I am at a rental unit using their system. I have a MacBook Pro, the wireless router is a Belkin g, Motorola cable modem and vonage is involved. I have full access to my e-mail. AIM through iChat, UseNet obviously and https:// websites, but NOT just regular http://websites. Any suggestions?
Have the same results using both Sea Monkey and Safari.
Kurt Ullman hath wroth:
The Belking g router has URL redirection setup for Port 80, but no other ports. All the other ports work, but port 80 is being redirected to who knows where. Did you perhaps try to bypass the splash screen, where you have to click "OK" to browse? What you describe is what happens when you do that.
this was an already up and functioning network that I just signed on to. I did not see a splash screen asking me to do anything when I connected though airport the first time. So, how do I get around it? I have already tried to power down the computer and try signing on again. Anything else?
Kurt Ullman hath wroth:
Spoof your MAC address and pretend you're a "new" user.
I'm failure sure that port 80 redirection screwup is what's happening. However, without access to the config or the hardware, I'm not sure what to do about it. What's also odd is that Belkin routers are not commonly used by hotspot operators. It may not have a splash screen. Any clue as to the exact Belkin model number?
It might help if you ask the hotspot operator to power cycle the Belkin g whatever router. My guess(tm) is that some table is overflowing or corrupted in the router.
Also, double check your MacBook Pro Safari setup. If you've got a web proxy setup for port 80 access, it will do the same thing, especially if the proxy doesn't exist or is inaccessible. That's especially true for Anonymizer, web content filtering services, and corporate proxy servers.
To specify a proxy server in Safari: 1. Click to open Safari. 2. Click on Safari -> Preferences -> Advanced -> Change Settings 3. Notice that the System Preferences -> Network pane opens, displaying the proxy settings for the type of connection you are using. 4. Under Select a proxy server to configure, click to select the type of proxy server. 5. Under Secure Web Proxy Server, enter the IP address or DNS name in the text box. In the text box after the colon (:) symbol, enter the port number. 6. Click on Apply Now.
Basically, check the settings and make sure that a proxy server is
*NOT* specified.\\
Whatever it was it seems temporary because everything is working perfectly this morning. I played with it for about 4 hours last night before I posted to the Usenet (honest-grin), and it wouldn't work. With either Safari or Sea Monkey. Now it does. I wonder if I just happened on to an ISP-induced outage of the web..... Anyway, as always thanks muchly for the assist. I appreciate the time and efforts.
K
Is it now safe to assume that the problem lies with the ISP? K
I have seen hotel hotspots splash pages that only worked consistently with Internet Explorer.
I don't have a Mac so take the following with a grain of salt
If you have or can install wireshark, you can see the traffic.
Also given the Mac BSD heritage maybe the following from traceroute man page will help
traceroute -T -p 80
will help
John
The problem is gone again. Also this isn't a hot spot, but a person's network at a private home I renting for awhile. I talked with my Landlord and he says Comcast has been known to go walkabout every once in awhile. And it has always come back again. Now that I have web acess back, I'll look around for it.
Sounds like a proxy problem somewhere in the path, the traceroute command might be able to identify the culprit.
Good Luck
John
Not sure where you are, but I am in the baltimore area, have comcast, and whenever it rains, the internet slows way down and then stops, after a day or so of dry, it's fine again... Odd thing is, cable, voice, mail, news all keep working, just the browser freaks when it rains..... Just for fun have you tried any speed tests? On a good day I get around 2500, but when precipitatings, goes down probably to lower than 250 (that's when I can't use the browser to connect anymore) can't say how good or accurate it is, but I use the cnet one to at least give me an idea
Have an alternate (cell phone connect via cable) to see that it works (much slower), just not via cable or dialup via voip (that gets very slow).....
Kurt Ullman hath wroth:
Dunno. Your magical recovery could have been produced by rebooting your Mac, rebooting the router, or some other oddity. However, the theory that Comcast was causing the problem is probably a good bet. It was certainly a proxy or web redirection problem, but there's no clear indication of whether it was on your Mac, in the Belkin something router, or in the Comcast router.
The Mac was in sleep but not rebooted, did nothing to the router, either. However, given that I am Believer in not looking gift horses in the mouth, I am just going to ignore it and hope it stays working again. (g). Low profile so as to not annoy the Gods of Computerdom... Again thanks for all of your help.
K
Are you in an area where it rains now and then? My Comcast cable (internet) get extremely slow and dies whenever it rains (not snow, I'm guessing something gets wet in the new cable they ran, when the squirrels chewed thu the old one), and goes back to normal when it dries out. Using a speed test (when it works) it goes from a normal of 2500 Kb down to 24Kb (and then dies totally)....
I am currently in Key Largo. Hasn't rained recently. I used a speed test and the results (when it works) are near ethernet speeds.
Oh well,worth a shot... mine died yesterday when it rained and is back to normal today... Guy came out and did a signal level test, it was fine at the house (when it was dry and sunny), but trying to get him back again exactly when it rains sucks... so I started tracking it myself...... Point was that it sounds very similar to what you were experiencing, but there's not a darn thing wrong here in the house when it's tested (Murphys law, stuff always works perfectly when the repairman checks it :), and may be due to something totally out of your control (like for me the cable on the poles/underground down the street)....
As I recall from some other areas, the cables (TV, phone, and electric) were underground instead of on poles (so it was out of major storms/weather), and the water seeping in from the ground, even when it was clear, caused the same sort of problems... Luckily I have a cell and cable that can do data, so I can test and have an option when the cable internet goes out.
Just an aside, I have a speedtest program on my computer that runs automatically every 6 hours or so and saves/logs the output, when the line repair guy thinks you are nuts, it's handy to have 25-100 pages showing the results over a long time period, that you can show him and say no I'm not!...... :)
You have never said whether it was at a specific time of the day or night that this occurs. I know several people who block the HTTP service on their routers for a specific range of Lan IP's so that their children are denied access at certain hours.
The twice it has happened was during the evening one day, it worked the next morning for a couple of hours and then went away again for about 4.
This was blocking EVERYTHING. Couldn't get to Yahoo, couldn't get to the Indianapolis Star, whole bunch of really innocuous websites.
Kurt Ullman hath wroth:
Ummm... I'm curious. Go unto a terminal window and inscribe: uptime to see how long the MacBook has been up since you last rebooted.
Ok, assuming you didn't reboot either computer or the router, it's probably a Comcast problem. When all the usual suspects have been eliminated, whatever is left, however improbable, is the culprit. (My appologies to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle).
Wrong. That which you do not understand, will turn around an bite you.
The traditional method of appeasing the Gods is by burnt offerings. However, that's become unfashionable as it tends to increase ones carbon footprint, which causes global warming, which induces creative logic, which precipitates legislation, etc.
"Peter Pan" hath wroth:
I beg to differ. He was having problems only with HTTP. HTTPS, FTP, POP3, SMTP, and other protocols all worked. Only HTTP was a problem. If the cable signal died, it would have trashed all protocols, not just HTTP.
Incidentally, I seen the same moisture induced problems with cable. It seems to be the nature of the beast. You can monitor the signal levels in your cable modem on its status page. So can Comcast, but they're too lazy to do that. No need for the cable guy to do a truck roll to your doorstep, except that there's a chance that they might bill you for something if it's your problem.
I do that with MRTG. I've been running it on various machines for years. It gives a traffic history of the router in 5 minute intervals. See:
I wrote some instructions for W95/98/ME a long time ago, which are handy for running MRTG on ancient hardware:
Note that the W2K, XP, and Vista instructions are different. Also, it runs OS/X, Unix, Linux, etc.
It works with any router that supports SNMP. If the router doesn't, then you can install SNMP on your computah, and run it locally.
You can also use SNMP to monitor your cable modem. Try this experiment:
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