How's this for a really WEIRD dial-in problem (1 Viewer)

[Rob Gillespie]

My main box is a triple boot with 98, 2000 Pro and Mandrake. 2000 is my regular-use OS.
I only have 56k dial-in via an ISA US Robotics modem.
I've been with an ISP in the UK (www.surfanytime.co.uk) for a couple of months and all has been well. Until yesterday when my ability to dial in within Windows 2000 and Mandrake stopped suddenly and for no apparent reason.
I get error 31 or 619 each time I try to connect. In Linux, I get PPPd error 16. It dials the number and tries to authenticate, but always kicks me out.
Here's the weird bit: It still works perfectly fine in Windows 98 on the same machine.
I've tried deleting the dial-up connection and setting it up again. I've tried deleting TCP/IP and reinstalling. No luck.
And then this morning I moved the modem over to my newly built second system (again a 98/2000 dual boot) and it has EXACTLY the same issue. OK in 98, dead as dead in 2000.
Does anyone have any idea what could be causing this? I want to get armed with a few theories before trying their (dodgy) support staff. I find it extremely odd that the connection no longer works in both Win 2000 AND Linux.
Just to add, I also tried 'Ghost'ing the Win2000 partiton back to how it was about three weeks ago just incase something weird had happened. No difference.
Thanks
Rob

 

[Rob Gillespie]

Mucho head-scratching going on here Fred. NOTHING had changed on the system.
And why would Linux suddenly stop connecting too?
It's only with this one ISP. They have a free-call number (the usual one) and a local-rate secondary line. Neither of them will connect in 2000 or Linux, but both are fine in 98. Connections to other ISPs are fine and are not affected.

 

[Iain Lambert]

hmm. I'd definitely give the ISP a ring, to see if they will own up to changing their authentication at all. It might be as simple as some change there. Alternatively, check their support pages to see if they have made a change to their recommend DNS/Gateway settings that might be ok for 98 to ignore, but a 'real' OS needs to have set correctly.

 

[Rob Gillespie]

Result!
This was the little git causing the problems:
Negotiate Multi-Link For Single Link Connections
This is one of the PPP options.
This setting hadn't changed until now, so something at the ISP end has obviously been reconfigured. It had been enabled, but not causing a problem until two days ago. I know they're looking at putting in 128k twin ISDN accounts at the moment so perhaps that has something to do with it.
Anyway, I'm sorted, I'm happy.... breathe ouuuuuuut.....
[Edited last by Rob Gillespie on August 16, 2001 at 12:59 PM]