What's killing the connection?

[OceanView]

When I boot the machine, everything's fine. Ping works, ipconfig reports
everthing ok, browsers work. ABout 10 minutes later, Page not found on both
IE and Firefox...BUT...other connections still work, such as the xnews
browser I'm typing into now. Ping still works. When this started happening is
when I installed a require VPN software to connect to my employer's network.
I've since removed it, but the problem has stayed. I'm an old software guy,
but networks baffle me. What could be happening here and how do I find it?

Two things I've tried already: pare down the system to bare minumum and
installed the TCP connection limit removal patch (I was getting a warning
about that). Ideas?

 

[Guest]

Do you mean your connection to the I'net? After 10 minutes, can you still
verify IP settings with ipconfig/all? If you ping ww.google.com, for
example, and record the IP address when you get a reply, can you get to
Google after ten minutes by using http://ipaddress instead of
http://www.google.com? I have experienced a number of DNS problems when
using VPN connectivity software. Start by verifying initial and
post-ten-minute name resolution. One thing to check on to verify name
resolution is ipconfig/displaydns to show your local machine cache. To avoid
confusion because of cached resources, after ten minutes type
ipconfig/flushdns before attempting to reach an I'net resource you previously
could because the name-to-ip mapping may be in cache; you won't know if you
actually resolved it anew.

Keep us posted.

 

[OceanView]

Do you mean your connection to the I'net? After 10 minutes, can you
still verify IP settings with ipconfig/all? If you ping ww.google.com,
for example, and record the IP address when you get a reply, can you get
to Google after ten minutes by using http://ipaddress instead of
http://www.google.com? I have experienced a number of DNS problems when
using VPN connectivity software. Start by verifying initial and
post-ten-minute name resolution. One thing to check on to verify name
resolution is ipconfig/displaydns to show your local machine cache. To
avoid confusion because of cached resources, after ten minutes type
ipconfig/flushdns before attempting to reach an I'net resource you
previously could because the name-to-ip mapping may be in cache; you
won't know if you actually resolved it anew.

Keep us posted.

Okay I'll try that. Ipconfig/all works fine, as does the ping yahoo.com.
Basically, everything works but the browsers. Originally, the VPN knocked
out the whole connection, but now the other stuff is back.

I tried the flush at one point, but they may have been during the earlier
problem. I'll try again, thanks! Off to reboot...again

 

[OceanView]

Okay I'll try that. Ipconfig/all works fine, as does the ping yahoo.com.
Basically, everything works but the browsers. Originally, the VPN knocked
out the whole connection, but now the other stuff is back.

I tried the flush at one point, but they may have been during the earlier
problem. I'll try again, thanks! Off to reboot...again

Well, nice idea, but it didn't work. What would you try next? Appreciate
any help.

 

[Guest]

I don't know what VPN software you had installed - was it Windows or 3rd
Party? I do know that in Windows, if the option to use the default gateway
on the remote network is selected, your VPN client machine can resolve DNS
queries, but you CANNOT access web resources. If you deselect the option to
use the default gateway on the remote network, then you can hold a VPN
session to machines in your private network AND access web resources from
your remote client. Technically, this is called split tunneling.

Did you actually install your VPN software, or did you receive settings
forced down to your machine from a domain network, via Group Policy? In any
case, if a System Restore point was created prior o installing the software,
try restoring the machine to that point in time; if the settings are via
Group Policy, they will be refreshed in the background automatically and
there isn't much you can do (or should - your Administrator may be enforcing
policy for a reason. You could be subject to disciplinary action if this is
a company-owned machine.)

If you only use the VPN to access network shares via \\machinename or
through mapped drives, you may be limited in what you can do through a
browser. However, if the VPN exists so that you can use Remote Desktop to
log into remote machines, you should be able to access web resources that way
(assuming you can when you are physically logged into a network machine).

Keep us updated.