Syracuse University’s computer networks have been ailing all semester and another bout of chronic Orangemail crashes has prompted Computing and Media Services to prescribe a new slew of remedies.

Orangemail suffered yet another round of malfunctions this week, preventing students, faculty and staff from logging into their accounts for several hours on Tuesday. Deborah Nosky, manager for information technology communications and professional development for CMS, said outages in Orangemail service have occurred frequently this semester and are caused by waves of SPAM that tied up mail servers at SU and around the country.

Orangemail experienced a record volume of mail this semester, receiving more than 250,000 pieces of mail each day, Nosky said.

‘For SU, a quarter-million to a half-million pieces of mail per day is just more than we’re scaled for,’ she said.

The influx of junk e-mail impacts the Orangemail system in two ways, Nosky said. If students experience long waits while trying to log in, followed by a ‘log-in failed’ message, it means that the volume of mail is bogging down the system, something CMS can do little about in the short term. But if the ‘log-in failed’ message appears as soon as students try to log in, it means that the SPAM has shut down Orangemail connections. Nosky said people should notify CMS so that the server can be reset.

On Wednesday, Nosky and other CMS officials held a meeting to discuss possible solutions to the chronic breakdowns. In the short term, CMS has decided to reset the Orangemail servers twice a day to prevent system-wide failures.

To deal with the long-term volume problem, CMS has settled on three different measures. A new, higher-volume mail server has already been ordered and could be operational as early as November. CMS will also install a patch in the Orangemail software, which should be in place by the end of the week, Nosky said. The patch will keep the connections from quitting when the system gets overloaded.

The remedy with the biggest impact on students would be the installation of SPAM-filtering software, which could be up and running by the end of the semester, Nosky said. The services under consideration would work by deleting suspected SPAM before it enters students’ mailboxes. The problem with this method, Nosky said, is that about one out of every 100,000 pieces of mail it deletes is not SPAM. Despite this unfortunate side effect, the university will not be able to do without a SPAM filter for much longer, Nosky said.

While many students are fed up with constant Orangemail crashes, some are not sure they would risk having an important e-mail deleted by a SPAM filter. Meredith Jacobs, a junior acting major, doesn’t believe the crashes are enough of a nuisance to warrant the filter.

‘I don’t think it’s worth the risk,’ Jacobs said. ‘These breakdowns don’t happen that often.’

Other students have found ways of getting around Orangemail’s inconsistency. Katie Andryshak, a senior English and textual studies and magazine major, has all her mail forwarded to her Hotmail account. She hasn’t used the university’s mail service since her freshman year, she said.

Nosky said students who forward their Orangemail to Hotmail or America Online accounts may already be encountering SPAM filters that reject some university e-mails.

‘You’re subjected to more SPAM-filtering than many people realize,’ Nosky said.

Some students may be willing to switch back to Orangemail if its reliability improves. Erin Kritzer, a sophomore advertising design major, would be willing to gamble on the filter if it means fewer SPAM and fewer crashes.

‘I don’t even check my mail now,’ Kritzer said. ‘I probably lose more mail now that just gets stuck in all the crap.’

Published on October 1, 2003 at 12:00 pm