John Hendry was doing some last-minute research for a project about deforestation when the Internet crashed.
The 23-year-old environmental science senior was in the Student Recreation and Fitness Center when he experienced the campus-wide crash that started around 11:30 a.m. Monday.
Hendry said at first he thought he may have violated one of the university's Internet policies, causing him to be blocked from accessing the UF wireless network.
Dan Miller, network manager for UF's Computing & Networking Services, wrote in an email that the outage started at 11:47 a.m. and lasted about an hour.
CNS was notified about the issue around 11:40 a.m. and immediately began troubleshooting, he said.
The cause of the outage has not yet been identified, he said, but wireless access was restored after CNS rebooted UF's authentication system.
The outage affected all computers connected to UF's central wireless network, but Miller said computers in on-campus housing were not affected.
Hendry said computers like those in Library West or the computer labs that were connected via Ethernet cable were still usable, and after the problem was fixed around 12:40 p.m., he was able to finish his project in time.
An investigation into the cause of the problem is still ongoing, Miller said, but he said he believes it was a one-time incident.
