Topic: Bad Router?

[tshattuck]

Folks:
I have been experiencing intermittent ftp connection problems uploading data to my website. The problem started last Friday; 48 hours after I switched to GoDaddy from E-Rice.net. I have spoken to GoDaddy, Time Warner (ISP), and D-Link on my DIR-655 Router. So far all the support technicians have been pointing the finger at the other guy which leaves me in a bad spot.

I did reboot Time Warner's Modem (Motorola SBV5220 Internet & Phone) and my Router several times without success. The D-Link router does have the latest firmware installed. I have not made any recent changes to the router, so the intermittent connection problem came as a total suprize. I also tried turning off the Firewall in the Router and the Windows Firewall on my Windows 7 64bit PC without sucess. This was recommended by the folks from D-Link as a test. Needless to say I have turned Windows Firewall back on.

I did discover by bypassing my router and connecting directly to Time Warner's cable modem, I now longer have a connection issue.  I now can ping and run a complete tracert to my website, I couldn't do this using my router.

Now I am wondering if I should replace my router. Has any one had a similar problem with their router? Any router recommendations?

Thanks

[CNYWeather]

Was it just WD or the entire computer not connecting to the internet Tom? Not sure if I asked you that in the past.

[tmabell]

it sounds like you've located to problem.  If it were me I'd swap routers as it is the easiest route to take.  I've had several fail  over the years, some in funny ways. 

[tshattuck]

Tony:
My PC could connect to the Internet. The only issue is ftp uploads to my website. It wasn't only Weather-Display either. Sometimes my other programs wouldn't upload. My wireless IP webcam would only upload intermittently. My PC is normally hardwired to my router.

I checked with GoDaddy and they stated they are not blocking any of my ftp activity. I explained to them how many programs I have uploading data and how often and they stated that is not a problem based on checking their activity logs. (no traffic blocked).  Go figure.

So I am not sure what to do at this point. So much for tech support. 

[ValentineWeather]

How many ftp connections do they allow at 1 time? A few troubleshooting tips.
Make sure port 21 is open or just port forward port 21.
You can telnet into ftp to make sure its open.
Type cmd in search bar, open up cmd.exe   type (telnet your-domain-name 21) without the parentheses 

To setup port forwarding log into the router first. Once logged in usually under advanced tab you will find something like port forward/trigger. Then add ftp, make all the start and end ports 21. The internal address will be the computer you want the port open on. "Not THE ROUTER" There may be a list with the computer name and internal address will be listed something like 192.168.xxxsomething. If not there open cmd and type in ipconfig the address of the computer will be listed above subnet mask and gateway. 

[Cutty Sark Sailor]

Your issue may lie within the Internet backbone.. one of the 'tier' providers between your ISP and your site host.. there may be several.  Too many 'timeouts' or delays will exceed your local FTP default, or preset, 'timeout' period, and it will stop its attempt to connect.   Something like that, anyway... I've been down this road....
open 'cmd'... do a tracert  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/162326  if you're using Apple or some other, I dunno,...
(trace route) to your domain... do it several times at various times of day.  look for timeouts, or long times to connect.  Then inform your local ISP by sending them copies of the 'tracert'... they could then address the issue with "their" uplink providers...  BTW  Time Warner is a high tier backbone, and one of the big offenders out of the Chicago loop... we had a time here the last 2 years figuring that out.. but supposedly they'd fixed their own router issues...
meantime, have fun.  Part of the challenge these days!

[Cutty Sark Sailor]

and here's a tracert to your host,.... a few moments ago...

C:\Users\OSN>tracert yourlocalweather-clay-ny.com

Tracing route to yourlocalweather-clay-ny.com [160.153.32.71]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  Our-Special-Net [192.168.1.1]
  2     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  3    12 ms     9 ms    11 ms  192.168.4.50
  4    10 ms    10 ms     8 ms  192.168.3.252
  5    72 ms    46 ms    34 ms  rrcs-98-102-206-237.central.biz.rr.com [98.102.2
06.237]
  6    54 ms    75 ms   130 ms  Te8-13.LSVMKYZO1RW.mw.twcbiz.com [65.189.185.205
]
  7    27 ms    23 ms    23 ms  be24.clmkohpe01r.midwest.rr.com [65.189.140.162]

  8    64 ms    71 ms    31 ms  bu-ether15.cr0.chi30.tbone.rr.com [66.109.6.68]

  9    30 ms    31 ms    30 ms  66.109.1.76
 10     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 11     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 12     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 13    73 ms    72 ms    72 ms  4.34.191.254
 14    71 ms    72 ms    86 ms  be39.trmc0215-01.ars.mgmt.phx3.gdg [184.168.0.73
]
 15    75 ms    76 ms    72 ms  be39.trmc0215-01.ars.mgmt.phx3.gdg [184.168.0.73
]
 16    92 ms    94 ms    85 ms  ip-97-74-255-129.ip.secureserver.net [97.74.255.
129]
 17    95 ms   102 ms   109 ms  ip-160-153-32-71.ip.secureserver.net [160.153.32
.71]

Trace complete.

[Cutty Sark Sailor]

and a bit of checking.... on the above... once again, it's an issue between Time Warner and Level 3 Communications (GTE) down in Texas...

[CNYWeather]

I bet it could be a GoDaddy thing?? I see my site also times out on the same hop also.
I can get to both of our sites putting the url's in the browser. there is a period of "waiting" for the site to respond too.
Maybe Uncle Ken will see this and chime in. 


C:\Users\Tony>tracert yourlocalweather-clay-ny.com

Tracing route to yourlocalweather-clay-ny.com [160.153.32.71]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  router.Taurisano [192.168.1.1]
  2    12 ms    24 ms    10 ms  bundle1.oswgny01-10k001.nyroc.rr.com [67.241.32.
1]
  3    37 ms    12 ms    13 ms  gig5-1-4.galvny01-rtr001.cny.northeast.rr.com [2
4.24.18.29]
  4    14 ms    14 ms    13 ms  rdc-24-58-149-150.cny.east.twcable.com [24.58.14
9.150]
  5    32 ms    34 ms    30 ms  be4.rochny-rtr000.cny.northeast.rr.com [24.58.14
9.252]
  6    30 ms    30 ms    33 ms  be35.cr0.chi10.tbone.rr.com [107.14.19.104]
  7    30 ms    34 ms    30 ms  bu-ether11.cr0.chi30.tbone.rr.com [66.109.6.21]

  8    31 ms    30 ms    28 ms  66.109.1.76
  9    31 ms    29 ms    30 ms  lag-8.ear2.Chicago2.Level3.net [4.68.111.33]
 10     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 11     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 12    77 ms    87 ms    77 ms  4.34.191.254
 13    83 ms    84 ms    84 ms  be39.trmc0215-01.ars.mgmt.phx3.gdg [184.168.0.73
]
 14    82 ms    85 ms    85 ms  be39.trmc0215-01.ars.mgmt.phx3.gdg [184.168.0.73
]
 15    79 ms    78 ms    78 ms  ip-97-74-255-129.ip.secureserver.net [97.74.255.
129]
 16    83 ms    84 ms    82 ms  ip-160-153-32-71.ip.secureserver.net [160.153.32
.71]

Trace complete.

C:\Users\Tony>




C:\Users\Tony>tracert cnyweather.com

Tracing route to cnyweather.com [50.63.100.1]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  router.Taurisano [192.168.1.1]
  2    14 ms    22 ms    11 ms  bundle1.oswgny01-10k001.nyroc.rr.com [67.241.32.
1]
  3    10 ms    16 ms    12 ms  gig5-1-4.galvny01-rtr001.cny.northeast.rr.com [2
4.24.18.29]
  4    13 ms    13 ms    15 ms  rdc-24-58-149-150.cny.east.twcable.com [24.58.14
9.150]
  5    31 ms    30 ms    30 ms  be4.rochny-rtr000.cny.northeast.rr.com [24.58.14
9.252]
  6    30 ms    30 ms    30 ms  be25.cr0.chi10.tbone.rr.com [107.14.19.28]
  7    33 ms    29 ms    30 ms  bu-ether11.cr0.chi30.tbone.rr.com [66.109.6.21]

  8    28 ms    30 ms    27 ms  66.109.1.76
  9     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 10     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 11     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 12    79 ms    79 ms    77 ms  4.34.191.254
 13    85 ms    85 ms    85 ms  be39.trmc0215-01.ars.mgmt.phx3.gdg [184.168.0.73
]
 14    82 ms    85 ms    84 ms  be39.trmc0215-01.ars.mgmt.phx3.gdg [184.168.0.73
]
 15    78 ms    77 ms    78 ms  ip-97-74-255-129.ip.secureserver.net [97.74.255.
129]
 16    79 ms    84 ms    77 ms  p3nlhg408c1408.shr.prod.phx3.secureserver.net [5
0.63.100.1]

Trace complete.

C:\Users\Tony>

[Cutty Sark Sailor]

Nope... not you or GoDaddy... it begins when Time Warner leaves Chicago and tries to pass you on to Level 3 Comm... this is exactly the same issue... exactly,... that I experienced intermittently for two years.  Send your tracerts to your local ISP service rep, have them put the pressure on their upstreamers.... and that may take a couple of days... nag nag nag..... not everyone on the local ISP will note an issue,... in your case you have.  In my case there were about a half dozen of us out of thousands.... here's what will happen... this is an indication that someone 'upstream' has router issues, and it will only get worse... it did for us, and I'll bet it will get worse for your ISP.  See if you can coerce them into nailing these 'high tier' connectors before that happens.... follow me?  Let me also say one other thing... This year??? Verizon 'inadvertently' , they claim, 'accidently'  acquired all the remaining addresses on one of the backbones' older Cisco routers.  When they did that, I and many other folks were pretty much shot for several days, until my local ISP, and some others, put on enough pressure for Time Warner and Level 3 to actually figure it out... Verizon caught a bunch of pretty much unpublicized grief over that.  However, that was only one glitch in a backbone that is full of 'older' 'obsolete' routers, and they are NOT going to fix it till enough of us yell.

[gwwilk]

I've had the same problem intermittently with connectivity from here to my web site over the past couple of years, and Cutty Sark is right.  A couple of months ago my Motorola SB6141, which had only bonded on the download link, started bonding on the upload link as well.  This partially solved my access problems in that the FTP's started performing flawlessly.  Then mysteriously a few weeks ago access to my site suddenly became more responsive all around here and the intermittency has been gone ever since.

The only downside is that my Time-Warner DHCP address shows up in Texas in 'Who's Online'!  When I test my broadband speed at Ookla, I start in Texas (originally it was Beaumont, now it's Bridge City), and it doesn't much matter what server I choose to test against because they all churn out pretty much the same speed.

BTW, during all this I've gone through three different routers courtesy of the Time-Warner help-desk's troubleshooting script.  All the 'direct connect the modem to your computer' does is assign you a new IP address via DHCP.  This new address works until the upstream goblins see the traffic between it and your site and start to slow down the traffic again.  I used to be able to do the same thing by spoofing the computer's MAC address in the router and restarting the modem and router, but now I'm in Texas no matter what I do.

[Cutty Sark Sailor]

my Motorola SB6141,

Yep... I've got same modem.. love it.  Now, if and when my ISP decides to convert to DOCSIS 3.... I'd like to see how good it really is.  Though the 'blue' light is rather bright... however it doesn't make much difference in my 'bat cave' with 8 machines, Blitzortung, routers, switches, radios, printers, etc all doin' their "I'm Alive" thing... looks a lot like the "Enterprise" Bridge at night... but so far, no one with 'funny ears' has walked out.... ...   so far anyway... ...

[tshattuck]

Good Morning:
First I want to say thanks to all who have responded.
Yes the intermittent ftp problem has been driving me crazy, not knowing where to turn. My website was working perfectly for the first 48 hours with GoDaddy, then the ftp problem popped up and I didn't change anything. WOW!

The tracert that you folks performed on my website has been complete since I bypassed my router yesterday. What was happening with the router is it would stop before step 15:

 15    79 ms    78 ms    78 ms  ip-97-74-255-129.ip.secureserver.net [97.74.255.
129]
 16    83 ms    84 ms    82 ms  ip-160-153-32-71.ip.secureserver.net [160.153.32
.71]

I tried the same thing with CNYWeather.com with my router in place the tracert stopped before getting to:

79 ms    78 ms    78 ms  ip-97-74-255-129.ip.secureserver.net [97.74.255.
129]

Bypassing my router I get a complete tracert to CNYWeather.com.

Since I bypassed my router my website has been working perfectly except for my webcam which is wireless so i can't connect it for now.

It sounds like I need to contact GoDaddy and Time Warner again before I do anything else.

[Cutty Sark Sailor]

Tom, with all due respect, I believe you can try as many routers as TW suggests, or you feel like connecting.,... the main issue is still upstream from you... however intermittent or coincidental with 'bypassing' local router it may be.  I've been down this road. So have other people, Jerry, et. al.  There might be a local router setting affecting overall routing time, but if it's still timing out, coming out of CHICAGO, in your case, my case, Jerry's case... we're not using your router! This is mostly a developing 'backbone' issue with those high tier linkups.
Now... I use FLING for multiple, serial uploads of data... and any time I get a 'failed' balloon... and I do a tracert... its almost always in and out of the same 'regional' backbone... Chicago. TW vs Level 3... , it's very, very intermittent after ISP gave them some grief... maybe for a few minutes once or twice a month... which is certainly acceptable.  And I've a bunch of FTP's going... webcam stills, weather data, etc.... Change all the routers, modems, etc that you want... up to you... but this specific issue is upstream! We see that with the tracert.

[tshattuck]

An update:
I contacted my ISP; Time Warner on 11/13. They issued me a Helpdesk Ticket and my issue was referred to the Time Warner Roadrunner National Office. I have yet to hear back from them. I had to be persistent to get them to issue me a Helpdesk Ticket.

I also checked again with Go Daddy and they insisted they are not blocking any of my uploads and told me to contact my ISP.

From the way my PC is acting I am thinking the FTPs are timing out, sometimes one will work then not the other than vice versus.

I don't know how much longer I am going to wait on this problem, it's been a month now since the problem started.

Regards,

[CNYWeather]

Tom, when the FTP's time out, is there more than 1 WD ftp exe running by chance?

[MesquiteWx]

Funny I came across this thread. I ran into the exact same issues today with AT&T. Trace route shows it dumps at hop 13 out of 30 hops. I cannot access my site or FTP at all but can access internet fine and others can access my site. My host says I have fallen into a black hole and that I haven't been blacklisted. The pot smoking tech reps really need to learn what a black hole is and what a black list is. I am to tired to even go into the details. AT&T has acknowledge the error but apparently they haven't filled in my host. So at the moment my site is dead in the water when it comes to sending data. It is funny I can ping other servers in the farm and trace route to them fine, but can't ping my server. Very frustrating to say the least. So much for relaxing time off.

[tshattuck]

Tony:
Weather-Display is running FTP & the Realtime FTP as it has always done. I have been thinking about turning off the Main FTP switch for Weather-Display and let the PC run for several hours and see what happens. My other programs and webcam are also having their FTP uploads blocked sometimes. You can see this by the time stamp on my webcam image on my website, it's hours old, when it should be updating once / minute.
You can also see this on my Station Status web page. Depending on when you check you will see different results.

To all:
What is interesting was when I bypassed my router several weeks ago as a test, the FTP uploads worked perfectly for 5 days than it started again with the intermittent FTP connection problem. I sometimes wonder if this isn't a GoDaddy problem.

Has anyone ever had a problem with too many FTP uploads to GoDaddy?  GoDaddy insists they are not blocking any activity.

It's weird how for the first 48 hours I was with GoDaddy everything worked perfectly, than it was as if someone thru a switch.

Regards,

[tshattuck]

Folks:
I finally have the intermittent connection problem to GoDaddy resolved, it was my D-LINK DIR655 router.
What happened over the last 6 weeks was that I rebooted the router numerous times without success, so I finally decided a week ago to try one more thing. I did a hard reset of the router back to it's factory settings and then reprogrammed. To make a long story short that fixed the problem.

I don't know why the router had a "brain cramp" as I didn't make any changes to the router when I switched my web host to GoDaddy. I now get a complete tracert and can ping my website. Go figure! 

ps. I never heard back from my ISP; Time Warner.

Thanks to everyone for their suggestions and support.

[CNYWeather]

Glad it all fixed now Tom

[Cutty Sark Sailor]

Your issues are still with the higher tier internet routers.... IMO... experienced the same thing previously... remission of symptoms.... then relapse.  Not gonna change until higher tiers replace outdated routers... enjoy. 

[tmabell]

Glad you found the source of your issues.  While as stated above it may be the upper tier routers, the first and easiest thing to do is swap your local router.  It can save a lot of headaches, heartaches & frustration!  As I said earlier I have had some strange goings-on with routers in the recent past and like it or not, it's best to just swap 'em out and go from there.  You should be prepared for the issue to return at some point.  If it does then try another router.  Good luck!

[tshattuck]

tmabell:
Thanks for the feedback and support.

I have already decided on what new router to get if mine acts up again (Linksys WRT1900AC). I have read many good reviews on this router.

One thing I learned thru this experience is don't overlook tracing the steps of your problem it's usually the simplist thing.

[MesquiteWx]

Network 101, your network is only as good as its weakest link. Whether this be local or with your ISP. I believe what Cutty Sark Sailor was referring to was with the ISP and the routers down stream which is completely out of your control regardless what router you use locally. For example I have a Juniper Netscreen router/firewall here at home. Not your ordinary residential router as it is commercial class and a lot higher quality than what you could get at your local box store. You could be on a 60/10 circuit or even 1GB symmetrical circuit with gig ports on your router but, if your computer nics are only 10/100 then guess what, you're only going to see 10/100 speeds. Point being is what I mentioned in the beginning. Your network is only as good as your weakest link so if the routers down stream in the ISP route are outdated you are still going to see degraded service regardless how good your router or network is locally.

With that said though, there are some adjustments in your settings in your router you could do even on residential routers that can help maximize your service potential. So not always will it be your local router, it could be your settings within your router or just plain simply your ISP. I see it on a daily basis being a network and server administrator and latency in the pipe from an ISP is one our of biggest headaches and this doesn't change much in residential ether.

[tshattuck]

MesquiteWx:
I hear what you and Cutty Sark Sailer are saying. All I can figure is a setting in my router must have got corrupted, since I reset and reprogrammed my router 8 days ago I've had no issues.

Thanks for your assistance.