will remain unavailable until a patch has been released. Microsoft have indicated that this should be released at the next monthly patch date - 14th September.
    • Students - stand-alone printing is available in the Library at Malet Street
    • Staff - please refer to Inside Birkbeck 2 August for details of stand-alone print locations - a further location is available on the 4th floor of the BMA

          We apologise for the inconvenience this may cause.

  • Update 11/8/2021: we are reviewing the latest patches from Microsoft with a view to deployment shortly.
  • Over the past month, Microsoft has reported a number of exploitable bugs in the Windows Print infrastructure affecting PC's, laptops and servers.
  • We have applied patches where those have been made available and turned off print services where they are not required.
  • Microsoft has reported further vulnerabilities for which there are currently no patches or fixes. These may be made available in the next "Patch Tuesday" release due 10th August - but there has been no commitment from Microsoft as at 2 August.
  • As a result, we have suspended network printing for staff and students across the College.
  • 2x Stand-alone PC's and printers have been set up in the library to enable students to print from a USB stick.
  • 2x stand-alone PC's and printers have been set up for staff (please see Inside Birkbeck 2 August 2021 for details).
  • If you believe you are affected by these issues, please contact the IT Service Desk using Ask.

Long-Term Issues

None

UPCOMING PLANNED MAINTENANCE

PLANNED MAINTENANCE - Weekly every TUESDAY Morning between 06.00 am and 10.00 am

  • Tuesday mornings between 6.00am and 10.00am is the ‘at risk’ period where we undertake general maintenance and updates.
  • During this period services are considered at risk and might be unavailable for short periods. Other scheduled maintenance will be noted below.
  • Please Note: if any maintenance is expected to have an impact on students or staff, it will be noted below.

    RESOLVED and COMPLETED

    RESOLVED - UNPLANNED DOWNTIME - EVENTS AND NEWS TAGS NOT APPEARING ON WWW.BBK.AC.UK - 1AM ON THURSDAY 16 SEPTEMBER 2021 TO 9AM ON THURSDAY 16 SEPTEMBER 2021

    • Following the scheduled maintenance on My Birkbeck and My Birkbeck for Staff, Events are not currently appearing on www.bbk.ac.uk and tags are not appearing on news items.
    • This is a known issue and a fix will be implemented as soon as possible on Thursday 16 September 2021
    • Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience this may cause.

    Complete - PLANNED DOWNTIME - MY BIRKBECK, MY BIRKBECK FOR STAFF AND ASSOCIATED SYSTEMS - 9PM ON WEDNESDAY 15 SEPTEMBER 2021 UNTIL 1AM ON THURSDAY 16 SEPTEMBER 2021

    • Starting at 9pm on Wednesday 15 September 2021 and running until 1am on Thursday 16 September 2021 the following systems will be unavailable due to essential maintenance and upgrade work:
      • My Birkbeck
      • My Birkbeck for Staff
      • Ask
      • Event Booking
      • Prospectus Requests and other Enquiry forms
      • Teaching Resource Manager (TRM) & Swiftfoot
      • Planning Tool
      • Staff Approval and Establishment Management Tool (EMT)
      • Events Management
      • Identity database
      • User Account Management (new account provisioning, password setting and resetting)
    • We will provide some static pages, which where possible will link to alternative services – e.g. Business World, Moodle etc.
    • Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience this may cause.

    Resolved - BUSINESS WORLD CURRENTLY UNAVAILABLE 17:00 - 19:00 7TH SEPTEMBER 2021

    • Work completed on time - problems resolved.
    • Business World is currently unavailable due to emergency maintenance work.
    • It is expected to be available for 19:00 this evening.
    • We apologise for any inconvenience this might cause

    completed - BUSINESS WORLD DOWNTIME - THURSDAY 26 AUGUST

    • Business World will be unavailable on Thursday 26 August between 12.30 pm and 01.00 pm due to urgent maintenance. 
    • Apologies for any inconvenience this may cause.  

    completed - PLANNED MAINTENANCE - TURNITIN SATURDAY 14 AUGUST

    • Turnitin will have a planned system maintenance on Saturday 14 August between 04.00 pm and 06.00 pm. 
    • Turnitin will be unavailable between those times. 
    • Apologies for any inconvenience this may cause. 

    resolved - MOODLE DUPLICATE FORUM NOTIFICATIONS EMAILS - TUESDAY 10 AUGUST

    • We are currently investigating an issue with duplicate forum notifications emails being sent to staff and students. 
    • We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.

    Completed - UCL PLANNED MAINTENANCE ON THURSDAY 5 AUGUST 07.30 AM FOR APPROXIMATELY 20 MINS

    • This has been successfully completed
    • The College's internet links are run via UCL infrastructure.
    • UCL have advised (2/8/2021) that they are undertaking emergency upgrades for security patches to key systems.
    • Whilst these upgrades shouldn't have a material impact on our services, there is a small chance that we may have internet issues for approximately 10 minutes between 07.30am and 08.30am

    COMPLETED - PANOPTO MIGRATION MONDAY 26 AND TUESDAY 27 JULY

    •  On Tuesday 26 July we are migrating the video content stored on Panopto servers from the North America Cloud to the EU cloud. The move is being made to ensure compliance with GDPR legislation and to improve performance.
    • The Panopto site URL will change from https://birkbeck.hosted.panopto.com/ to https://birkbeck.cloud.panopto.eu/.
    • The migration is scheduled to begin Monday 26 July at 09.00am and will last for 24 hours.
    • During this time you can continue to access Panopto and view content but you will not be able to record/create new content.
    • Find out more about the migration on the Digital Education website. 

    completed - MOODLE UPGRADE (DOWNTIME) - TUESDAY 20 JULY

    • On Tuesday 20 July we will be upgrading our Moodle software from version 3.8 to version 3.9.
    • Moodle 3.9 is an incremental change for us here at Birkbeck, although it does bring some useful enhancements.
    • During the upgrade the system will be unavailable. At this stage we do not the exact times but we would expect the process to last from 07.00am until the early afternoon.
    • Other Digital Education tools will still be available to use outside Moodle e.g. Panopto, Turnitin and Collaborate and MS Teams teaching links (accessible via MBS timetable instead). 

    COMPLETED - PEBBLEPAD DOWNTIME - MONDAY 28 JUNE 07.00AM - 08.00AM

    • This was an update about Pebble Pad's upcoming release (version 2021.4) on Monday 28 June between 07.00 am - 08.00 am.
    • The realise time was at 07.00 am with 10 minutes downtime and 1 hour at risk period. 
    • This work is now completed. 

    COMPLETED - PANOPTO DOWNTIME - SUNDAY 27 JUNE EARLY MORNING

    COMPLETED - MOODLE DOWNTIME - TUESDAY 22 JUNE EARLY MORNING

    • We had a short window of Moodle downtime on Tuesday 22 June in the morning between 08.00 am and 12.00 noon for planned maintenance.
    • This was to deploy the latest fixes and security patches in Moodle. 
    • This work is now completed. 

    completed - PLANNED MAINTENANCE - CHANGE TO EMAIL QUARANTINE SYSTEM

    • All in-bound email via the M365 email system is first scanned for malicious software and viruses by a mail sanitisation system.
    • Email containing malware is blocked and other suspicious mail may be put into quarantine.
    • For quarantined email, a notification is sent to the user to inspect the email and decide what to do with it.
    • We are changing the sanitisation/quarantine system over the coming weeks (from 15th April) and staff may receive notifications of quarantine from the new system.
    • Notifications will be received from quarantine@ess.uk.barracudanetworks.com

    Resolved UNPLANNED PARTIAL SERVICE DISRUPTION - PANOPTO - THURSDAY 10 JUNE 2021

    • Panopto is currently experiencing a partial service disruption with version 91 of Chrome/Edge browsers.
    • This is because in the latest update to Chrome/Edge, Google made a change to one of their cookie settings.
    • When logging into Moodle and opening a Panopto folder or session embed, you might be prompted to sign in again or you will see a “Refuse to connect” error message.
    • We advise you to please use an alternative browser option in the meantime such as Firefox or Safari.
    • Panopto is working on fixing this issue and will post regular updates in their Service Status page.

    Resolved - UNPLANNED DOWNTIME - TURNITIN - TUESDAY 08 JUNE 2021 11:15AM ONWARDS

    • TurnitinUK are currently experiencing a service disruption and  users may find they are unable to access the service and are shown a 503 error when attempting to access the login page or main site.
    • If you are trying to submit an exam please send it to  with the course code and your full name and username, or contact your departmental administrator.

    COMPLETED - PLANNED MAINTENANCE - S DRIVE (A.K.A. MOSELLE) AND EDIT-ON PRO ENVIRONMENTS - THURSDAY 03 JUNE 2021 5PM - 7PM

    • Following the issues in the Gordon Square data centre, critical maintenance work is required on the S Drive (a.k.a. Moselle) and EditOn Pro environments
    • These systems will be unavailable between 5pm and 7pm, today, Thursday 03 June 2021
    • Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience this may cause

    RESOLVED - UNPLANNED DOWNTIME - VARIOUS SERVICES - MONDAY 31 MAY 2021 - Thursday 03 June 2021

    • Updated 15:59 Wednesday 02 June 2021 - replacement parts have been installed and most systems are now functioning normally or being brought back online. The list of impacted services is now as follows:
      • Departmental shared drives - these will be gradually brought on line over the course of today and tomorrow (03 June 2021).
      • All other services should be functioning normally by tomorrow, assuming no equipment damage.
    • Update 09:38 Wednesday 02 June 2021 - replacement parts are due on site today, however, it is unlikely that the situation will be fully resolved before 5pm. The list of impacted services remains as it was, although work is being undertaken to improve network connectivity in Gordon Square.
    • We are currently experiencing unplanned downtime impacting a number of services due to an outage in one of the College's data centres
    • A partial list of impacted services, here follows:
      • Departmental shared drives
      • Network and internet connectivity in the Gordon Square building
      • Any public-facing web presence running on the "www7" subdomain
      • Some areas of www.bbk.ac.uk may be running more slowly than normal
      • My Birkbeck is running at reduced speed in some circumstances
      • Access to some Library systems such as a-z ejournals, databases, Discover (articles and more) and Vufind (our Library catalogue). 
    • We are working on this urgently, please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused.

    VMWARE HORIZON VIRTUAL DESKTOP RETIRED

    • As at 24 March 2021 there was an irrecoverable issue with the Virtual Desktop platform that has been used by some staff to access college services.
    • This system has been flagged for retirement as there are other methods for accessing college services such as email, file shares and systems (e.g. use the VPN or M365 directly).
    • Staff should be able to access the necessary services via the VPN - view the various methods for remote access.
    • If you cannot use the VPN or the VPN does not provide access to the services you require, please contact the Service Desk.