Server NC041 has been rebooted. This appears to have dealt with the database server issue. We will continue to look for the root cause to ensure this doesn’t happen again.
Server and System Status
NC041: Web server rebooted
19 June 2023 18:53:54 +0000NC041: Web server having some database issues
19 June 2023 17:35:03 +0000The database server on server NC041 appears to be having some issues. We are looking into it and will post an update about what we find shortly.
NC036: Connectivity problems in Zambia
18 May 2023 19:54:44 +0000Today we received a number of complaints of connectivity problems to our mail server. However, they were all from Zambia, from the Luangwa Valley to the Copperbelt to Lusaka; nobody else had any issues.
Below is a screenshot of NinerNet’s live status page that was taken moments ago that shows that the mail server (NC036) has been up for 100% of the last 90 days.
NinerNet live status screenshot, 2023-05-18.
In the absence of any other information we can only assume that there was some sort of widespread, country-wide connectivity problem in Zambia late today, for which NinerNet is clearly not responsible. The NinerNet mail servers continued to process inbound email during this time, so even if you couldn’t connect to the mail server, incoming email to you was still collecting on the mail server for your eventual collection.
If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact NinerNet support. Thank-you.
Update, 2023-05-19: One of our clients contacted a Zambian ISP and the problem was blamed on Zambia’s international gateway. Sorry for that!
All servers: Company SSL/TLS certificates on all servers renewed and updated
14 January 2023 23:27:28 +0000The *.niner.net wildcard SSL/TLS certificate has been renewed and updated across our entire infrastructure. This should be seamless for all our clients. However, should you run into a situation in the next 24 hours where you’re told that the certificate has expired, please log out and reload whatever it is you’re trying to do. You may need to reboot, but this would be very unusual. Simply forcing a reload should clear things up. Via FTPS you may need to re-trust our certificate depending on your FTP client.
This doesn’t affect certificates on your own domain on your website, just NinerNet services such as control panels and connecting to the mail and FTP servers.
If you have any questions or concerns, please do contact NinerNet support with any error messages you may be seeing. Thank-you.
NC036: Messages to Outlook-/Microsoft-/Hotmail-hosted domains delayed
6 July 2022 09:12:00 +0000Please note that we are seeing messages from NC036 destined for private domains hosted by Microsoft delayed at this time. The cause is not clear, but it’s clearly on Microsoft’s end.
This is not in any way related to the internal server issue that happened yesterday.
NC036: Issue resolved
5 July 2022 23:54:13 +0000The issue now appears to be completely resolved. If you’re having any email issues, please do contact NinerNet support and we will look into them. Thank-you.
NC036: Server is up, but some issues
5 July 2022 23:09:28 +0000We have been informed by the data centre where server NC036 is located that, due to “an effect from ongoing data centre maintenance”, there are connectivity issues. We have been noticing intermittent issues with both direct email connections and the webmail, notably slower transactions (e.g., deleting messages, scanning multiple folders, etc.). However, email is still flowing as usual, perhaps with minor delays.
We have opened a ticket with the data centre to determine why the issues are ongoing. We will update you as we receive more information.
NC033: Data centre maintenance
22 March 2022 09:31:57 +0000The data centre at which server NC033 (our primary nameserver, ns1.niner.net) is housed will be undergoing some maintenance tomorrow, 23 March, between 05:00 and 08:00 UTC. The work is on the data centre’s network infrastructure, and not on this server itself. The data centre released this statement:
These upgrades are designed and tested to be seamless and we do not expect any impact to customer traffic due to this maintenance. Should an unexpected issue arise, a possible outcome would be temporary loss of connectivity …. We will endeavour to keep any such impact to a minimum.
The data centre managers have had a good reputation for reliability in the six years we have been using them, so we do not anticipate any issues. However, if there are, we expect they will be very brief.
If you have any questions or concerns, please contact NinerNet support. Thank-you.
NC041: Maintenance post-mortem
8 February 2022 07:39:37 +0000Our apologies for not following up this issue within the promised 48 hours.
This issue was traced to a problem with a single website hosted on this server, and the modifications made to this website’s file system. What was done within one account’s file system should not have affected the whole server though, and as a result we have filed a bug report with the control panel vendor.
We do again apologise for this issue, and will endeavour to ensure that it does not become an issue again.
If you have any questions at all about this maintenance, please let us know by contacting NinerNet support. Thank-you for your patience, and continued patronage.
