Wiley Online connections are failing: typically with a message such as

FYI – you may not all be aware of the problems Microsoft are having globally with their online services. While it doesn’t affect desktop applications (Outlook, Word etc.) it does affect online systems (which includes the UC Exchange Server). Latest post from ITS:

Technology P2 Major Incident – Update 1
What’s happened? Users may be unable to access Outlook on the web.

Following the initial investigation, further information will be provided to affected users as soon as possible.
How does this affect me? The following impact scenarios may affect your users:
-Users may be unable to access Outlook on the web.
-The search feature may not be working in Exchange Online, and Microsoft Teams
-Recently uploaded files to Microsoft Teams may be temporarily inaccessible.

This does not affect any delivery of emails; they will work as normal. You can still access your emails through the Outlook Desktop application

What stage is the fix at, and when is the next update? At 1500 Microsoft started performing targeted restarts to restore access to the impacted services.

Access to Outlook on the web, and the other affected services will be gradually restored as these take effect.

Some users have reported their access to Outlook if working again.

Next email update: at or before 5.30pm

What should I do if I think I’m having a related problem? If you think you have a different or related issue, please contact the ITS Service Desk on 0508 824 843 or +6433695000 or visit the Assyst Portal to raise a ticket.

Who can I contact if I need more info? You can follow the ITS status page at https://status.canterbury.ac.nz/ for more regular updates.

Reference detail Classification: Priority 2
Incident Master ticket: 287287
Duty Incident Manager: Vera McLauchlan

For reasons that are unclear, Kā Kohika stopped working last night. There are no obvious reasons for this and a full server restart has not helped.

I’ll ask Minisis for suggestions – but it may also be something that has happened locally with increased security.

We’ll report when we have more information.

Over the last few days there have been a number of instances where Summon results have not linked to the full-text – in some cases going straight to our 360 Link screen (which we don’t often see now).

In most of these cases, if you go into the ‘Preview’ drop-down and click on the DOI (where there is one) that link will work – on and off campus.

This has been reported. I haven’t seen others complaining so I don’t know whether it is specific to our instance.

For those of you looking after AskLive, I’m sure you know your efforts are appreciated. This feedback this afternoon (Monday)

status: Undergraduate
ease_of_use: very easy
tech_difficulties: no
init_response: v. quick
chat_response: v.quick
answer_useful: very useful
comments: The staff operating Asklive have been consistently exceptional.

And now for something a little spooky:

Here’s a way to get a face or other image for a PowerPoint slide or Word document that does not intrude on anyone’s privacy.

Check out https://thispersondoesnotexist.com/

The website employs artificial intelligence (AI) in the form of Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) to produce photos of people who do not exist. An astonishingly realistic, but entirely fake image of a person’s face appears every time your refresh the page. The site, which was developed by Uber software engineer Philip Wang, has used research published by Nvidia to generate an endless supply of portraits of fake people.

And animals and art as well:

https://thisartworkdoesnotexist.com/
https://thiscatdoesnotexist.com/

oh, and Chemicals
https://thischemicaldoesnotexist.com/

from ‘Office Watch’

The Unimarket login process is changing. If you see a Microsoft logo on the login screen, you should use your staff email to login rather than your username.

If you are working on Saturday, 17th July, be aware that the storage system on which networked files are saved (P: drive, K: drive, U: drive) is being upgraded and there will be interruptions. ITS recommend avoiding use of those drives if possible, but if you are using them and get disconnected, logging off then on again should restore access. For those that like technobabble, the full text of the ITS message follows:

We will be completing a rolling upgrade of our Isilon file storage which serves file.canterbury.ac.nz (including P Drive, K Drive).

This regular maintenance allows us to keep our systems secure and up to date.

This Outage falls within the agreed Planned Maintenance window agreed with the Business Service owners.
Each node will reboot one at a time with the upgrade occurring over 8 hours and is unknown when each reboot will occur. Most clients will only be impacted by one of the 8 reboots.

When the node you are connected to reboots, clients will experience the following impact:

SMB (Server Message Block) protocol used for file sharing (Windows Share):
• Connection will drop
• The application may send an error message
• The client can immediately re-establish the connection to another Isilon node by starting a new connection to file.canterbury.ac.nz.

It is recommended to avoid working on file.canterbury.ac.nz on this day if possible, to avoid any impact from the upgrade.

Note: If you are using Offline Files for your P Drive on a laptop while off the network you will not be impacted.

SharePoint is being maintained and will not be available from 5pm Friday 16th July to 5pm Saturday 17th July.

The 3 computers in the Library Warehouse (near MB) are being replaced between 10.30 and Midday today so probably best if you don’t plan to use them during that time. Each replacement will be quick.