Multiple students were unable to access eClass on the morning of Feb. 24, the first official day of classes after the winter reading week. This outage occurred during the midterm exam period and upcoming course add/drop deadline.
The York subreddit saw over 50 comments regarding the issue, with many voicing their concerns about being unable to submit quizzes or assignments on time and receive their midterm grades.
York’s Deputy Spokesperson Yanni Dagonis explains that “at approximately 10:30 a.m. on Feb. 24, reports of difficulties accessing external websites emerged. During this time, York internet users had to attempt multiple retries to access external websites.” Some members experienced intermittent login failures “due to the network firewall inadvertently dropping authentication traffic.”
Students facing this problem received a message reading: “An internal application error has occurred.” They were then referred to York’s Information Technology Services (UIT) for assistance.
However, users reported that, while informed of the network outage after contacting UIT, a solution or the time it would take to fix the issue was uncertain.
Some students posted that they’d already missed deadlines and advised others to reach out to their professors or teaching assistants to explain the situation and, hopefully, not face late penalties.
The issue was not resolved until approximately 3:45 p.m.
“The matter was thoroughly investigated, and it took some time to rule out the more likely causes first,” says Dagonas. “Once the cause was firmly determined, staff quickly rectified the issue and returned the network to optimal operations, fully resolving the matter.”
Dagonas also states that York “apologizes for the inconvenience, particularly during a period of heavy coursework and mid-terms,” and recognizes “the impact such disruptions have on our community.”
York appreciates “the community’s patience and understanding” during the eClass outage. However, students are ultimately frustrated by ongoing issues and many do not feel that they can trust York’s internet services.
While not personally impacted by the eClass outage on Feb. 24, Maryam Niazi, a first-year kinesiology student, reported that she has “had experience with eClass being really slow a few times.”
A fourth-year film and media arts student, who has chosen to remain anonymous, says their roommate was impacted by the outage.
Both students also reported having a negative experience with the quality of York’s Wi-Fi services since the start of the new term. “I live on campus and, without being able to connect to the Wi-Fi, I had to use my phone to hotspot my computer to complete assignments, which is entirely unfair but unfortunately on brand for York,” says the film and media arts student.
The student reports the Wi-Fi cutting out randomly, stating that “this outage isn’t the only time there have been issues with the school’s Wi-Fi. It has seemed to be an on-and-off issue for at least the four years I’ve been here.”
Niazi shares this sentiment, stating, “the Wi-Fi issues have been bad since January, and in February, I had to start using my phone’s data on my iPad and MacBook just to get things done. I even had to pay extra for more data, which isn’t ideal.” After Niazi reported the problem to UIT, they “sent out a mass email saying [the issue] was fixed, but honestly, I haven’t noticed any difference.”
The film and media arts student opted to not reach out to UIT as they “had seen that it hadn’t worked well for other people in [their] building.
“[UIT] always seems to be working on the network; they ‘resolve’ things and then it stops working again,” the student adds.
Amidst internet connection issues in their building, the student recalls a time when they signed their name to a complaint put forward by their residence don.
“[UIT] were unhelpful,” the student says. “They just basically told us to update our devices, and only really sent problem solving responses for Apple/Mac” devices.
The student explains that while they do have an updated older iPhone model, it connects fine to other Wi-Fi networks. Their HP laptop experiences the same issues as Mac users when it comes to York’s network. “Other than that, [UIT] just seems to shrug it off and not know why it’s happening.”
The student also expresses their overall frustration with the situation: “You’d think that if I’m paying as much as I do to live here and internet access is included that I wouldn’t have to pay extra on my phone plan so that I can get my work done.”
“It’s been frustrating,” says Niazi. “Especially when I am trying to do online quizzes or get schoolwork done. I am still having to use my data, and it’s getting really expensive.
“I hope they do something about this,” she adds.
