Browser quit and won't work even though PC says I am connected, what is up?
HELP!!! Tech heads I need help. My cable Internet got upgraded. My old modem didn’t seem to handle it well as it would not produce an IP address so it would not connect to the model and/or the outer. I took the router off line and out of the loop for the time being. I upgraded the modem and was able to get an IP address. The problem is even though My Network Connections (OS WIN XP Pro w/Srv pack 3) says I am connected and shows me an IP address same as going to the command line and typing in ipconfig anything that has to do with the Web cannot get in or out, no Web pages, ICQ, Yahoo Messenger, etc. Have you or anyone you know ever had that problem? What would make Win see the router but not allow traffic to go back and forth?
Things that has been tried and failed:
• Made sure the browser was not on “work offline”
• Use of the Internet Connect Wizard
• Made sure the setting under Services was enabled esp DHCP.
• Tech support through the cable company.
• All connections checked.
• “Auto Detect Connection” checked in Int. Options.
I have done about everything I can think to get traffic going an nothing has worked, I am stumped. Time to go to the Jellies, give me what you got, what idea do you have?
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16 Answers
Just incase it helps, it is a Motorola 500 series cable modem, and the IP provider Comcast.
Shut everything down. And then start by starting up cable modem, then router after two or three minutes and finally restart our computer again after three or more minutes.
@Tropical_Willie Oh, I did that, power cycled the modem until my head spun. It always cam back as “connected” with an IP addy but won’t allow any traffic in or out.
Did you restart all network equipment between PC and router? With a GAP in between. NOT just cable modem.
@Tropical_Willie I took the Negear router out of the loop just to rule out one less problem. It was just the modem to the PC and that was it.
Call the cable company again. I have a similar occasional problem, cable company verifies the router and EVERYTHING is working again.
Second calling the cable company. It might be they have to reset their connection, it happens here occasionally if the power goes out between the company servers and my town.
Sounds like a DNS (Domain Name Service) issue to me.
DNS not working means that your system can’t turn a name like “ww.fluther.com” into the corresponding address 208.75.84.118 (I just checked it ;^)
A quick test: type the above address into the address bar of your browser. What happens? If you get the fluther.com home page, you have a DNS issue.
Another way to test the same thing:
From your command terminal, try “ping google.com”
It should respond with output showing that data is being sent from your local machine (its IP address) and a time. When you stop it (with Control-C) it should provide a summary of packets received, packets transmitted, and packet loss.
If you get a packet loss of 100%, then try “ping 8.8.8.8” (this is one of Google’s nameservers) and see what happens.
If you get packet loss on the first query (by name) but none on the second (by address) then this suggests that your DNS service is not working.
If either of these tests indicates a DNS issue:
Your Internet Connection dialog should show you what DNS server your connection tries to use. If it shows an IP address there (I don’t have a Windows box handy to check this) then you can try pinging that address. If the ping fails then try changing the DNS server to 8.8.8.8 and / or 8.8.4.4 and see if that helps.
Do you experience these problems with other programs besides your browser? If not then the problem might lie in the browser’s proxy configuration. It’s not terribly likely though.
@Tropical_Willie I had the cabel tech out yesterday, he attached his tester device and showed I was getting higher traffic than I am suppose to get, and he reset the modem. From the IP provider’s equipment I am online.
@koanhead I tried pinging Yahoo and Google and it said it could not find either like it is not getting out at all. If that means my DNS is not working is it a configuration problem, did it get disabled and if so, how do I enable it, or is there somthing physical with the onboard ethernet port/card etc?
@Hypocrisy_Central did you try pinging the address (“ping 8.8.8.8”)? If so, what happened?
That’s a necessary step in determining whether a DNS problem exists.
DNS is a service provided by servers which are external to your personal network. Your default is most likely a DNS server (or “nameserver”) provided by your ISP. If you are having a problem with it you simply tell your internet connection to use a different server (like 8.8.8.8 or 8.8.4.4). If you tell me what particular OS you use I’ll try to get you instructions on how to do this- but make sure that really is the problem first.
It would help if you copy / paste the ping output into your response.
Also, have you tried using a bittorrent client or maybe watching a Youtube video with your media player?
@koanhead WhenI pinged 8.8.8.8 I got:
Pinging 8.8.8.8 with 32 bytes of data:
Destination host unreachable.
Destination host unreachable.
Destination host unreachable.
Destination host unreachable.
Ping statistic for 8.8.8.8:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4 <100%>,
Ok, that means the problem is definitely not DNS.
Your computer indicates that you have a connection, and you have an IP address, so I think that it’s probably not lying about that (though it could be, if the IP is left over from an earlier DHCP lease, but never mind that).
The next thing I would suspect is that your default route is munged somehow. The command “ipconfig” should give you some route information, if you post it I’ll try to analyze it for you. Otherwise try the “route” command and see what it says.
Routes are information used by the OS to determine where to send packets meant for particular networks. Most PCs will usually only have one or two routes. The output of the ‘route’ command will look like a table:
Destination Gateway Netmask Flags Interface
192.168.0.0 * 255.255.255.0 U eth0
default 192.168.0.1 0.0.0.0 UG eth0
“destination” means a network that packets are headed for. “default” is the one you care about.
“gateway” is an external machine that will pass the packets along to their destination. In the example above, the gateway my router with local IP address 192.168.0.1
“interface” is the local device that the packets go to. My weird computer has about 7 different network interfaces, but the important one is “eth0” which is the first ethernet adapter. This will be called something else in windows.
@koanhead Thanks for all the good stuff but in frustration I took a hunch and pulled a nic card from one of my older machines and slapped it in my tower went into device manager and disabled the onboard lan/ethernet and bada boom baba bing, promblem solved, back online no problems. I don’t know what it was with the onboard ethernet why it couldn’t establish traffic but it will be one I will still be out to find the answer to.
@Hypocrisy_Central you may need to upgrade the drivers for the onboard lan/ethernet card, or it may just have chosen a bad moment to die on you.
@WestRiverrat Upgrading the onboard ethernet was one of the 1st things I did but it failed to work. I don’t know or if I ever will know if one of the pins on the port failed and not carried crutial info in or out.
Glad to hear you are up and running again!
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