Check out this tracert!!!!

[Mucman]

C:\>tracert chalktv.com

Tracing route to chalktv.com [209.53.145.96]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 * * * Request timed out.
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 * 70 ms * 172.16.4.102
4 * * * Request timed out.
5 * * * Request timed out.
6 * * * Request timed out.
7 * * * Request timed out.
8 * * * Request timed out.
9 * 90 ms 50 ms 193.at-1-0-0.TR3.SCL1.ALTER.NET [152.63.48.186]

10 * * * Request timed out.
11 * * * Request timed out.
12 * * * Request timed out.
13 * * * Request timed out.
14 * 130 ms * inetgw4-i2p.bctel.net [209.53.75.102]
15 * * * Request timed out.
16 * * * Request timed out.
17 * * * Request timed out.
18 * * * Request timed out.
19 * * 140 ms www.chalktv.com [209.53.145.96]

Trace complete.

www.chalktv.com is my E-mail service! How can I fix this! It has been like this for the last week and I can't take it anymore!!! Is this the fault of my ISP or the website? I am on cable too! I chose this E-mail because it used to be really quick and hotmail was getting really slow.

 

[warlord]

call your isp and complain.

 

[Mucman]

I can access other stuff rather well... is it still and ISP problem?

 

[warlord]

its the problem of whoever owns all those servers that timed out. its most likely not your isp but the company that is directing internet traffic for that web site. they'll never do anything about it though if people don't complain, and the way for you to complain is through your isp.

you're probably not seeing it with other web sites because the internet is huge, and you would have to find a web site that went through most of those same servers to compare results.

 

[emjem]

It doesn't seem to be the Chalky server. Their server responds to me in 96ms.

I have 22 hops from Tampa FL via Orlando, Atlanta then Montreal, but my connect with them was near instant -- with roadrunner.

Try http://www.neotrace.com/ for finding the bottlenecks.

 

[CTR]

Nothing wrong with those results. Looks like ICMP filtering on the "timeout" hosts.

 

[Mucman]

What is ICMP filtering?

 

[CTR]

Tracroute uses ICMP (Internet Control Message Protocol). One or more of the hosts or routers are filtering the ICMP requests or responses. So your tracroute is confused when it doesn't get the ICMP reply that it expects. That's why you see timeouts.

ICMP filtering is usually implemented to prevent certain kinds of DoS attacks.

If you want to know more about traceroute, look at this page from whatis.com

 

[Mucman]

Cool, thanks for the info CTR

 

[shadow]

yeah CTR but that does not explain hops 3,9,14,19

 

[CTR]

Actually, I believe it does.

The ICMP filtering on any of the hops could be incoming, outgoing, by source, by destination, per interface, by TOS, or any combination of these.

 

[shadow]

ok, I agree with you there, but explain to me how sometimes it will filter but other times not.

(or am I just being an ignorant bastid?)

 

[LTCDR]

Big time. That's ridiculous...

 

[CTR]

No it's actually a good question in my opinion. You can't say exactly what is going on without a lot more testing, but you can infer that:

1. ICMP replies being sourced from some addresses seem to be allowed while others are not. That would explain why some hops do not seem to respond at all, indicated by the timeouts on the tracert results.

2. There appear to be some routing issues that are causing some ICMP replies to timeout. This is probably due to the fact that chalktv.com is apparently advertising private IP space into their public routing table. Nice. This is not too uncommon, though. One of their routers evidently has an interface on the public network, and an interface on the private network. Or possibly one interface with a public and a private IP. And through some misconfiguration or bug, outbound traffic is sometimes getting sourced from the private IP. So their upstream provider would discard this traffic and that would explain mucman's timeouts. It is entirely possible that this problem only applies to ICMP traffic, since the server seems responsive and packet-loss is minimal.

So upon further examination of the problem, I think that shadow is probably right in his opinion that it is not simply an ICMP filtering issue. It is most likely a combination of the two issues above, and 1 or 2 others that we don't even want to know about.

Anyone else?

 

[Mucman]

Looks like everything sorted itself out! Both my ISP (cable) provider and www.chalktv.com were had some server upgrades happening at the same time...

Here is the new tracert

C:\>tracert chalktv.com

Tracing route to chalktv.com [209.53.145.96]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 20 ms 20 ms 21 ms 24.71.0.1
2 20 ms 21 ms 30 ms 10.1.73.1
3 21 ms 30 ms 20 ms 172.16.4.102
4 20 ms 30 ms 30 ms c1-pos8-1.sttlwa1.home.net [24.7.73.241]
5 50 ms 60 ms 60 ms c1-pos3-0.lnmtco1.home.net [24.7.64.6]
6 80 ms 110 ms 190 ms c1-pos5-0.chcgil1.home.net [24.7.65.149]
7 70 ms 70 ms 80 ms ATM3-0.BR2.CHI2.ALTER.NET [137.39.52.105
8 70 ms 70 ms 71 ms 156.at-5-0-0.XR1.CHI2.ALTER.NET [152.63.

9 70 ms 70 ms 70 ms 293.ATM3-0.TR1.CHI4.ALTER.NET [152.63.64
10 70 ms 70 ms 80 ms 106.ATM7-0.TR1.VAN1.ALTER.NET [152.63.9.
11 70 ms 70 ms 70 ms 299.ATM7-0.XR1.VAN1.ALTER.NET [152.63.13
12 71 ms 70 ms 70 ms 195.ATM7-0.GW2.VAN1.ALTER.NET [152.63.13
13 70 ms 70 ms 70 ms 100.UUNETCA.VAN1.TELUS-GW.ALTER.NET [146
.222]
14 70 ms 80 ms 70 ms exchange1-2.bctel.net [204.174.218.81]
15 70 ms 80 ms 80 ms 204.174.217.15
16 80 ms 80 ms 80 ms 207.102.171.13
17 80 ms 80 ms 91 ms 192.168.1.2
18 80 ms 81 ms 70 ms www.chalktv.com [209.53.145.96]

Trace complete.

C:\>

 

[CTR]

Everything looks normal except for the next-to-last hop: 192.168.1.2 is a private address. But if it ain't broke...

 

[Mucman]

Yeah I thought that was odd too...

 

[spidey07]

CTR, MUCMAN
Get NeoTrace for tracrouting. It is awesome.

www.neoworx.com

ps - I was on the same track as you CTR for the ICMP either filtering or turned off. Remember that it is the router generating the ICMP-TTL expired message. Depending on the service provider they will allow ICMP messages through but deny their routers from generating some ICMP types.