Unimatic Connection Issue Update
We are still concerned about connection problems with AOL/United's AOL Unimatic/Apollo access that originally began on July 5th. If you are experiencing trouble accessing Unimatic in any way, please immediately fill out a Unimatic Problem Report so we can thoroughly address this problem with AOL/United.
Latest Update
July 13, 2006 at 0630 PDT
AOL will implement a permanent fix for the Unimatic connection problems last week with the Cisco Network switch by doing the following:
- Determine what network activities on the morning of July 5, 2006 caused the switch to remove the servers from being part of the allocation of requests for Unimatic/Apollo/Bid Package requests.
- Determine if the network activity on the morning of July 5th can be removed to return Health Checking to service.
If the network activity that caused the switch to become unstable on July 5th can be identified and isolated, then remove the ‘patch’ or upgrade to return the switch to it’s previous state.
If the network activity that caused the switch to become unstable on July 5th cannot be identified, then restore the switch to the previous last known configuration by ‘reloading’ the switch with the software revision prior to July 5th.
If neither of the above addresses a permanent fix for the problem, then the switch will be replaced.
Earlier Updates
July 12, 2006 at 0830 PDT
It appears as though AOL/United has finally resolved the major problems with the Unimatic web servers, at least to the point where they are continuing to run.
They have indicated to AFA that there has not been a monitoring error (i.e., connection issue to Unimatic via AOL access) since late yesterday.
In short: the switch healthchecking was pulling the Unimatic servers out of rotation due to an unusual condition---of which is still undetermined. Nevertheless, healthchecking has been halted for the time being on the switch.
If you are experiencing trouble accessing Unimatic in any way, please immediately fill out a Unimatic Problem Report so we can thoroughly address this problem with AOL/United.
July 11, 2006 at 1600 PDT
There are still connection problems happening but they do not last as long and only a small percentage of connections are being rejected.
AOL/United has indicated that an AOL technical group will take the lead tomorrow on getting the resources to address the problem. Additional updates will be published then.
July 11, 2006 at 1200 PDT
AOL/United took some additional action with the wayward switch to stabilize the system. They did two things:
- Shutdown the switches internal monitoring system that messages when it's in trouble;
- Increased the amount of errors threefold that the switch would take before shutting down.
The result is that the servers have been up without going down for the last 20 minutes, even with the heavy loads.
July 11, 2006 at 1100 PDT
All three of the Unimatic/Apollo Web Servers are now shutting down on a frequent/regular basis. The increased shutdowns are due to the increased volumes associated with the release of the flight attendant bid packages for August. The same web servers that service Unimatic/Apollo are also used to manage traffic to the bid packages on AOL.
The AOL Network Operating Center (AOL NOC) has taken control of restarting the web servers when they go down. This allows AOL/United additional time to diagnose and troubleshoot the problems and to identify a fix. Until a fix is clearly identified, the only technical solution is to continue to try, with a higher likelihood during off hours.
July 10, 2006: Switch Restarted
AOL/United has again contacted AFA and indicated the problem was related to a network switch. On July 10, 2006, they were finally able to get the switch restarted and things settled down and became stable.
July 9, 2006: Connection Problems
Two distinct problems are happening:
- The 'Access Unimatic' link is not always working and you sometimes just receive a blank screen, or worse, a 'Server Cannot Be Found' message.
- If you do arrive at the AOL Username sign on screen (after clicking the 'Access Unimatic' link), you might sometimes get routed back to the AOL home page instead of the Unimatic terminal window.
If you are unable to get into Unimatic, please try the following:
- Refresh the blank screen. Sometimes that will cause the JRE to reload and you may then receive the Unimatic terminal window where you can log on.
- Close the web browser window and try again to reopen and connect. You do not need to disconnect from the internet, as that has nothing to do with this problem.
- Fill out a Unimatic Problem Report, as this will help trend the Unimatic connectivity issues.
