For Microsoft Partners and Customers Who Can't Download or Access MSDN2...

[clintonG]

To all Microsoft partners and customers who have been unable to download
recently or access ASP.NET documentation from the msdn2 website and for all
of those customers who have been lied to and misled by some of the sleazy
MVPs and the lying cockroaches that Microsoft has working for the company...

Microsoft has serious problems with their servers and websites. The entire
MSDN server farm and all download resources MSDN manages has been FUBAR for
at least two months now and longer in fact. The failures started way back
when Visual Studio 2005 was released. At least it is correct to say that is
when these recent failures began to be discovered by those who have paid
Microsoft thousands of dollars for MSDN subscriptions but have not been able
to download resources they paid for.

This is also widely known and discussed to some extent within other
newsgroups hosted by Microsoft and has become a serious problem for
developers who can not access the ASP.NET 2.0 documentation from the
dysfunctional msdn2.microsoft.com website. Yet, Microsoft has done what?

Like cockroaches Microsoft staff have lied and scurried away from the
problem without an honest acknowledgement of the problem and a concerned
attempt to at least explain what the company is doing to resolve these
failures.

So be prepared to continue to be lied to and misled by some of the MVP
cockroaches that use these newsgroups. The same will be true of the
so-called Product Managers who are closer to the problem and even less
honorable than the slime that function as MVPs. In other words, when the
cockroaches from tech support, Microsoft Product Managers, and some of the
slimier MVPs try to suggest you have a problem with your machine do not
allow them to manipulate you and put you to work for hours and perhaps days
wasting your time with troubleshooting. Their favorite lie is to suggest
people have a problem with the cache on the local machine. This has been
proven to be a lie by many people.

When this first occurred with Visual Studio 2005 -- I TRUSTED -- Microsoft
support and fell for the lies the cockroaches told. I was actually working
with Tier Two support who sent me troubleshooting scripts and documents I
had to carefully follow so I could run the scripts in order. I ran scripts
for those cockroaches for SIX HOURS and then the cockroaches told me we had
to start all over because the cockroaches said they sent me the wrong
scripts. I had enough of that ca-ca de toro and later that same evening
POOF! downloading started working again on any and all machines on my
network.

Because I consider myself a professional -- with integrity -- I have
recently once again tested and replicated Microsoft's recent server failures
on three different well maintained and service packed machines running XP
Pro, XP Home and Windows 2000 using IE6, IE7, FF1.5, FF2 and Opera9 because
I want to make sure I have done due diligence before the bottle rocket goes
off.

The msdn2.microsoft.com website is FUBAR and so is the Express Suite
website(s). MSDN Subscription Downloads continue to be FUBAR.

This is Microsoft's problem and the cockroaches the company has working for
it do not have the integrity to acknowledge this problem let alone
cooperatively help people understand what they are doing to try to resolve
the problem -- but -- a young lady from corporate sales called me the other
day as I am involved with the partner program and she did indeed ask about
this at my request and she returned to the phone to tell me "yes, my boss
just acknowledged there is something wrong with MSDN servers but I am not
technically skilled so I can't explain further."

I am asking everybody adversely affected by these failures to start
demanding a reasonable response to these failures.

<%= Clinton Gallagher
NET csgallagher AT metromilwaukee.com
URL http://clintongallagher.metromilwaukee.com/
MAP http://wikimapia.org/#y=43038073&x=-88043838&z=17&l=0&m=h

 

[clintonG]

You are one of the lucky ones and I hate you ;-)


<%= Clinton Gallagher
NET csgallagher AT metromilwaukee.com
URL http://clintongallagher.metromilwaukee.com/
MAP http://wikimapia.org/#y=43038073&x=-88043838&z=17&l=0&m=h

 

[cduffy]

Hey Clinton, are you by any chance trying to access microsoft URLS from
behind a linksys or other SOHO gateway or router? If you are using
linksys, are you using DHCP? If you are using DHCP is the DNS server
address assigned to your client the address of the linksys box itself?
If so there is a solution.

On my home network I could not access msdn, or microsoft downloads and
tons of other microsoft contents. It was driving me crazy. Didn't
matter what browser I used.

Turns out that the DNS on the linksys box was incapable of correctly
resolving the url transfers through the *akami servers* that lots of
microsoft content reside on.

The solution was to move to configure an IP on the client, instead of
DHCP, and to supply a DNS server entry of your providers external DNS
server (ie, the DNS servers listed in the WAN connection on the router
configuration itself).

All problems solved. I know many, many people who have resolved their
problems with this simple fix, and can now access all microsoft
content.

Chuck

 

[clintonG]

The third party is a fascinating aspect of the problem Chuck. Thanks for
bring it to my attention. I use a NetGear firewall which gets the DNS
automatically from Road Runner as I recall I was instructed when setting up
the Road Runner account. I talked to Road Runner about this problem already
but I will revisit my configuration options.

Still, this doesn't answer how the same local configuration has been rock
solid and reliable for years previous to Microsoft's network crapping out as
of late and all of the rest of us getting blamed for it.

<%= Clinton Gallagher
NET csgallagher AT metromilwaukee.com
URL http://clintongallagher.metromilwaukee.com/
MAP http://wikimapia.org/#y=43038073&x=-88043838&z=17&l=0&m=h





(e-mail address removed)> wrote in message

 

[cduffy]

Hi Clinton,

"I use a NetGear firewall which gets the DNS

automatically from Road Runner as I recall I was instructed when setting up
the Road Runner account"

This is absolutely the right thing to do for the firewall.

*But* check your PC using ipconfig /all from a command prompt (if you
are on a windows os of course).

If the DNS address listed on your PC is the address of the firewall or
router, this can cause the problem. The solution is to not use DHCP on
the client, use a static IP and set the DNS server addresses to the DNS
server addresses that your firewall/router accquires when it connects.
You can usually find that out from the admin console of your
firewall/router.

"Still, this doesn't answer how the same local configuration has been
rock

solid and reliable for years previous to Microsoft's network crapping "

Well, my local configuration worked perfectly for years too, then
stopped. I struggled with this for weeks, and stumbled onto the
solution in a networking group.

I think it has something to do with MS moving more and more content to
AKAMAI servers, and the complex DNS involved with their caching /
balancing act. I'm not any kind of expert at that stuff, but I know
that moving to static IP and entering proper DNS server IPS instead of
the routers IP solved mine, and several other peoples problems.

Of course this may have nothing to do with your problem, but it takes
less than five minutes to check.

Chuck

 

[clintonG]

I'm still on the job here. I talked to Akamai today and they told me their
services to Microsoft are load balancing the DNS requests. While they
provide content caching services they do not provide those services to
Microsoft for msdn2.microsoft.com.

I've tried to reconfigure my firewall to support NAT as you suggest but I
must not have done so correctly and I'm trying to ask Netgear for
documentation as its scarce. They have decent equipment but their
documentation and their support is lousy. I was successful using NAT when
using a Netgear router but their FVS318 firewall is not documented well and
I'm doing something wrong.

Happy New Year!

<%= Clinton Gallagher
NET csgallagher AT metromilwaukee.com
URL http://clintongallagher.metromilwaukee.com/
MAP http://wikimapia.org/#y=43038073&x=-88043838&z=17&l=0&m=h

 

[Chuck]

Hi Clinton,

I think I was using too much technobabble in my post, the idea is not
to reconfigure the firewall, but to use a static IP on your client
machine, and to make sure that the DNS server entries on the client are
legitimate DNS servers provided by roadrunner, and not the IP of the
firewall.

The settings are under TCP/IP properties for you network card.

Chuck

 

[clintonG]

Thanks Chuck. Using ipconfig /all showed the DNS IP is in fact the same IP
as the firewall as you mentioned. I really appreciate you bringing your
insight into this issue to my attention. For me, it is an amazing cluster
f*ck that only mangles the msdn2 subdomain. Nothing else nowhere else.

I understood what you were saying though. The firewall is currently
configured to get the DNS values dynamically. I've talked with Road Runner
and they require the use of dynamic DNS assignments. The Netgear FVS318
firewall I have provides two settings, one for dynamic DNS and the other
setting takes static values -- but again -- I can't provide a static value
as Road Runner told me even if they were to provide me with a value (which
they won't) that value would change every day or two. I have no idea if or
how I am going to be able to work-around this msdn2 issue.

<%= Clinton