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@home cable and serious issues, I have no definate answer..

B

bozack

Diamond Member
Well here is the story, three days ago my cable went down, no conncectivity on any of my machines (three in total) called CS and they said they were having an outage.

Waited a day and still nothing. Called CS again, they waled me through all these steps of static setting an ip, dns etc. Nothing worked, it came to the point where they wanted to kill my tcp/ip stack and I told them I would wait to see if the problem resolved itself.

Another day goes by, still doesn't work. Call again and talk to another tech, finally break down and blow the stack and that doesn't help, run some trace routes and they make it to a certain point but after that they time out.

He says it is a routing problem and will be fixed by the next day.

Next day comes still nothing, call again and their system is down so they cannot check my open ticket, go though the steps again with another cs rep, still nothing. He concludes that I must have a bad NIC, I just hung up on him.

Well just for fun I connect the cable modem to my third machine directly, and that one will let me view web pages, get mail, and such but I cannot connect to Instant messanger, my live update for my antivirus does not work.
I cannot ping any site other than www.yahoo.com, everything else times out
and my tracert are still dropping off where they are on the other boxes.

so I take one of my other computers and totally reformat the drive(there wasnt much there anyway) reinstall everything, directly connect that to the cable and still nothing, can ping some sites, can do some stuff but it still wont connect to web sites?

tried two different nics in the third computer and none of them worked, same thing, no connection whatso ever, I am about to try a usb nic that I know is good just to see.

could they have done something, could all 4 of my NICs blown out in one night with this one being the only one functional? or partially that is?

all of the computers can still work on a local network, transfer files, see each other etc? anyone have any ideas?
 
Your service is FUBARed. Get a handy little tool called NeoTrace from www.neoworx.com. It is a nice, fast traceroute tool.

Run neotrace and see where your frames are dropping. It has been my experience (@home subscriber as well) that their access pops just decide to go belly up every now and then.

I build points of presence for a living and cannot believe the way their network just goes up and down. Routing instablility, flapping, and just plain can't get past my first hop. And don't get me started on the mail service. If my networks behaved like this I would be fired on the spot (and I SHOULD BE!!!!!!)

Keep calling and escalating to management. You shouldn't have to put up with this. If your PCs can talk just fine then your stack/nic is fine.

search for other threads that have expressed same sentiment.

Cheers!
 
yeah but why would my machine be able to connect and none of the others? even the one with the fresh load? and why can I get the internet but not aim or updates or ftp sites?

the other computers can check pop based mail. ping yahoo, and connect to yahoo's site and no it isnt cached because it updates, also some telnet talkers.

could they have switched to MAC address authentication with out telling anyone? and they recorded the mac address of my machine since it was the one they set it up on first? and just now they decide to implement that?

as I said before it had been working fine for the past few months untill 3 days ago, all jy nic's work on the local network, file transfer, see others etc...

the nics are
linksys combo pci 2 10bt -doesnt work with modem but works fine on network
Standard 10bt PCI- that came with an old gateway computer same as above
Intel Pro 100 PCI network adapter-same as above, works local but not with modem
Netgear FA310tx- in my main machine, works on local and works with cable modem but wont allow AIM or ftp

I have yet to try mu usb NIC which I know works with everything, it is a failsafe.

oh well this really sucks
 
bozak -

Now you have me wondering WTF they're up to. I don't have a home net (yet) but I have had some unusual problems. Last night I went to connect, nothing, nada. Tried some pings, again nada. I went into the net property sheet and changed from IP/DNS/... to auto, now I can connect. So I figure are they going to DHCP???? When connected I ping, & I still have the same IP etal. So I wonder if they're having DNS problems and decide to CALL....

Here's the best part of the story (love that level 1 tech support)....I get this yuck-a-puck on the phone & start to ask if anything is down?

He replies "I can't tell you if anything is wrong with your connection our software is down & I can't see anything".

Me "So something is down, you just don't know what?"

Him "No, just the software"

Me "Does the software have a bug? or is the server that the software runs on down?"

Him "I don't know, I can't see anything"

Me "Don't they tell you anything? Can I speak to level 2 support?"

Him "They can't see anything either, please call back in two hours"

Me "Well maybe they are better informed (getting annoyed)"

Him "Sir, you'll have to call back in two hours, I can't put you through to level 2 unless I can't solve the problem & I might be able to solve the problem if I could see something"

Me "What's you name?"

Him ".....(forget), why?"

Me "So when I call back in two hours I can hang up if you answer"


Sad but true story. Have they gone to MAC level authentication? I have no idea. My guess is that their DNS server has/is just really hosed up. That's why you can see yahoo & not much else. I'm just guessing, but I'm about to try to talk with them again (why do I feel like I'm pounding my head against the wall????)

 
that is only on two machines though, on my personal machine I can post here and such but I have lost the ability to connect to AIM and ping anything other than yahoo, it makes absolutely no sense to me, all I can think of is they are doing a major system overhaul to limit networks, one tech told me my network violated their tos? I see they specifically have a network config on their member page...go figure
 
That's what I'm figuring. Smells like MAC level control to me.


Update -

Just got through banging my head against the wall yet again (calling CS). All they would say was "if changing to Auto Detect works what are you bitching about?"

I just couldn't get the idea across that a fixed IP was what I need & if they plan to go to DHCP then I would like to know. I asked about MAC level control & they had no idea (I think that's pretty much the truth - no idea about anything)

I think it's time to say HELLO DSL!
 
I've been having the same sort of weird ass problems. Switched to using DHCP this morning and everything is roses. WTF is up with this?? :|

BTW, eriks, that was some funny s. so i can hang up if you answer again. LOL 🙂
 
Just a shot in the dark here, but if you are using Win 95, do the Winsock2 update. If not, well....NM 🙂

viz
 
Big businesses never stop amazing me. I think it's a miracle that we have a working economy with the way businesses are run today.

There is no communication inside the companies about what's going on. People inside the companies have to fight as much as outsiders to find the truth.

Marketing goals are to lower quality levels as the sales grow. Nothing good can last. ONLY the meek will survive.

This is definitely the surfing age, as you have to be constantly changing(surfing) your business partners in order to keep the same level of satisfaction.

Go DSL, and pick up a small provider. You're a bigger piece of the pie for them. You matter more. They will worry more about whether you're happy or not. The only problem is that you have to watch their growth and jump ship if their sales passes your level of satisfaction. But at least you can get satisfaction(sorry I couldn't resist)
 
WW has some good ideas here.
Back in my dial-up days, I got way too many busy signals using IBM Global Internet.
I asked around with the people I knew that were doing web developement etc. and found a local ISP that catered to businesses.
These guys even talked geek! They liked having a few residential customers to help balance the load, as they had peak traffic during the day when I was at work. In the evening when I was surfing, they were at 50% capacity, so you never got a busy signal and the service was great!
Unfortunately, I am too far away from the telephone central office to get DSL, so when the time came to get something faster, cable was the only game for me. The speed is great, but I sure miss my little old ISP.

viz
 
all I can say is I am sick of thier service,I have a tech comming to my apt on tuesday to check the connection with a laptop.

So far all they have told me is that I have a total of 4 bad nics, one being external (usb) the other three all work fine on a local network but for some reason will not work with the cable modem, I highly doubt all four of these nics are bad.

and then there is my netgear nic, which will let me surf the web and post here but that is about it, I cannot use AIM or napster and I cannot update my virus defs using their live update program ever since last monday.

I think they seriously screwed up dns lookup or changed their firewall in a way that it just screwed me, why this computer even browses the web is beyond me.

I thought it was MAC level authentication but I took out my nic and tried it in a computer I have that had a fresh win 98 se load and that did nothing, same problem as all the other nics, I tried loading their software and still nothing, it is like this computer is special?
however if I run their diagnostic program on any of the computers, even this one they all say the same thing, the computers are fine but the service is down and it is their fault.

and on top of this I have to get out of work early to meet their technician here.

I am getting seriously sick of this type of treatment. there is no way all of my nics are bad, heck the usb one was sitting on my desk not even plugged in for the last month and the last time I used it it worked fine, and I can hook it up and use it with my local connection but not my modem? I think their modem is seriously screwed or something but I will see on tuesday I guess if they even come

 
I have a couple of interesting tidbits to add -

I'm back working with no DHCP (all IP specified). It started working on Sat. AFTER I turned off my SSL (port 443) in IIS - hmmmmm - is @home monitoring this port & assuming business if it's open?

I also had a "Netbios" scan come from some RedWood CA @home IP address (cam back as a tech support center), are they checking for a firewall? ZA denied the request (of course). I'm wondering if I'll get a nastygram from @home now?

All an all @home is really begining to annoy me. The trouble is that the cheapest DSL service around here is about $20 more a month.
 
same here erik,

from what I hear @home does monitor but they never admit it, and it has been heard they have shut a few local networks down around here because of this monitoring--they just plain suck but I am in the same boat with no one else cheaper, who knows maybe the tech tommorow and his laptop will experience the same as I am now and I wont hae to deal with friggin phone support
 
Oh my God, where to begin. 😎 Background: I'm a tier 2 tech, and also got to get into tier 1 for a while to learn their operations.

I'm gonna start at the top of this thread and work down, any questions I miss or that come up after feel free to ask me (theprinceofwands@home.com). BTW, I think @Home and most of the MSO's (the companies that use @Home like AT&T, Cox, etc) are terrible so you're going to get a straight answer if I know it.

All right, no connectivity stuff: #1 if your modem has synch (the lights are solid that are always solid, even after unplugging the power and letting it sit a few minutes before powering back up) then before you even get on the phone set up 1 system straight to the modem. No one will troubleshoot anything else, and if they try they'll screw it up. No one related to @Home has the capability to troubleshoot across a home network, individual routers, or through firewall/proxy/blocking software. If your modem doesn't have synch don't ever let them do anything to your computer, it won't help.

#2 No, all of your nics didn't go bad. There are a lot of open questions here. What kind of cable modem, what MSO (see above) provides your service, what area of the country are you in? All of those matter, believe it or not. There may be some issues on your end, but it sounds like what started it was on the network side. Possibly a routing issue, possibly a dns issue, but also could be someone on your node wrecking havoc...running dhcp services, stealing ip's, arping, you name it, too hard to narrow down with what I know. Get one system hooked straight to the modem running best you can, after a full format (even fdisk it and use the /u unconditional switch during format). After you format it power cycle the modem for at least 5 minutes (if you have certain types of modem they store mac info and routing tables and this info can become corrupted after a reformat). When you manage some kind of connection with it go to a dos prompt. type route print and copy that table down. then type arp -a and write all that down. Get that to me along with the other info at the top of this paragraph and I'll give you more ideas.

spidey87: I agree, they're hosed. Absolutely demand tier 2 intervention, quite frankly that's your only hope for someone with any tech knowledge. btw, even though local network connectivity is a good sign, there can still be problems on individual machines which may need stack rebuilds, or even reg edits to fix.

Yes @home can trace by MAC address, and all network components use MAC addressing to some degree, but no they did not suddenly switch their routing method. However, as noted above some modems can store mac info, escpecially with Macintoshes for some reason. Always power cycle your modem for 5 minutes between nic switches, and don't use an intermediary router, switch, hub, bridge, or anything else. At least, not during troubleshooting, normal operation times it'd be fine.

eriks: @Home has always been a DHCP network...kind of. What @Home does is not truly a full DHCP service, it's somewhere between DHCP and a funky WINS server. Anyway the network is totally DHCP. No one with @Home (and folks I don't care what you've heard I mean NO ONE) has a static IP. Any of your settings can change without notification. Period. It doesn't happen very often, but it can happen. Also some MSO's (Cox in particular) will not support you in a static configuration.

Speaking of unsupported: Almost everything is unsupported with @Home. That means you can usually do it, but you lose the right to tech support if you do. The following are just a few totally unsupported things: networks (we support the first computer that was set up and then only connected directly to the cable modem), dual nics in a machine, older os's (win 95a and before or mac 7.6.1 and before), any newer os's (linux, beOS, etc), NT server versions (all of em), 3rd party software (AIM, etc), and many many more. That last one is interesting. Officially @home will not support any 3rd party software. If you can connect to the internet, get mail, download, etc then you're good to go. Everything else is someone elses problem. However there is some gray area there because so much of the trouble associate with those 3rd party programs are actually routing and port related and we need to be aware of those to get them fixed. In other words, keep calling and trying until we listen.

This post is getting huge so I'll split it up. To be continued....
 
I'm back...

Ok moving right along. Important safety tip: Don't load @Home software! It's worthless and can cause you major problems, also the only way to truly reverse all the changes is a reformat. There is one good tool on there called netdiag, feel free to install that alone due to it's usefullness in troubleshooting speed issues (please note it will not function correctly across a home lan or intermediary routing system). It still sounds like some serious routing and filtering problems at the headend level. Here's a tidbit for you, @Home is not firewalled really, except for the mail and webspace servers. All they do is filter certain ports.

Having a technician come out, even when you know it's not going to help, is not a bad idea. When they come out tell them: 1. replace my modem. 2. I want all connections and lines checked for physical wear and connection. 3. Check my signal levels, up and down, as well as my curve (they'll know what you mean by that) 4. remove all splitters to the modem. 5. If you live in a house, demand a new line drop straight into the cable modem. If you do all that and it still doesn't work (which it probably won't) then you can bypass tier 1 pretty much entirely on every subsequent call. Just tell them "you've been out here, done everything, the problem isn't here, give me tier 2" They usually will.

BTW: With most MSO's you are entitled to billing compensation for all downtime exceeding 1 day per week if that downtime was caused by circumstances beyond your control. This isn't always true, but usually. (I personally haven't paid for service in 2 months thanks to this policy).

Yes @Home scans your ports (specifically nntp, and sometimes dhcp) and no you won't get into trouble. As long as you are not causing problems on you node (local are) your good to go. If someone is causing trouble (stealing bandwidth, running servers, arping, hacking, etc) then they will up the scans to active, and will find out who. They do have the right to terminate your service for violating any rules (like running even a simple web/ftp/news server).

I think I covered most of the topics brought up here, but like I said, feel free to email me any other questions/comments/concerns.

 
Well I reformatted one computer but I didn't use that switch, and I also didn't unplug the modem for five minutes, more like a couple of minutes.

I have a com21 modem, it is grey and slim. I am used to the 3com modems which in my opinion are much nicer.

I have taken down the local network and directly connected the modem into one computer.

I have tried a total of 5 different NIC's one being an external USB nic which I know is good.

I am about to get two more NIC's just so that when the tech arrives I will have some available.

Tracerts usually fail after the 5th or 6th hop, I have an email with the tracerts I ran and sent to tier 2 which I can send you from home when I get there tonight.

on all of the machine's I can

ping yahoo.com
connect to yahoo.com's website and yes it is updated
recieve pop based mail from any other provider than @home
get an IP address
Connect to Telnet talkers and the like

on all the machine's I cannot
connect to AIM
connect to any game servers
Connect to Live Update for my virus info

On one computer I can browse the net, which is odd, even if I try that NIC in another computer that had a fresh format/reinstall it will not work.

All nics work fine on my local network using tcp/ip

I went through rebuilding the stack, editing the registry and such on one machine with tier 2 and that yeilded no results, he suggested it was an issue with the routing on their end.

Also whenever I run their diagnostic software it says that everything is fine on my end and that on their end the services are down, it is that program with the descriptions of the things like DNS and gateway and WWW, and everything is fine up to www where it dies out.

Like I said before I went to bed the night before election and everything was working fine, woke up the next morning and nothing worked, assumed it was just an outage let it stay down for the rest of the day cause I knew they were having issues, now it is a week later and nothing has changed.

Also there are splitters before the modem but that was all stuff that they did and worked fine untill monday night. I am thinking their modem might be screwed, but I guess I will see on tuesday when that technician comes.
 
Ok. Com21's are pretty finicky unfortunately, you'd definately need to power cycle any time you change nics, or change computers hooked straight to it. And as you are with Comcast we can unfortunately rule out any tech help from tier 1, no offense but in general the lifeguard at the gene pool was out to lunch when those guys were born.

I do not believe the nic's are bad at all. The fact that you get 5 or 6 hops is pretty cut and dry in that respect. Along with the traces send the route print, and the arp -a results...those will help eliminate the possibility of network tampering. Make sure that all pings/tracert's are done to at least 6 unrelated sites. This will help show an early routing table and may point towards an off network server or peering issue.

Have you used winipcfg (if its' win 95/98) to verify all info gained when set up DHCP, and compared it with the static settings they give you? Sometimes They'll have your info recorded one way, and the DHCP server will have different info causing a hell of a routing nightmare.

I don't know about AIM, but most games and virus software use high port connections, where as browsing and such are very low ports...improper port filtering or network tampering could be to blame there. If any programs you have that can't connect allow manual port adjustment (which I doubt) try the lowest possible settings. Make sure you don't assign a reserved port like Http, ftp, etc.

Netdiag is a kewl tool, but don't trust the diagnostic test. Try pinging www from a dos prompt. If it works there, believe that result. If not, we're back to bad routing on @Home.

While I'm certain it's not a physical local issue (like splitters or such) when they come out have them do the whole bit. Not to fix the problem, but to take it out of tier 1's hands completely. It takes away the crutch of being able to roll a truck to save our call times.

 
PrinceofWands -

Just wanted to say thanks for all the information. I understand that @home is a DHCP network (as you said sort of). My only real question was were they going to go to a true DHCP then I need a new service. that part wasn't meant to be negative, it's fair, they never said otherwise. I was a little concerned that they are going to yank my connection just because I have an SSL port open, I'm using a firewall, or have an http port open. This just doesn't seem fair, I'm using my service well within the TOS. I just don't want the machine sitting there "wide open" without a firewall. For now MAC level checking is fine with me, I only have one machine connected.

The true negative I have about @home is level 1 tech support, they are really bad. I did get a chuckle out of the "gene pool" reference, that describes them perfectly.

On the whole I'm pretty happy with @home. My connection has been up most of the time, it's pretty fast, and download is the only speed I care about. I do dislike the speed of access to "personal web pages", in my neck of the woods I think it's a 486 machine.

Again, thanks for the info, much appreciated.

Update:

To be fair - I did a speed test on the cable modem (DSL Speedtests)

Download - 298.8 K/Sec
Upload - 974 Kbs/sec

Pretty damn fast for $40/per month
 
Hey no problem. @Home may or may not change it's service style, but it doesn't directly affect the connection. You're welcome to run any firewall software you would like, and set up a home network any way you want. Those things don't shut down your service at all, but they do keep you from getting certain types of tech support from us.

The only thing that will bring retribution is interfering with the service of other people through hogging bandwidth, stealing ip's, etc.

I personally have a linux server acting as my routing and firewalling system, and anywhere from 3 to 10 systems up behind it depending on who comes over. I only have 1 IP from @Home. I'm totally unsupported by @Home, but because I don't use large amounts of bandwidth and don't interfere with other services they leave me alone.
 
well came home tonight and to my suprise (well not really) but everything was working again, and I didn't touch anything on my end, which leads me to the conclusion that it was something they were doing all along and they just didn't want to admit it.

Called their CS dept and ripped the guy a new ass, told him where I work and what I do and if we had service like that we would be fired, their techs are a joke telling me I had 6 bad nics (upgraded in the process to a full 100mb network, now all I need is a hub 🙂)

he gave me a two week credit, ehh I shut up after that 20 bucks is enough

everything is working now, biggest pain in the ass next to being on the phone with them was re-setting up my serving machine, man windows has alot of patches, took forever on the ole pentium 200 overdriven.

oh well hopefully that does not happen again and next time I am not screwing with stuff on my end, I will just wait it out---


thanks all for the help
 
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