Windows Nework - suspect I need Guru help

[Dantoo]

I have a customer's computer that has a problem getting a socket to the Internet. It dials in ok, authenticates and logs on. Mail and browsers will not work. The system runs the res://windows\system\shdoclc.dll/dnserror.htm screen after attempting to open any site. Putting in the IP address directly makes no difference. I have completely screened the system with Vet antivirus with the latest updates.

IE, Netscape, and Opera all return more or less the same error, no socket.

I have searched the Net up and down looking for an answer.

I have made sure that there are no extra winsock.dll and wsock32.dll files on the machine and have removed and replaced those and every other networking type file I could identify and still no luck. I have run SFC and scanned the registry for strange looking beasts. I have ensured that the content advisor is disabled.

I have uninstalled and reinstalled:

IE5.5
Netscape
Opera
AOL (well desperation breeds strange solutions)
sundry other programs that seemingly bear no relationship to anything.
Dial up Networking
Dial up Adapter
The ISP setup

I have ensured that there are no settings in the LAN setup. All settings in Dial up, telephony and Internet Options are standard and have been checked, rechecked and cross checked removed and reinstalled anyway.

So what is left before I tell him that I have wasted three days and the only advice I have is format C: ?

Thanks for reading this far. I really am out of ideas.

 

[chemwiz]

What OS? What hardware?

 

[TBP]

the isp may be dead. Did you see any traffic between you and the isp?

 

[yazz]

check your services. see if DNS is running. if not, enable it and set it to Automatic so i turns on at every reboot. also, check to see if SERVER and Computer Browser services are running as well.

 

[Dantoo]

Thanks for all the help so far

Chemwiz - Win98 SE and it is definitely a software prob. This machine worked fine til only a week or so ago. For the record P133 on an FX board, 48MB 1GB drive, external modem (tried a couple of different ones)

TBP definitely not the ISP. It's on air and works fine on every other computer in the shop including this one that I'm communicating with you on. After authentication and login there is no traffic whatsoever out of the computer to the net (and thus none in either).

yazz I can do that on Win98SE? If I can, please give me somewhere to start looking.

This one is a genuine doozy.

 

[Akash]

deleate and reinstallt the tcp/ip in network configure.. thats prolbally the problem.. after reinstalling makesure dns is from dhcp...

 

[ajskydiver]

Did you try to ping anyone?

I had a similar problem and it would say something like "Comm Protocol would not load"

but Ping anyway...but that's all it would do.

Uninstalling and reinstalling ALL network settings didn't help...

Good luck.

 

[Dantoo]

Akash I've uninstalled all the components in there a couple of times without any luck. I also figure that if tcpip wasn't working, the computer wouldn't be able to get through authentication on the ISP authentication server. (Can't be 100% sure, but fairly certain because if I disable tcpip you can dial in but you can't log in). This machine dials in, logs in, but won't go any further. It's like it doesn't go looking for the DNS on the net but rather an internal DNS table that doesn't exist. The further and more mysterious complication is that even if you enter the ip address directly - it doesn't make any difference.



<< makesure dns is from dhcp... >>

How do I do this?

Aj_UF I suspect your right, I haven't tried pinging anyone, but it will surely work as information has to travel from the computer to the isp network for it to log in. Therefore it can establish a network and communicate in the appropriate protocol. It seems that it just won't/can't establish a &quot;socket&quot; to the Internet.

Thanks - it really should be something simple, it's just invisible.

 

[Shukla]

Before you get to the &quot;format&quot;, just reinstall Win98SE. I wonder if it's a &quot;comctl32&quot; problem. Also, could you try a different modem? Yeah, I know, this one dials and connects so it's probably a s/w issue, but what the hell huh?

The fact that you're getting dnserror errors makes me think that something is preventing communication with the &quot;dial-up&quot; adapter and is &quot;bound&quot; to something else like a network card? What's the ISP? Does it require specific gateway addressing, or does it auto assign IP? My ISP required a specific IP address in TCP/IP properties years ago.

Remember this is in the DUN folder, ISP dialup link properties, not the network neighborhood TCP/IP setup. Then again, you said it dials in and connects. Hmmm...

It's the AOL borg thing I'm sure. What was the customer doing prior to this headache?

Rerun 98 setup. If this don't work, backup and reformat. Easier to do this than spend another whole day.

 

[Dantoo]

Thanks Shukla

You might begin to understand how frustrating this problem has been when you realise that I had already done two Win98 reinstalls for no result before posting. Also three changes of modem had no effect.

The ISP setup is fine. Everything is modern and autoassigned.



<< The fact that you're getting dnserror errors makes me think that something is preventing communication with the &quot;dial-up&quot; adapter and is &quot;bound&quot; to something else like a network card? >>

Now that's an idea. I'll get back to you. There is an old 10Mb ethernet card in there that doesn't appear in &quot;system properties&quot;. I'll pull it tomorrow and let you know.

AOL, yeah he denies he ever touched the stuff, but there was one of those &quot;100 hours free AOL&quot; icons on his desktop!

What does comctl32 do? I'll replace it anyway!

Thanks again.

 

[AKA]

Have you deleted all the .host files?

 

[Dantoo]

A.K.A. I haven't but I did compare them by file size and date with a set on another computer. I also opened them in notepad and they seemed simple and harmless enough. I didn't delete them but I will and replace them with a known &quot;good&quot; set. Thanks, I will let you know.

 

[Sukhoi]

Can you successfully dial into a local computer with the modem, such as a direct connection to the library? That would tell you if the modem is working correctly, without worrying about TCP/IP and all that stuff.

 

[Sloth]

Easy way to check TCP/IP is to see if you can ping the internal loopback 127.0.0.1

When the TCP/IP stack is messed up you will not be able to ping it. If that works then you know you have problems elsewhere in the system.


S.

 

[Dantoo]

Sloth, Sukhoi and everybody - thanks so far, still not resolved but much closer. Host files now all changed.

The machine can ping both itself and others on the www. No probs. I don't have another machine for it to connect to directly unfortunately, but I'm guessing that the results would be the same. Without a direct dial up server, I cannot be certain.

Poking around in winipcfg and ipconfig /all I discovered that the line:

IP Routing enabled..................: No

Now that has to be a clue! Winipcfg shows the same. The other machines around here all have that setting as &quot;yes&quot; (or with a tick). If somebody knows how to make that into a &quot;yes&quot; please let me know. Another funny thing - as I was uninstalling and installing dial up adapter for 'teenth time I noticed that by default it was setting &quot;use DHCP for WINS resolution&quot;. The normal setup I believe is to have WINS disabled. (I've tried both and the fault persists anyway, just odd that it defaults to this).

The machine goes back tomorrow come what may, but I really would like to nail this just for the sake of knowing. It has to be some sort of learning experience.

Thanks for coming with this far on this one.

 

[Dantoo]

OK I gave up.
He came in and took it back to do the good ole format c:

One thing. I did learn how to put that &quot;tick&quot; in the box to enable ip routing:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services|VxD\MSTCP string value Enable Routing = 1

Didn't fix the problem though!


Thanks to everybody for the help!

 

[Sukhoi]

With that kind of a problem I'd do a low level format. j/k