UPC connection dropped for no reason

gimme5minutes

Well im posting this from my .2 MB UPC connection, that I have been fortunate enough to get to connect to the net. It is supposed to be 20MB. It has been working perfectly since it was installed on friday until today when I was playing some online poker when completely out of the blue my connection dropped. I had been playing for about 3 hours and I was plugged directly into the the modem. I restarted the PC and the Cisco modem but no use. I then booted into linux to see if it was working there and
no joy. I then tried using a wireless USB adaptor but that didn't pick up a connection either. I then disconnected the modem and put it into the kitchen where there is another UPC connection. That didn't work either over ethernet but at least this time it picked up the UPC wireless signal, albeit extremely weakly and it keeps cutting out. Thats the connection I'm posting over now.

I rang UPC and they said the problem is from my end as it says I'm connected as to the net as far as they can see from there end. Although when I was getting a "limited or no connectivity" error in Windows XP, I ran ipconfig I got a certain IP address that the UPC guy said meant I was connected to the net but couldn't get a proper address. He was going to give me a premium rate number to call, 95c a minute but I said I wanted to try some more stuff first. FFS why should I have to pay 95c to get a week old connection fixed when I am already paying €42 a month for their premium broadband service. Did you ever hear such f**cking sh1te, they have supplied a faulty product and they are looking to charge me a fortune to get it fixed. I'm finding it hard to see how the problem was on my end also, as the connection dropped out of the blue after I had been playing poker for several hours, and also the fact that it doesn't work in linux either. So anyway, if the problem is with something on my end I'm looking for advice here on fixing it and getting my connection running again, I should be getting 20MB, instead, I can't connect at all unless I get lucky after rebooting the modem and PC several times and Im able to connect at .2MB or less and the connection is liable to drop completely any moment.

So has anyone got any advice for me? To say I'm pissed off about this is an understatement.

hightower1

well you could just plug in another comp and if that works you know its the first comp.

gimme5minutes

Unfortunately I don't have another machine here at the moment to try that.

I'm also unable to log into the router at 192.168.100.1. You'd think even though I can't connect to the internet at least I could could connect

to the router, but it seems not. I've ran some ipconfigs in XP, here are the results. The Autoconfiguration IP Address - 169.254.121.175 - is what

the NTL guy told me is the address that you receive if you are unable to get a 'proper' one. Does anyone know the location of the Cisco EPC2425's

logs in XP or linux? Maybe there'll be some more info there on what's causing the problem...







Here are the ipconfig details -



ipconfig /renew

An error occurred while renewing interface Local Area Connection: unable to contact your DHCP server. Request has timed out.



ipconfig /all

Windows IP Configuration



Host Name...............: Joe

Primary DNS Suffix......:

Node Type...............: Unknown

IP Routing Enabled......: No

WINS Proxy Enabled......: No



Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:



Connection-specific DNS Suffix...:

Description......................: Realtex RTL8168D(P)/8111D(P) PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet NIC

Physical Address.................: 00-28-21-4A-9F-71

Dhcp Enabled.....................: Yes

Autoconfiguration Enabled........: Yes

Autoconfiguration IP Address.....: 169.254.121.175

Subnet Mask......................: 255.255.0.0

Default Gateway..................:



ipconfig /displaydns

1.0.0.127.in-addr.arpa

Record Name.......: 1.0.0.127.in-addr.arpa.

Record Type.......: 12

Time To Live......: 603077

Data Length.......: 4

Section...........: Answer

PTR Record........: localhost



localhost

Record Name.......: localhost

Record Type.......: 1

Time To Live......: 603077

Data Length.......: 4

Section...........: Answer

PTR Record........: 127.0.0.1





Also, if I right click on the Local Area Connection, click Status, then the Support tab, then Details, I get the following -

Physical Address 00-28-21-4A-9F-71

IP Address 169.254.121.175

Subnet Mask 255.255.0.0

Default Gateway

DNS Server

WINS Server



Anyone able to tell me if anything looks wrong with these statistics?

eamonpendergast

169. IP address' are invalid for internet access. The entire range is reserved.

Your looking for either 192. address (wireless), or either a 79. 89. address for wired (Sometimes a 192. can appear here also). Anything other than these address is more than likely wrong.

Try configure a manual IP and DNS.

hightower1

That wont work, UPC use dynamic ip and dns management so he'd have to know the DNS address and an available but valid UPC ip address. Unlikely.
169 ip's usually are caused by program or hardware failures. If they advise the modem is working then the only thing to consider would be the comp. Taking into account you have a dual boot OS set up I would imagine you are installing and updating a number of programs on a regular basis?

donal.hunt

so I was over at monty_python's house today and this looks like a very similar issue.

I'll post the full details on another thread but I suspect UPC/NTL/Chorus are having some DHCP issues which is affecting a small subset of users. It's possible that the issue is isolated to one part of the network (where the number of users has maxed out the DHCP IP allocation).

OP: where are you based?

hightower1

2 users get 169 ip's and this is a network outage????? Thats like seeing two clouds in the sky and predicting a hurricane! 169's happen every day to hundreds of people and is nearly always caused by people mucking about with routers, hardware or apps not network problems.

169 ip meaning you dont have a public ip address so windows has assigned its own...the 169 ip. If he called UPC and they said the modem is attempting to assign one .... he see's the comp is not accepting via a release and renew then every bit of logic points to a pc issue.

eamonpendergast

hightower1 wrote: »

That wont work, UPC use dynamic ip and dns management so he'd have to know the DNS address and an available but valid UPC ip address. Unlikely.
169 ip's usually are caused by program or hardware failures. If they advise the modem is working then the only thing to consider would be the comp. Taking into account you have a dual boot OS set up I would imagine you are installing and updating a number of programs on a regular basis?

He's using the Cisco wireless modem, he could configure a 192. IP for the wireless adapter no problem, also UPC have static DNS servers (89.101.160.4 and 89.101.160.4)

hightower1

eamonpendergast wrote: »

also UPC have static DNS servers (89.101.160.4 and 89.101.160.4)

Source?

donal.hunt

Anyone know the default IP for the Cisco modem/wireless router? The ambit modem default address is 192.162.100.1.

When I was diagnosing monty_python's issue earlier, I could connect to to the modem using a static IP (e.g. 192.168.100.2) and access the modem's web interface but reverting to DHCP on either laptop resulted in no public IP address being given to the laptop.

Sine the OP has a linux machine, they can run tcpdump on their ethernet connection and capture the DHCP requests (something along the lines of

tcpdump -i eth0 -n port 67 and port 68

). The OP can filter the captured data through dhcpdump and determine if they are getting any responses from the DHCP server.

The OP can also disconnect the COAX cable to the modem, reboot the modem and then connect their laptop. This should give out a private IP address to the laptop (probably something in the 192.168.x.x range). That will confirm that it's not an issue with the cable between the laptop and modem and that they have a working connection to the modem.

one last tip: make sure that you leave the modem powered off for 30-60 secs when you're connecting different devices to the standalone modems (not sure if the cisco is similar or not). The older modems used to remember the last device connected and wouldn't issue a new public ip address for the laptop / wireless router that was connected.


@hightower1: where did i say it was a network outage? I actually implied that their service was overloaded (if they ran out of IP addresses allocatable by the DHCP server then some customers would end up with no DHCP address allocated). I do actually know just a little bit about networks - I've been working with IP networks for the past 10 years.

donal.hunt

One last thing... The OP indicated that he got a signal when connected to wireless but not when connected to ethernet.

that makes no sense! was the OP sure he was connected to his router / modem?

eamonpendergast

hightower1 wrote: »

Source?

I was given it by one of the people in tech support. By the way, the IP's were meant to be 89.101.160.4 and 89.101.160.5.

donal.hunt wrote: »

Anyone know the default IP for the Cisco modem/wireless router? The ambit modem default address is 192.162.100.1.

Either 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.100.1 will get you in, username and password are blank, then click Setup tab.

donal.hunt

eamonpendergast wrote: »

hightower1 wrote: »

Source?

I was given it by one of the people in tech support. By the way, the IP's were meant to be 89.101.160.4 and 89.101.160.5.

89.101.160.4 and 89.101.160.5 appear to be same DNS servers given out by DHCP. makes sense that they use the same set.

use 89.101.160.8 and 89.101.160.9 if you don't want to use UPC's navigation service (provides search results when a URL doesn't resolve in DNS).

source:

• http://service.upc.ie/service/?cid=123&aid=143
• http://service.upc.ie/pdf/DNS%20opt-out%20instructions.pdf

gimme5minutes

hightower1 wrote: »

169 ip's usually are caused by program or hardware failures. If they advise the modem is working then the only thing to consider would be the comp. Taking into account you have a dual boot OS set up I would imagine you are installing and updating a number of programs on a regular basis?

Well i know for a fact its not my pc now as my housemate arrived back last night and we tried his laptop and it didn't work either. No connection at all when he tried the ethernet cable and then when he tried his wireless card he got the same situation as I did, sometimes he could pick up a signal, sometimes he couldn't, and if he was lucky enough to pick it up and connect it would run extremely slowly and be liable to drop at any moment, the same situation I was encountering on my pc. And he has a great wireless card that is picking every single wireless signal in the estate and has never once given him an issue. Also regarding the fact that I dual boot, I had not installed anything prior to the connection dropping, I wasn in the middle of a 3 hour online poker session when it dropped. And when I booted up linux 10 minutes later to see if the connection was working in that I found out that it wasn't either. So it has nothing to do with installing some program or other considering the connection dropped on both OS's on my machine and my flatmate can't connect over wireless or ethernet either.

donal.hunt wrote:

OP: where are you based?

Galway city

hightower1 wrote:

If he called UPC and they said the modem is attempting to assign one .... he see's the comp is not accepting via a release and renew then every bit of logic points to a pc issue.

Well it is definitely not a pc issue now, as I described my flatmate having the same problem aswell. And if UPC are saying I'm connected on their end, then the problem must be somewhere in the middle...the router or their network I imagine.

donal.hunt wrote:

One last thing... The OP indicated that he got a signal when connected to wireless but not when connected to ethernet.

that makes no sense! was the OP sure he was connected to his router / modem?

Yes, not able to connect at all when using ethernet. But intermittedly able to pick up a wireless signal that sometimes lets me connect, and if I do manage to connect it runs extreeemly slow and drops within a minute. My flatmate had the exact same issues when he tried with his laptop last night, not able to connect over ethernet, almost non-existant connection over wireless.

One other thing we noticed was that the service had been running fine until monday when the modem no longer let us both connect at the same time. Then yesterday it just dropped altogether completely out of the blue for no reason.


I'll try out that stuff you were suggesting donal.hunt, any other opinions/advice is welcome.

jonnyfingers

I'm in the exact same situation as the OP. Yesterday the internet was working up to 8.30pm. Then I lost connection and all I can get now are 169 ip addresses. I'm writing this using my ps3 wireless connection which is working fine. Any ideas?

Grommet

sounds like their DHCP server is acting up. Invalid addresses being assigned

jonnyfingers

Just a quick update on my problem. I borrowed a spare ethernet card from work and installed it in my machine. Immediately it got an ip address. I then connected back to my onboard ethernet card and it started working too. I can only assume I have a dodgy ethernet card. It would be a big coincedence that UPC suddenly fixed a DHCP problem just as I swapped cards.

hightower1

donal.hunt wrote: »

@hightower1: I've been working with IP networks for the past 10 years.

Huh....go figure!... looks like it WAS a pc issue then. Keep working on those networks.

donal.hunt

@hightower1: nice of you to pay attention...

the OP was not jonnyfingers (who had a PC related issue). The OP (gimme5minutes) indicated it wasn't a PC issue in his case and I haven't seen a reply since indicating it's been resolved.

anyway - from the amount of UPC customers posting recently that they are getting 169.* addresses it sounds like something is up with their DHCP service (could be any number of possible root causes). You should take any of my comments as pure speculations considering the amount of hard evidence posted so far.

trdublin

Hi everyone,

I am now experiencing the same problem. Any workaround yet?

Example messages from the modem log:

DHCP FAILED - Discover sent, no offer received
No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out
Received Response to Broadcast Maintenance Request, But no Un...
Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - ...