No connection to IDNet for over six hours today!

LesD · Mar 24, 2009, 19:52:50

I don't know if I (or my wife if the truth be known) have been selected for special treatment today or whether anyone else has had a similar problem.
(I have a gw5 connection)

When I arrived home from work this evening I was informed by the lady of the house that she was expecting email and none has arrived and a worrying pop-up about a pop server came on her screen and since the internet could not find any web pages for her she thought her machine had caught some nasty bug and shut it down.

She tried first at some time before noon this morning and again round four this afternoon. Having been presented with this information I booted up the machine she uses and sure enough there was no connection to the web or email service. So I came down to my Vista machine and it could not connect to the internet either but I could access the 2700 and the connection rate was as it had been for the last few days and still is (there has been no loss of sync) but I had no connection to IDNet! (This was circa 5:30 - 5:45 PM)

I pressed my KVM switch and booted the XP box as it has a dial-up modem card in it and with this machine I managed to dial into IDNet and could find no sign of anything being wrong. I switched back to the Vista box and used one of the Reset options to release and renew my IP Address but in the short term this appeared to make no difference so being head cook and bottle washer while my better half remains in recuperation I went and fixed the tea and with her goodself consumed it. (For those with the need to know about food we had baked potato, lamb burgers, sliced beans with peas followed by fresh strawberries covered in yoghurt).

Well after that another look revealed that I had my connection back. By this time it was about twenty to seven.

What do you make of this tale of woe folks?

P.S She has received, read and processed her email so all is well with the world again for the time being!

Lance · Mar 24, 2009, 20:25:08

Did you at any time disconnect the router? I'm wondering if BT have done some work on their side at the exchange, causing a stale session which your subsequent reconnection would have cured.

bobleslie · Mar 24, 2009, 20:27:57

It was the fresh strawberries that did it.

Always works for me!

Lance · Mar 24, 2009, 20:33:05

Cream instead of yoghurt for me, though

LesD · Mar 24, 2009, 20:48:09

Quote from: Lance on Mar 24, 2009, 20:25:08
Did you at any time disconnect the router? I'm wondering if BT have done some work on their side at the exchange, causing a stale session which your subsequent reconnection would have cured.

The router was never disconnected lance just the IP lease released and renewed.
The router has been up for days.
This is a copy and paste from the System Summary a moment ago:
System Time: Tuesday, March 24, 2009
08:45:24 PM
GMT Standard Time
Time Since Last Boot: 6 days 10: 40: 37

I have had Stale Sessions in the past and it was not one of those. I was syncing with the exchange throughout!
Bizarre isn't it?

Lance · Mar 24, 2009, 20:51:07

I think it is possible to have a stale session and maintain sync, as long as the work being done is on BT's side of things. Prehaps renewing the ip address was enough to wake things up!

LesD · Mar 24, 2009, 20:53:35

Quote from: bobleslie on Mar 24, 2009, 20:27:57
It was the fresh strawberries that did it.

Always works for me!

With no email or internet access all day I had to cheer her up as best I could!

Quote from: Lance on Mar 24, 2009, 20:33:05
Cream instead of yoghurt for me, though

I can only readily get to Tesco at the weekend so being right out of fresh cream the yoghurt had to do, it was Activia though so possibly the healthy option but like you the cream has to be my favourite.

LesD · Mar 24, 2009, 20:55:47

Quote from: Lance on Mar 24, 2009, 20:51:07
I think it is possible to have a stale session and maintain sync, as long as the work being done is on BT's side of things. Prehaps renewing the ip address was enough to wake things up!

You could well be right but the ones I recall with the 2700 put up a BT no access to the internet web page that must be programmed in the BT firmware. Maybe Alan could shed more light on this?

Before I got the connection back in the Broadband Link Summary I was seeing something like this:
IP Address Range: --------
Subnet Mask: --------
Gateway: --------
Primary DNS: --------
Secondary DNS: --------

Lance · Mar 24, 2009, 21:05:32

There are pages like the one you describe in the firmware...

LesD · Mar 24, 2009, 21:09:04

Quote from: Lance on Mar 24, 2009, 21:05:32
There are pages like the one you describe in the firmware...

I

I was surprised the first time I saw it but you could get nowhere else at the time. It was a wait 30 minutes or so and try again that fixed things on two of those occasions that I can recall but it was about a year ago when I first got my 2700's.

Sebby · Mar 24, 2009, 21:20:46

It certainly sounds like a stale session, but as far as what caused it, it's anyone's guess.

LesD · Mar 24, 2009, 21:25:42

Quote from: Sebby on Mar 24, 2009, 21:20:46
It certainly sounds like a stale session, but as far as what caused it, it's anyone's guess.

Fair enough, especially as it appears I was alone with the problem. (Not counting the wife if you see what I mean

)

Simon · Mar 24, 2009, 22:05:41

I guess the only way to get the mystery solved, would be to give IDNet a call and get them to check things out. I would imagine they have logs on individual connections, and could probably tell you what went on, Les.

LesD · Mar 24, 2009, 22:08:34

Quote from: Simon on Mar 24, 2009, 22:05:41
I guess the only way to get the mystery solved, would be to give IDNet a call and get them to check things out. I would imagine they have logs on individual connections, and could probably tell you what went on, Les.

Very likey the case but I am not one to bother them when things are working again but I nearly went looking for a phone number earlier on before the connection resumed!

Simon · Mar 24, 2009, 22:12:37

I don't think they would see it as a 'bother', Les, after all, it was a serious connection drop, and there are others who would have been screaming the place down within six minutes, let alone six hours!

Rik · Mar 25, 2009, 00:50:43

It does sound like a stale session, Les. Do you know when your exchange goes live with WBC?

LesD · Mar 25, 2009, 08:21:27

Quote from: Rik on Mar 25, 2009, 00:50:43
It does sound like a stale session, Les. Do you know when your exchange goes live with WBC?

Sometime in 2011 I think!

It's the Milford exchange near Stafford.

Rik · Mar 25, 2009, 09:05:27

Best talk to support then, Les, as it sounds like they should test the line.

LesD · Mar 25, 2009, 21:31:34

OK I did as suggest and contacted Support with a pointer to this thread and received the very prompt below.

QuoteThe connection went down 08:27 yesterday morning and came back up at
18:16 last evening. Tests on the line reveal no obvious reason and BT
had made no indication of any outages or engineering works being carried
out at the time. i suspect the connection had dropped out causing a
stale session preventing reconnection which had later cleared. Please
monitor your connection and advise if you experience any further difficulties.

It appears that my connection was down for nearer to 10 hours than my original estimate of six but had I been at home earlier during that period I am sure that I would have done something about it much sooner.

As ever IDNet were very swift with their response and all has been well today.

Sebby · Mar 26, 2009, 00:20:16

Nice one.