CADEN HAYNOR / NEWS EDITOR

Students and faculty attempting  to  log   into  University websites this week were met with a “502 Bad Gateway” message and no access. This issue barred access for some students to their MySanDiego portals. Students were unable to access housing and study abroad portals, Google Drive,  Gmail   and  Canvas.

The  issue  has   since   been   located   and   fixed    for  the  time  being.

The disruption affected University operations, including access to class materials and homework assignments.

USD sophomore Elle Lenihan described her experience with the disruption.

“People had to email their teachers and  get extensions because they couldn’t get into their portals and it was really stressful,” Lenihan said. “I feel like our access to USD sites needs to be fixed. I am a lifelong hater of Duo Mobile and I  avoid checking my assignments because I hate the two factor authentication so much. We need better ways to get to our portals.”

One of the sites affected was the housing portal, which students  could  not access  as the housing application  deadline  approached  at  4 p.m. on  March 2. As  a result, USD extended the deadline to submit the 2026-2027  application to the next day. USD Residential Life sent an email on March 3 advising  students on a possible strategy  to  get  around  the  issue.

“To get around the  ‘502 Bad Gateway’  error,   clear  your    browser  history  for   the  past  week,    including browsing data, cookies, and  cached  images/files,”   the    email read. “After  clearing  this,  fully close your browser (such  as Chrome) and reopen the housing   portal  in a new browser window.   This should allow you to log in successfully.”

The USD  Vista requested  an   in-person    interview   with   an   individual in USD’s Information Technology Services (ITS) department.  After  University Public Affairs stated they would check if anyone was available for an in-person interview, USD ITS responded with a statement explaining that they located and fixed the issue.

“After a thorough analysis, our technical staff pinpointed the problem: the latest version of the CAS authentication system (implemented a couple of weeks ago) uses more data in its cookies than the previous version and, over time (which varies by user), those cookies become inoperable,” ITS stated. “Once diagnosed, our staff increased the memory buffer size, which immediately resolved the issue. Please note that none of the USD systems were down during that time and most users did not experience this problem at all.”

Clearing the browsing history, cookies and cached images  and  files  from a computer removes the sites users have visited, logs users out of sites, resets site specific preferences and forces the browser to reload fresh versions of pages.

When this occurs, saved passwords stay exactly how they were, but browsing history will be deleted and autofill may take some time to reset to normal typing patterns.

USD ITS, located in Maher Hall 187, is available if students continue to experience issues while the disruption persists. 

Some students and faculty attempting to log into their USD portals and accounts were barred by an error message. Lara Dominique Solante/The USD Vista