Out of an abundance of caution we are selectively shutting down all of our public web sites in response to a severe PHP RCE that was going to be disclosed tomorrow morning. Unfortunately, it looks like there are already functional proof-of-concept exploits for the two problems in the wild. This includes webmail, forums, membertools, sonic.com, as well as ancillary other services, including sonicstatus.com. We will work on restoring all of these services as quickly as possible once this fixes become available tomorrow or we are confident that we’re able to use local mitigations to close the exploit paths.
For more information, see https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/10/php-maintainers-tell-web-devs-to-prepare-themselves-for-critical-security-patches/
-Kelsey, and the rest of the Sonic System Department
Update Wed Oct 21 09:46:46 PDT 2026: PHP released their fixed versions this morning and we’ve been working on rolling out the updates as quickly as possible to restore all affected services. We expect that all disabled systems except for members.sonic.net to be back online in the next hour. -Kelsey
Update Wed Oct 21 10:42:42 PDT 2026: All disabled systems except for members.sonic.net are back online, members.sonic.net relies on a version of php which has not been patched yet. -Kelsey
Update Wed Oct 21 12:15:02 PDT 2026: All disabled systems except for members.sonic.net are back online for real this time, webmail had been fixed but the static maintenance page was accidentally left in place. -Kelsey
Update Wed Oct 21 18:12:02 PDT 2026: members.sonic.net has been returned to service and all remediation work for external resources has been completed. -Kelsey, and the rest of the Systems and Programming.
Is there an estimated time email will be back up?
Great job guys
What is PCP?
What is RCE?
Please don’t use initials such as these when communicating with the general public, who may not be familiar with industry-specific terminology.
When is email estimated to be back up
Webmail has been returned to service as of a few minutes ago.
Webmail has been returned to service as of a few minutes ago.
PHP is a free, open-source, server-side scripting language designed primarily for web development. Originally created by Rasmus Lerdorf in 1993, it has grown to become the foundational backbone of the modern internet, powering nearly 70% of all websites with a known server-side language.
An RCE (Remote Code Execution) is a critical security vulnerability or attack that allows an unauthorized threat actor to run malicious code or commands on a target system, server, or network from a remote location without physical access.
I’m still getting the same emergency maintenance message when I try to log in to webmail.
Kathleen, sorry to hear that. If you’re on a computer, hold down the shift key while you click the refresh button on your browser. This should clear the issue up.
Like Kathleen Johnson, I still can’t access my webmail, but I opened my Apple mail and it seems to be able to download my web mail as a work-around. I hope this is helpful for others.
Mine is still showing the “Emergency Maintenance
webmail.sonic.net has been taken offline for emergency maintenance and will be returned to service as soon as possible.
Please see our MOTD entry for more details.”
message.
Hi. I am trying to access email on Safari on my iPhone but I still can’t access it. I still receive the emergency maintenance message. Is there a fix for this? Thanks in advance
Steve, I think it’s probably a caching problem on the iPhone, I’m not positive how to force a cache clear and reload on one.
Top right hand of this page say`s web mail. I hit that and got all my e-mails off webmail.
click webmail on this page top right
\IT’S 6:07 AND MY EMAIL IS STILL NOT UP. I HAVE RESTARTED MY COMPUTER SEVERAL TIMES. PLEASE ADVISE
Susan, if you’re still having trouble I would suggest reaching out to support.
I was also still getting the “emergency maintenance” message this evening, but looked here and noticed Mike’s suggestion to Kethleen this morn to hold down the shift key while you click the refresh button on your browser. That worked right away. Thanks, Mike!
Grateful, too, for the post and updates here, along with the various comments and replies.
i am on my laptop. i need help,now. do i press ctrl + r?
thanks,
kathleen gusky sharp,otr,ihss worker
still getting the “emergency maintenance” answer when I try to log in to my webmail account
oct 26 5:03am
I still cannot access my webmail. How much longer before this is resolved?
Webmail.sonic.net is still down.
When will it be back up.