Solved Getting yellow triangle over network icon. Some sites load, some don't

[TheCyberMan]

Sorry not been around for a few weeks.

You can connect to those sites at uni am i right?

Any restrictions regards URL's in place at hostel the IT admin may be able to give you info on that.

Also after being at university and trying to connect at hostel have tried ipconfig /release and ipconfig /renew as the ip address used in the university may still be in the cache.

 

[lakenz]

Hey,

I thought this thread had died.

Well, the thing is my desktop computer (with the crapiest wireless adapter ever) occasionally picks up the internet at my hostel, and slowly but surely loads all the pages I cannot on my laptop. So, I'll give that Ip command a try and see what happens~

But I really am stumped about this.

Also, as useless as it may seem, our hostel contracted IT guys to set the internet up, and I don't think they'd be regular. I could do it myself, but "apparently" despite being a Computer Science student I am incapable and untrustworthy (The cabinet is locked).

 

[TheCyberMan]

Yes try the ipconfig /release and renew.

The WAN miniport connection is on your computer is that right and that is for use at the hostel?

You connect the computer up to the router via ethernet so the PPOE settings should be in the router and should not be needed on your computer as well i think.

 

[lakenz]

Okay, the ip/release / renew does not work.

Sorry, here's the low-down I should have incorporated at the start of this thread:

My hostel/halls of residence/college, whatever you may call it has a deal with an ISP to provide Prepay style internet to the tenants. This means, I pay $10 to get 1gb of internet (yes, I know, I live in New Zealand, we are having a lot of internet issues here). Anyway, the ONLY way to connect to the internet is through a PPPOE connection on top of a ethernet/wireless connection. The PPPOE is used to enter my login details etc. Which is a weird way to do it. So anyway, I connect to the wireless internet (As I have described, my port doesn't work, however I have tried other ports and it makes no difference to whether or not it is wireless) I then connect to the PPPOE, this giving me the connection.


Thanks a lot!

 

[TheCyberMan]

I am sure the PPOE settings should be in the router or modem which they connect up to.

Please try disabling your PPOE WAN minport as a test and connect up to the router via ethernet and see if you have internet connectivity.

Please let us know the outcome.

 

[UsernameIssues]

It sounds like you are connecting via a system like the one mentioned here:
DSL Extreme - Opening multiple PPPoE sessions Support Article

I've worked with this type of connection before and it is like you said, each user signs on at the computer level via PPPoE. In the case of the people that I was helping in a similar situation, each person was assigned an internet facing (routable) IP address - meaning that the "modem/router/WiFi access point" combo did not perform NAT.


Let's see if I can correctly summarize what is going on here:
The laptop has a wireless and a wired network adapter.
Both work fine when you are at university.
(Hence your conclusion that the drivers are okay.)

When you are at the Hostel and you connect to the internet, some pages (like Facebook) will not load. This happens with WiFi and hard wired. You have tried connecting a hard wire (LAN cable) directly to the Hostel's modem. You let the modem make the PPPoE connection to the internet. When you connect to the Hostel's WiFi, you must use PPPoE at the computer level to get an IP address. In both cases (WiFi/wired), the data flowing to and from Facebook is via a PPPoe connection.

If you search the internet for...
pppoe mtu "windows 7" "won't load"
...you will come up with lots of returns
(some from this forum)

Your connection to the internet while at university probably uses a "normal" MTU. PPPoE connections usually have a lower MTU to account for the 15% overhead for that type of connection.

The MTU should automatically adjust on computers running Windows 7. The auto-adjust process depends somewhat on ICMP traffic - which is blocked by some web servers.

So - all of that to say this:
You might have a driver problem with both network adapters (especially if they happen to be from the same vendor). Both network adapters might work fine as long as no MTU adjustments are needed. But both might crap out on a PPPoE connection.

You can hunt for the latest drivers or play with the MTU using this info:

Change your MTU under Vista or Windows 7 richard-slater.co.uk

Of course, I could be wrong about all of this

 

[doubled822]

You can also dig into your individual wireless adapter settings.

1. In the Start Search, type "view net connections" and hit enter.
2. Find your primary WLAN adapter, right-click on it and click Properties.
3. At the top of the dialog, click the Configure... button.
4. On this screen, click the Advanced tab. Can you list which properties here are available and their settings?
5. Also click the Power Management tab and list the settings there.

Depending on your adapter there can be all kinds of settings in there that can mess with your connection.

 

[lakenz]

TheCyberMan - I disconnect the PPPoE connection and try to load a page. The page loads with a splash screen from the service provider. However, the pages that don't load with the PPPoE still don't load without it. :/

UsernameIssues - I think the above statement confirms that it has little to do with the PPPoE. And plus, I did update my wireless to little avail.

doubled822 - Advanced:
802.11b Preamble (long and short)
AdHoc Mode (11b)
Network Address (Not Present)
Receive Buffers (256)
Scan Valid Interval (60)
Transmit Buffers (512)

Power management:
Checkbox; "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" is unchecked.

 

[UsernameIssues]

~~~
UsernameIssues - I think the above statement confirms that it has little to do with the PPPoE. And plus, I did update my wireless to little avail.
~~~

Unfortunately, the posts that I see about PPPoE/MTU issues often mention that some pages load and other won't. I don't know why that is - maybe the size/complexity of the page?

Try step two using facebook.com from this page:
Change your MTU under Vista or Windows 7 richard-slater.co.uk
If 1472 goes thru - then you can have a warm feeling that it is not PPPoE related.

 

[TheCyberMan]

Hi Lakenz leave the WAN PPOE miniport disabled t is serving no purpose IMO.

The mtu posted by UsernameIssues could well be valid lets do a test.

Open a cmd prompt by right clicking and choose to run as administrator and type:

ping facebook.com -f -l 1472 press enter.

ping facebook.com -f -l 1464 press enter

Then click in a clear area of cmd prompt and right click and choose select all and then please click paste in your next reply to post the results here for us to review.

 

[lakenz]

UsernameIssues - Sorry, I followed the instructions wrong! I did it right and the results came back as expected using TheCyberMan's experiments:

Pinging facebook.com [69.171.242.11] with 1472 bytes of data
Packet needs to be fragmented but DF set.
Packet needs to be fragmented but DF set.
Packet needs to be fragmented but DF set.
Packet needs to be fragmented but DF set.

Ping statistics for 69.171.242.11:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4 (100% loss),

C:\Windows\system32>ping facebook.com -f -l 1464

Pinging facebook.com [69.171.229.11] with 1464 bytes of data
Packet needs to be fragmented but DF set.
Packet needs to be fragmented but DF set.
Packet needs to be fragmented but DF set.
Packet needs to be fragmented but DF set.

Ping statistics for 69.171.229.11:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4 (100% loss),

 

[UsernameIssues]

Those results are not as desired...
...so, keep lowering the MTU until you find one that works for you.

 

[lakenz]

I lowered it to 1420. I couldn't go down to 1410, or up to 1430. I found that I got to 1423 MAX. I then did what it said and added 28 onto it and then set it.

Nothing changed.

Despite the fact it clearly connected effectively to 1423.

You were right about the MTU, but why didn't it work once I set it?

 

[UsernameIssues]

In theory, since 1423 worked, values smaller than 1423 should also work. You might want to set your MTU really low (around 1200) and see if that lets you get to facebook. If that fails, then we will need to scratch our heads some more.

 

[lakenz]

Okay, so I went crazy changing the MTU, changing it to many different values (even 500) and 1200 did pick it up, but it didn't work once I set it. Maybe I am setting it wrong? I am following the instructions properly for Wireless, and it says "OK." when done. And yes, my wireless connection is the same name as the one on the page. Hmm.

 

[UsernameIssues]

If you run...
netsh interface ipv4 show subinterfaces
...in an elevated command prompt window - it will show you what the current MTU setting is.

I can only point to what others have tried - I don't have a PPPoE connection to play with... but my guess is that you have more than one issue. If the output of the netsh command above shows that you are using 1200 for your wireless network adapter... and if the ping to facebook works (ping facebook.com -f -l 1172), then consider the MTU part of the problem solved (for now).

[As an aside, what is the MTU set to on your desktop computer?]

You mentioned that you can get to the login page for facebook - but then no further. Is the login page using https? Are the pages that you cannot reach all using https?

Once you can no longer get to facebook - try pinging it. I'm wondering if something is happening to your DNS.

Maybe it is time for you to learn wireshark

 

[lakenz]

Here's the deal:

When I pinged facebook.com when it stopped connecting it did the same as if it would connect. D; I think the MTU part is fine, because when I ping it now it seems to respond.

facebook uses https. I am not sure about the log in page, but the rest do.

I can log in to facebook and view the news feed but no other pages work. Windows live hotmail doesn't go past the login page!

I am really stumped. D:

 

[doubled822]

TheCyberMan - I disconnect the PPPoE connection and try to load a page. The page loads with a splash screen from the service provider. However, the pages that don't load with the PPPoE still don't load without it. :/

UsernameIssues - I think the above statement confirms that it has little to do with the PPPoE. And plus, I did update my wireless to little avail.

doubled822 - Advanced:
802.11b Preamble (long and short)
AdHoc Mode (11b)
Network Address (Not Present)
Receive Buffers (256)
Scan Valid Interval (60)
Transmit Buffers (512)

Power management:
Checkbox; "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" is unchecked.

Try changing the Receive Buffers value to 512.

 

[TheCyberMan]

Lakenz when you did the ping at 1423 did you get a screen like below and did you add the 28 byte header on to give you an actual mtu 1451 and that is what you should have set the mtu to although the mtu is normally an even number which is divisible by 8.

This my mtu setting i pinged 1464 and then added the 28 byte header on to give me an mtu of 1492 do you understand now.

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7601]
Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Windows\system32>ping facebook.com -f -l 1464

Pinging facebook.com [66.220.158.11] with 1464 bytes of data:
Reply from 66.220.158.11: bytes=1464 time=109ms TTL=242
Reply from 66.220.158.11: bytes=1464 time=107ms TTL=242
Reply from 66.220.158.11: bytes=1464 time=119ms TTL=242
Reply from 66.220.158.11: bytes=1464 time=114ms TTL=242

Ping statistics for 66.220.158.11:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 107ms, Maximum = 119ms, Average = 112ms

C:\Windows\system32>

The bytes will be 1423 in yours bearing in mind that it is usually a an even number divisble by 8.

 

[UsernameIssues]

see if https pages are the issue
here is a simple one to test with https://lavabit.com/about.html