System Breaks Down, Delaying E-Mail Delivery

Students trying to send e-mail this weekend may have been better off just using a stamp.

A major system crash delayed or lost the electronic mail of students and faculty across the campus, users said.

Compared to last year, delayed mail "seems more common this fall so far," said Mary K. Peckham, Mather House senior tutor.

This weekend's problems with e-mail, which lasted roughly 48 hours, were caused by a system breakdown in a central network computer, according to Franklin M. Steen, director of Harvard Arts and Sciences Computer Services (HASCS).

The machine which crashed, scunix5, is responsible for routing e-mail.

"That machine went down because there was no spare space on the drive," Steen said.

The breakdown of scunix5 caused messages to spill over to the new 'fas' machine used by College undergraduates, he said.

But the volume of redirected data quickly filled up the storage space of 'fas', which is not intended for routing e-mail.

According to Steen, HASCS first noticed the problem mid-afternoon Sunday. A replacement drive with 600 megabytes of storage space was installed Monday to correct the problem.

Although Steen said the repair should permanently resolve the difficulty, he warned that further bugs in scunix5 may arise.

HASCS is doing its best to get all the aspects of the network working as soon as possible, Steen said. But it may take as long as two weeks for all the lingering bugs to be found and eliminated, he added.

"The machines are under stress because of the heavy load" of setting up new accounts for thousands of students, Steen explained.

He also noted that scunix5 has been an extremely reliable machine for years, and that this was the first major breakdown in this component of the network.

Steen attributed ongoing problems with the network to the installation of new machines--including the 'fas' computer--during the summer.

Users have been complaining about the inefficiency of the system this fall.

Julie K. Schultz '98 spent a half hour late Sunday night writing an e-mail message to her boyfriend in Washington state, only to find it lost completely.

"I had typed up a message to him, and he didn't get it. And it's not in my back mail," said the Stoughton resident.

Robert D. Trzynka '98 had difficulties accessing his mail account on Sunday.

"Most of my friends can't seem to get a hold of me," Trzynka said.

The problems have shaken users' confidence in the mail system.

Some say they will not rely on it for critical or timely messages anymore.

"My dad doesn't want to send me e-mail anymore, because it doesn't work," said Adam T. Hayes '98.