Network Honked (Technical Term)

[OldGuy]

Laptop
Win XP Pro all updates.

Use standard way to connect WiFi as I always did in the past.
WiFi hardware switch on.
Click on system tray icon and select an ISP.
It shows several available WiFis.
Currently at a restaurant where I alway am able to connect (open).

Wireless Network Connection window say
"Connected" after clicking connect.
Lotsa bars.

But there is no actual connection.
Device Manager shows no problems.

I plugged in my 3G dongle and it would not connect via WiFi.
But shows the WiFi at many bars.

Switched dongle to using the 3G connection to communicate.
That works.

Suggestions please.

 

[Paul]

Laptop
Win XP Pro all updates.

Use standard way to connect WiFi as I always did in the past.
WiFi hardware switch on.
Click on system tray icon and select an ISP.
It shows several available WiFis.
Currently at a restaurant where I alway am able to connect (open).

Wireless Network Connection window say
"Connected" after clicking connect.
Lotsa bars.

But there is no actual connection.
Device Manager shows no problems.

I plugged in my 3G dongle and it would not connect via WiFi.
But shows the WiFi at many bars.

Switched dongle to using the 3G connection to communicate.
That works.

Suggestions please.

The restaurant WAN side of their router must have an ISP connection.
If their Internet is down on the restaurant side of the router/access point,
the Wifi might be indicating "Connected", but with nothing to offer in
terms of Internet packets.

DHCP should forward the DNS server address of the ISP they use.
It's possible to manually intervene, but a restaurant would
not normally be doing that. They would operate things the
way an average user would - accept defaults coming from
upstream DHCP.

Try this in a Command Prompt window, and see if the source
of DNS services is mentioned at all.

nslookup www.sun.com

You may not be able to ping, but you should take a known good IP
address with you and test.

ping 156.151.59.35

You can also try a traceroute. Use the one that works the
best, and gives the intermediate Internet nodes. Test this
on your home ISP first, so you know what to expect.

tracert www.sun.com

tracert 156.151.59.35

Using a numeric address like that, avoids the need for working
DNS and just sends the packets to that number. If you get a
response, then the basic service is working, but the DNS is
bungled. You can manually load an OpenDNS or Google DNS address
into your laptop instead of using the "Automatically"
acquired DNS value.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Public_DNS

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDNS

Paul

 

[VanguardLH]

Laptop
Win XP Pro all updates.

Use standard way to connect WiFi as I always did in the past.
WiFi hardware switch on.
Click on system tray icon and select an ISP.
It shows several available WiFis.
Currently at a restaurant where I alway am able to connect (open).

Wireless Network Connection window say
"Connected" after clicking connect.
Lotsa bars.

But there is no actual connection.
Device Manager shows no problems.

I plugged in my 3G dongle and it would not connect via WiFi.
But shows the WiFi at many bars.

Switched dongle to using the 3G connection to communicate.
That works.

Suggestions please.

That you can find and connect to a wifi hotspot doesn't mean you get to
use it. At my local libraries, yes, I can find and connect to them but
I cannot use them until after I enter a login. Same at most resort's
that have wifi service. You connect to them but you need to enter some
credentials to prove you are allowed to use that wifi service.

So go up to the counter and ask them if credentials are required to use
their wifi hotspot.

I'm assuming your "3G dongle" uses some wireless telephone (cell phone)
service. That's not the restaurant's wifi service. That's someone
else's service to which you are authenticated to use.

Wifi hotspots can be open (no authentication) or closed (authentication
required). Again, ask the restaurant manager how they operate their
wifi hotspot. Maybe they want to ensure only their patrons use their
wifi hotspot and not some joker sitting outside their window or in their
car park lot or folks in the next store. Their wifi service for their
patrons, not everyone else.

After selecting and connecting to their wifi service, with what web page
are you presented when you load your web browser? Not always but often
with closed wifi hotspots they will intercept all traffic and return on
any DNS query their authentication page.

 

[Paul]

Tried all of the above and all failed.

But, I see things that make me think I am connected.

Wireless Network Connection Status says
Status: Connected
Network: shows correct WiFi name
Duration: shows time ticking
Speed: 54 Mbps
Signal Strength: 4 out of 5 bars green

Properties: Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection
Wireless Networks: shows WiFi name and active antenna icon.

Tried Repair
says
Windows could not finish preparing the problem because the following
action cannot be completed.
TCP/IP is not enabled for this connection. Cannot proceed.

So what is this about?

My USB dongle allows connection via WiFi and Phone network.
The WiFi side has also stopped working.
I am using the Phone side to connect to the internet.

My cell phone connects to the restaurant WiFi just fine.
They have a log on screen that I usually get at both the laptop and the
phone. Only get it on the phone now.

Must be the laptop TCP/IP stuff but not sure what to do to get it back.

Have you looked at the properties of the Network Connection
you're using at the moment ? Here is my LAN NIC, which connects
to my $40 router.

http://i59.tinypic.com/mj7m6b.gif

I might have one more entry than the one on your machine, as
I have VPC2007 virtual machine host software installed. It
installs a "shim" or filter driver, to be able to insert network
traffic from the virtual machines.

At the bottom of my list there, you can see an item for TCP/IP
with a tick box at the side.

People have managed to "delete" the entire entry in there,
which would be a disaster in the case of TCP/IP. I'm sure you'd
get a few error dialogs if that happened :-( And it would
also be beyond my pay scale, to fix that. At least one
article claims you cannot uninstall that on WinXP but
I don't think they were trying hard enough.

*******

This command by itself, may not be enough to do the job. But
it does give you a search term to work with. Larger
recipes, include this one in their script. Usually the
recipe has two netsh commands in it, plus a lot of baloney
about putting back a set of DLLs, re-registering stuff and
so on. I suppose if malware ate your DLLs, such a thorough
recipe might make sense. But what kind of accident, would
need such extensive repairs ?

http://support2.microsoft.com/?kbid=299357

netsh int ip reset c:\resetlog.txt

Using that as a search term, gets me this one
as the second command. Doesn't seem to match
your symptoms, but what do I know.

netsh winsock reset

( http://support.microsoft.com/kb/811259 )

I wouldn't do it like they did here, in the Run window,
and instead would use an elevated (administrator) Command
Prompt window. Just in case the command wants to print
an error in the console.

http://help.aol.com/help/microsites/microsite.do?cmd=displayKC&externalId=223839

And you can see here, the procedures go "right over the top"
at some point. A repair install keeps settings, so if the
Registry is the problem, that won't necessary put everything
upright. That's why they have additional methods after that,
to do some major damage to the Registry. This procedure
apparently uninstalls and reinstalls TCP/IP entry.

https://smokeys.wordpress.com/2008/07/20/how-to-recover-a-really-dead-windows-xp-sp2sp3-tcpip-stack/

Something similar here.

http://www.wikihow.com/Repair-Winsock-and-TCP/IP

*******

In any case, I would limit myself to

netsh int ip reset

type command for starters. And leave the desperation
plays for later. It's also possible there is a Microsoft
Fixit, that automates those two commands.

Paul

 

[Ben Myers]

Tried all of the above and all failed.
But, I see things that make me think I am connected.
Wireless Network Connection Status says
Status: Connected
Network: shows correct WiFi name
Duration: shows time ticking
Speed: 54 Mbps
Signal Strength: 4 out of 5 bars green
Properties: Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection
Wireless Networks: shows WiFi name and active antenna icon.
Tried Repair
says
Windows could not finish preparing the problem because the following
action cannot be completed.
TCP/IP is not enabled for this connection. Cannot proceed.
So what is this about?
My USB dongle allows connection via WiFi and Phone network.
The WiFi side has also stopped working.
I am using the Phone side to connect to the internet.
My cell phone connects to the restaurant WiFi just fine.
They have a log on screen that I usually get at both the laptop and the
phone. Only get it on the phone now.
Must be the laptop TCP/IP stuff but not sure what to do to get it back.
--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: (e-mail address removed) ---

As mentioned by another poster, you may need to reinstall the TCP/IP protocol.
Click "Start", "Run", type "control netconnections" into the "Open" box and click
"OK". Right-click the problem wireless connection, select "Properties" and use
the scroll bar to see if "Internet Protocol TCP/IP" is listed. If not, click "Install",
double-click "Protocol", highlight "Microsoft" in the left pane, select "Microsoft TCP/IP"
in the right pane and click "OK". You may have to restart the computer for the
change to take effect.

Ben