Web Categorization Failing

Question

Good morning, 
 This morning we came into a storm of requests related to our gateway blocking access to content. For security our organization blocked uncategorized content and it appears that a large amount of website this morning are being seen as uncategorized. As a work around, we've had to adjust our security posture. Is anyone else experiencing this? 
 Thanks!

BAlfson · Accepted Answer

There are two different type of uncategorized. One is a categorization of "uncategorized" and the other is a site that has not yet been categorized. Fortunately, someone finally eliminated the confusion by naming the second "Categorization failed" and this is what I would block instead of the first. The first means that the site is known and just can't be assigned to a category. 
 Cheers - Bob 
 Edit (a few minutes later): I spoke too soon. I just found Barb@Sophos' thread [Sophos Notification] Advisory: Sophos UTM web filtering Category lookup is intermittently returning no category . According to the link she provides, this glitch was found and corrected.

DrewbleIT · Answer

Thanks again Bob! We ended up actually having to toggle the web filtering services on the firewall in order to get sites to start categorizing again. I suspect maybe it was still trying to look to the stuck server? Not sure but all has been well since.