Chrome Update affecting Abtrac

Abtrac Status Update: Wednesday May 4th, 9:15am NZST/ 7:15pm AEST.

Resolved:

Abtrac is once again operational across all browsers. Thank you for your patience and understanding.

The issue was confirmed as a global event where current SSL logs stored within Google servers were retired as part of the latest Chrome update. Our SSL issuer GoDaddy.com was one of those affected, and issued a patch yesterday early afternoon around the same time that Google reactivated all retired logs.

GoDaddy has apologised for the disruption and are working on a longer term plan for robust validation logs. The technical response from Google for those interested is below:

https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/g/ct-policy/c/P3_hj9QmsLc/m/S9xohdAHAQAJ?pli=1

Abtrac Status Update: Tuesday May 3rd, 2:42pm NZST/ 12:42pm AEST.

Monitoring:

Abtrac is once again operational across all browsers and we are monitoring the status. We have not published an update and currently assume a fix was pushed through Chrome, Google logs have not yet been updated reflecting this.

For any users with continued disruption, we ask you to remain using alternative browsers until we post a message within Abtrac notifications. We’ll continue monitoring for now.

We have not published an update and currently assume a fix was pushed through Chrome, Google logs have not yet been updated reflecting this.

For any users with continued disruption, we ask you to remain using alternative browsers until we post a message within Abtrac notifications. We’ll continue monitoring for now.

Abtrac Status Update: Tuesday May 3rd, 2:42pm NZST/ 12:42pm AEST.

Monitoring:

For any users with continued disruption, we ask you to remain using alternative browsers until we post a message within Abtrac notifications. We’ll continue monitoring for now.

Abtrac Status Update: Tuesday May 3rd, 12:07pm NZST/ 10:07am AEST.

Update:

We are currently testing fixes and delivery of a solution for this issue.

Whilst we and our domain security consultants aren’t 100% sure why abtraconline and other sites are experiencing issues with Chrome we’ve identified a solution.

It looks like the most robust and least disruptive fix will be best delivered overnight.

At the moment our thinking is we won’t release an update during work hours unless we can confirm there won’t be any interruptions to users. We’re checking and awaiting advice on this now.

We will continue to ask users to use alternative browsers until we post a message within Abtrac notifications.

Abtrac Status Update: Tuesday May 3rd, 10:57am NZST/ 8:57am AEST.

Identified:

We have confirmed a global issue in the latest version of Chrome 101.0.4951.41 disrupting some SSL authentications, Abtrac is one of the affected sites.

Abtrac is still running as it should on Firefox and Microsoft Edge.

If you have either Firefox or Microsoft Edge please choose one of these browsers and enter https://www.abtraconline.com/ into the address bar. Abtrac is fully operational on both these platforms.

Please let others in your office know that Firefox and Microsoft Edge are the best option for running Abtrac this morning.

Further investigation has shown Chrome Update or restart won’t fix the problem fully. As Chrome keeps looping the certificate issues on every browser request (page refresh). Sometimes the update may get through but we are no longer recommending this as a solution.

Our development team and security consultants are currently testing a solution. We appreciate your patience as we work through this issue this morning.

This post, and the notifications alert within Abtrac will be updated as we progress investigations and deliver a solution.

Abtrac users who have opted in were also emailed a status update when the issue was reported, if you haven’t already subscribed to Abtrac updates you can do so here: Abtrac | Sign up to Tips & Tricks Newsletter

The Abtrac Support team

Abtrac Status Update: Tuesday May 3rd, 10:11am NZST/ 8:11am AEST.

Identified:

We have confirmed a global issue in the latest version of Chrome 101.0.4951.41 disrupting some SSL authentications, Abtrac is one of the affected sites.

Abtrac is still running as it should on Firefox and Microsoft Edge.

If you have either Firefox or Microsoft Edge you can open it and enter https://www.abtraconline.com/ into the address bar and Abtrac will open satisfactorily.

Please let others in your office know that Firefox and Microsoft Edge are the best option for running Abtrac this morning.

Some users find updating Chrome helps (details are below).

Our development team and security consultants are currently testing a solution. We appreciate your patience as we work through this issue this morning.

This post, and the notifications alert within Abtrac will be updated as we progress investigations and deliver a solution.

The Abtrac Support team

Abtrac Status Update: Tuesday May 3rd, 9:03am NZST/ 7:03am AEST.

Investigating:

There appears to be an issue with Google Chrome this morning.

Abtrac is still running as it should on Firefox and Microsoft Edge. But people using Abtrac with Chrome Version Version 101.0.4951.41 are experiencing issues and messages regarding SSL authentication, this is a global issue for many Chrome users.

If you have either Firefox or Microsoft Edge you can open it and enter https://www.abtraconline.com/ into the address bar and Abtrac will open satisfactorily.

We are trying to find out what has changed in Chrome and when they will fix this issue with https web sites. More details are here: https://chromereleases.googleblog.com/

Meantime we have found that updating Chrome under the Help About menu in Chrome, then clearing cookies fixes the problem for some users. Sometimes a restart to your machine is also required.