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weird problem ever - HTTP hangs on big files - everything else good

L

LS21

Banned
Read the below, see the funny behavior, and imagine explaining this to a Comcast tech support - which ive just spent last 45 minutes tearing my hair out doing.



Comcast cable internet
Black Motorola Surfboard modem
Linksys WRT54G router , recent revision (not the super modable old ones), latest OEM firmware
Connecting through wireless with USRobotics USB wireless adaptor


So I've mad this cable internet service for 3 months now, and its been okay, if a little overpriced. I go out of town, come back last week, and internet goes to shit.


Symptom: cannot download ANY medium-large files

-ping tests very good latency and no dropped connection
-connecting to my ftp server and download large files at 400kb/s
-downloading same file through HTTP and it'll hang at the beginning, or 100kb in, or 700kb in, or 1mb in, etc....

so if i try to load ANY large images in web browser, download/render/"open" a large website, or stream any video, it'll load for a small bit and then freeze. and if i refresh to restart the load it'll do the same thing - load for a bit and then stop

apparently this is specific over HTTProtocol because like i said connecting to my FTP server = no problem



this problem has plagued me for the last 2 weeks and comcast knows NOTHING. any help?
 
Try it from a different browser and make sure your local PC's malware / anti-virus scanner web proxy isn't messing up.

RUn the EFF's switzerland tool or similar to see if comcast is interrupting your connections or spoofing reset packets for you or whatever:
http://www.eff.org/testyourisp
 
Also unplug your cable modem's power and your home router's if you have another one for about 60 seconds, then reconnect it. Sometimes they get flaky.
 
Originally posted by: QuixoticOne
Also unplug your cable modem's power and your home router's if you have another one for about 60 seconds, then reconnect it. Sometimes they get flaky.
Click to expand...

And if you haven't tried it yet, try connecting directly to the modem to make sure it isn't the router or wireless card.
 
Originally posted by: QuixoticOne
Try it from a different browser and make sure your local PC's malware / anti-virus scanner web proxy isn't messing up.

RUn the EFF's switzerland tool or similar to see if comcast is interrupting your connections or spoofing reset packets for you or whatever:
http://www.eff.org/testyourisp
Click to expand...


IE/FF and laptop as well as desktop
so its not the wireless card or browser or computer settings

new, mega popular wrt54g router, and this happened before AND after the rom flash, so i highly doubt its the router

though i need to bring my laptop home and plug it directly into the modem

 
One of my clients had almost exactly the same problem last week. In his case, it turned out that the index file in the Temporary Internet Files folder was corrupt, so IE was hanging up when it tried to read/write to the index file.

I ran a Scandisk with the "Automatically fix file system errors" and "Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors" options selected. These options will only run after a reboot and when the scan finished it was able to correct the error in the IE index file and he hasn't had any problems since then.
 
Originally posted by: Fardringle
One of my clients had almost exactly the same problem last week. In his case, it turned out that the index file in the Temporary Internet Files folder was corrupt, so IE was hanging up when it tried to read/write to the index file.

I ran a Scandisk with the "Automatically fix file system errors" and "Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors" options selected. These options will only run after a reboot and when the scan finished it was able to correct the error in the IE index file and he hasn't had any problems since then.
Click to expand...

this is certainly the strangest behavior ive ever seen. im glad someone recognizes it.

but you say this is due to IE index file? note im using mostly firefox. and i do and have clean all cache and temp files frequently.

this harddrive is very very new, so hopefully it isnt bad physical sectors on the disk, though ill surely try this today
 
Sometimes a fubarred TCP/IP stack can cause this - only certain protocols are affected. Search MS for "repair tcp/ip stack".
 
I used to get corrupt large file transfers with a bad NVIDIA networking driver and TCP checksum offload enabled... that driver (and many others like it from NVIDIA) was garbage. It didn't abort the file, though, it just corrupted it.

If your MTU is set higher than one of the sites in your network path to the server and your path MTU resolution isn't working due to someone's badly configured firewall that could cause large transfer hangs.

 
Thanks for helping out so far. Good leads. I was thinking down the technical mtu/tcp routes (im not so good at this part)

I am runnig Windows Vista Home Premium x32, and it has all automated/optimized MTU settings (no more MTU tweaks like in win98/2k days). I havent modified any of these settings at all. Additionally, I do not run any virus scanners or firewalls (hard or soft) at all. And there are no viruses/worms/bugs/spyware on the machine.

Havent updated the wireless adapter driver.

In a short while ill bring home a THIRD laptop to isolate the problem so hopefully it points away from my home computer

 
You might try just installing a simple web server on one of your systems and try to access it and use it to download a multi-megabyte file. If it works locally over the LAN but fails over the internet, that helps to narrow it down.

 
I originally thought MTU problems but that would also affect FTP as well. If you want to see if it is MTU related then lower your MTU to 1300.
 
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