Can't Ping My Own IP Address

[Don]

I'm running XP Pro with all the latest updates. I was running a VPN
client from my employer and when I disconnected the VPN, the client
crashed. Ever since then my Internet connectivity is VERY sporadic.
Applications like Firefox and Thunderbird will not talk to the net at
all getting a "connection refused by server" message. Outlook can
sometimes get out. IE is the only application that can get to the net
pretty consistently but even that is not 100%. Some pages won't come
up.

I've checked all hardware (D-Link router and cable modem) and
everything is fine. Another computer attached to the same router has
no problems (that's the machine I'm sending this from). That second
computer can ping it's own IP address with no problems and has no
trouble getting out to the Internet.

I also tried connecting the VPN again and disconnecting it. It does
not successfully connect any more either and the disconnect does not
fix the problem. I also tried uninstalling and reinstalling the VPN -
Again with no effect.

I ran the XP Network Diagnostic tool and it failed. The only part of
the test that failed is when it tries to ping it's own IP address. I
tried this manually and got the same results. I can't ping my own IP
address. The "good" machine on the local network works fine and can
ping anything including the machine that is having the problem.

I'm guessing that the VPN crash left my machine in some indeterminate
state but I've checked everything I can think of and nothing appears to
be wrong.

Help!

 

[Jim]

I'm running XP Pro with all the latest updates. I was running a VPN
client from my employer and when I disconnected the VPN, the client
crashed. Ever since then my Internet connectivity is VERY sporadic.
Applications like Firefox and Thunderbird will not talk to the net at
all getting a "connection refused by server" message. Outlook can
sometimes get out. IE is the only application that can get to the net
pretty consistently but even that is not 100%. Some pages won't come
up.

I've checked all hardware (D-Link router and cable modem) and
everything is fine. Another computer attached to the same router has
no problems (that's the machine I'm sending this from). That second
computer can ping it's own IP address with no problems and has no
trouble getting out to the Internet.

I also tried connecting the VPN again and disconnecting it. It does
not successfully connect any more either and the disconnect does not
fix the problem. I also tried uninstalling and reinstalling the VPN -
Again with no effect.

I ran the XP Network Diagnostic tool and it failed. The only part of
the test that failed is when it tries to ping it's own IP address. I
tried this manually and got the same results. I can't ping my own IP
address. The "good" machine on the local network works fine and can
ping anything including the machine that is having the problem.

I'm guessing that the VPN crash left my machine in some indeterminate
state but I've checked everything I can think of and nothing appears to
be wrong.

Help!

What does the Hosts file contain?
Jim

 

[Don]

Originally (when the problem first happened) the hosts file contained
only the default entry for "localhost". Since then I've tried adding
entries for both the machine that does not work and the machine that
does work. Nothing has made any difference.

Don

 

[Jim]

Originally (when the problem first happened) the hosts file contained
only the default entry for "localhost". Since then I've tried adding
entries for both the machine that does not work and the machine that
does work. Nothing has made any difference.

Don

All it should containis the entry for localhost. That number is an alias
for your computer. There must be something else wrong, but I am out of
ideas.
Jim

 

[Brian Cryer]

I'm running XP Pro with all the latest updates. I was running a VPN
client from my employer and when I disconnected the VPN, the client
crashed. Ever since then my Internet connectivity is VERY sporadic.
Applications like Firefox and Thunderbird will not talk to the net at
all getting a "connection refused by server" message. Outlook can
sometimes get out. IE is the only application that can get to the net
pretty consistently but even that is not 100%. Some pages won't come
up.

I've checked all hardware (D-Link router and cable modem) and
everything is fine. Another computer attached to the same router has
no problems (that's the machine I'm sending this from). That second
computer can ping it's own IP address with no problems and has no
trouble getting out to the Internet.

I also tried connecting the VPN again and disconnecting it. It does
not successfully connect any more either and the disconnect does not
fix the problem. I also tried uninstalling and reinstalling the VPN -
Again with no effect.

I ran the XP Network Diagnostic tool and it failed. The only part of
the test that failed is when it tries to ping it's own IP address. I
tried this manually and got the same results. I can't ping my own IP
address. The "good" machine on the local network works fine and can
ping anything including the machine that is having the problem.

I'm guessing that the VPN crash left my machine in some indeterminate
state but I've checked everything I can think of and nothing appears to
be wrong.

Help!

Don't know about your other problems, but regarding not being able to ping
yourself - Do you have the XP firewall enabled? The default configuration
for the firewall is that it will block echo requests.

 

[Don]

Brian,

I've tried running with the XP firewall both enabled and disabled and
there is no change in the behavior. The problem does look like a
firewall issue but if it is, I don't know how to disable the "feature".
There is only one checkbox to either turn the firewall on or off.


Don

 

[Brian Cryer]

Brian,

I've tried running with the XP firewall both enabled and disabled and
there is no change in the behavior. The problem does look like a
firewall issue but if it is, I don't know how to disable the "feature".
There is only one checkbox to either turn the firewall on or off.

Don

Simple on/off sounds is fine. So, presumably that's not it. If you can ping
your pc from another then it won't be the firewall.

This may sound like an odd question, but if you can't ping yourself do both
of these fail:

ping localhost
ping your-pc-name (make substitution)

If ping localhost doesn't work but ping your-pc-name does, then take a look
at your anti-virus. It may be locking down localhost. (Honest, sounds daft
but I've hit it as a problem.)

Other than that, I'm out of ideas.

 

[Don]

Brian,

"ping localhost" works file but ping of my own machine name does not.


Don

 

[Don]

I have some more information about this problem...

In the process of running the netdiag program, I was faced with trying
to post the results of the utility (since they were rather verbose).
In order to move this data from the "bad" machine to my "good" machine
I could not use a floppy since the "bad" machine does not have a floppy
drive.

What I wound up doing was creating a shared folder on the "good"
machine and mapping it on the "bad" machine and that worked. I am able
to map network drives that exist on the "good" machine onto the "bad"
one. The reverse does not work though. I cannot create a shared
folder on the "bad" machine and map it on the "good" one. When I try
to map a folder this way, the "good" machine sees the "bad" machine's
name as part of my local network but it cannot see anything inside the
machine.

The second point I wanted to make is that I noticed that there is a
difference between the two machines if I open the "Network Connections"
dialog box from the Start/Settings menu. On my "good" machine and on
my office machine, there is only one bold heading in this box labeled
"LAN or High Speed Internet". On my "bad" machine, there is an
additional heading labeled "Internet Gateway". This heading has one
entry under it which reads "Internet Connection" with type "Internet
Gateway", status "Connected", and name "Internet Connection".

Trying to bring up the properties window on this connection results in
a dialog box that does not have any useful information in it. Right
clicking on it and asking for it's status brings up a dialog box that
indicates that the connection is good and working fine and there is
constant send and receive traffic on the interface (not a large amount
but the counters do constantly increment). There is a "disable" button
on this form but pressing it does not appear to do anything - The
status display stays the same even though it takes about 30 seconds for
it to come back from the button press.


Don