Strange internet connection problem. (1 Viewer)

[Chris Moe]

Today is the sixth day in a row that I have not been able to connect to HTF at home. I can connect to about 90% of the web with no problems but a few select sites are not working. I do not get an error saying the page cannot be displayed, IE just hangs and never connects to the site. My email and instant messaging programs work fine.

I have contacted my ISP twice now regarding the problem. The first time I talked to them they thought that a DNS server may be down somewhere and to give it a couple days. That didn't work. So I called back and they verified that my connection was fine and the problem must be somewhere else. When I called we went through to make sure all of my network/internet connections where correct and everything they told me to check was fine.

I have not made any changes to the machine that I can think of recently but I have some stuff on auto update like Norton.

Any one have any idea what could be going on? It is getting old not being able to surf HTF (and some other sites) while I am at home.

Almost forgot. Windows XP pro, IE 6.0, comcast cable modem.

Thanks

 

[John Watson]

I just received my weekly Langa List (computer stuff) and this paragraph jumped out -

5. Another Fix For Broken Internet Connections

Fred, I had a client with a XP home PC with weird TCPIP
problems. All the usual TCPIP fixes failed. Then I tried this
program that fixes damaged Winsock entries
http://members.shaw.ca/techcd/VB_Pro...WinsockFix.zip
Worked like a charm! ---Alan M. Kaplan

Thanks, Alan. "WinSockFix" works to rebuild/repair part of the Internet
connection plumbing that can be damaged if Internet-enabled software is
incorrectly or incompletely removed. These days, the damage seems to
happen most often when people use various spyware-remover tools to rip
out malware such as NewDotNet, WebHancer and CommonName. More info:
http://www.google.com/search?q=WinsockFix%2Ezip

BTW, if the "WinSockFix" site is busied out, a similar tool is available
at http://www.cexx.org/lspfix.htm


I don't know anything about these things myself, but maybe there is a clue somewhere in those links. Good luck!

 

[John_Berger]

This does not sound like an ISP problem because you can connect with other sites. It's very possible that somewhere along the line an Internet connection that you go through is confused and doesn't know (or forget) how to route your requests to HTF.

Try running a traceroute to HTF. From a DOS command line, type tracert www.hometheaterforum.com. You will see something similar to this:


C:>tracert www.hometheaterforum.com
.
.
.
6 40 ms 30 ms 30 ms 500.POS2-2.GW8.NYC9.ALTER.NET [65.206.120.229]
7 10 ms 30 ms 10 ms 540.at-6-0-0.XR2.NYC9.ALTER.NET [152.63.24.162]

8 30 ms 10 ms 30 ms 0.so-2-1-0.XL2.NYC9.ALTER.NET [152.63.23.141]
9 20 ms 50 ms 20 ms 0.so-4-0-0.TL2.NYC9.ALTER.NET [152.63.23.129]
10 41 ms 50 ms 60 ms 0.so-2-2-0.TL2.CHI2.ALTER.NET [152.63.0.177]
11 50 ms 40 ms 50 ms 0.so-1-0-0.XL2.CHI2.ALTER.NET [152.63.67.122]
12 40 ms 50 ms 70 ms POS7-0.BR2.CHI2.ALTER.NET [152.63.67.245]
13 60 ms 41 ms 50 ms 204.255.174.2
14 50 ms 50 ms 40 ms p11-0.cr01.chcg.eli.net [207.173.114.97]
15 110 ms 110 ms 110 ms p10-0.cr02.slkc.eli.net [207.173.115.53]
16 120 ms 110 ms 120 ms p9-0.cr01.bois.eli.net [207.173.114.65]
17 120 ms 110 ms 110 ms srp0-0-0.gw01.bois.eli.net [208.186.20.195]
18 130 ms 120 ms 110 ms r1-ether.qwk.net [209.210.235.14]
19 110 ms 110 ms 120 ms 207.173.159.182

Trace complete.


Each line shows a "node" or "hop" that your data signal has to go through. If you get an entry that displays asterisks (*) instead of the millisecond times, that's where the connection problem lies because it's at that point that something is confused.

If you can display the results back here, I can then help you further.

 

[Chris Moe]

Thank you both.

When I got home last night my email wasn't working so I called my ISP for a third time. This time they told me that there was in fact something wrong with their service in my local area. They woman that I was talking to didn't know what the problem was but said that they are aware of it and trying to fix it. So I will give them a couple of days to see if they track it down.

I will also try running the tracert just to see what is happening.

Thanks again!

 

[Chris Moe]

Well I can connect at to HTF from home now, all is well with the world