Strange Networking Issue

Hey everyone!

I'm a developer at a university and i'm experiencing a really strange networking issue. My role here actually doesn't interact directly with the issue, however, being curious by nature, I'm wondering if there's any insight you might be able to give me. Our internal IT team knows of the issue but hasn't figured out a solution as this issue has persisted for almost a year. I've googled most of these issues but it's either an ELI5 explanation, or a full on Microsoft Systems Engineer explanation, which in my case, is not at all helpful. I'm interested in the technical details.

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Anyways, the issue is that when SOME computers are connected to the "secure" network (for staff,faculty,students,etc.) some applications either fail to respond or take 10+ minutes to respond. For example, the Outlook Web App my institution hosts will behave this way. The interesting things are that

• It only happens on "secure" - not when connected to the "guest" network or when connected through Ethernet
• If the issue is occurring on a computer, it does not translate to that persons mobile device - so it doesn't seem to be tied to the user's account.
• It happens pretty rarely that it hasn't been a major issue and usually corrects itself within a couple of business days.
• It appears to correct itself, in our case, when we take the computer out of the building into another building. - This is really the heart of my question because it seems as though (and forgive me because i'm not completely familiar with the networking lingo) when the device connects to a new node on the same network, some credentials are recreated/saved/stored and just refreshing those credentials restores proper functioning.

The last point is particularly interesting to me because I don't know the technical details of what happens when you move into the space of a new node on the same network (at least i'm assuming it's a new node). It appears as though the Outlook Web App is sending a request to the server with some localStorage cookies or session data that's also tied to the credentials of the users account and it's having a difficult time resolving that data.

Has anyone experienced this before or have any technical details on what they might think is happening? Like I said, I don't work for our networking team but i'm always interested in learning more!