Intermittent connectivity problem

[eugene]

I have experienced for the past year or so intermittent ADSL connectivity problems. I have been referred back and forth between Telkom ADSL support and my ISP on numerous occasions. SAIX will not talk to me - they say I must work through my ISP.

I need help.

In the past I have used Atlantic ISP and now I have moved to Allyoucaneat ISP - but the problem is not going away.

I'm well within my cap, Telkom ADSL has just once again tested my modem (Telkom supplied ADSL POTS router), swopped my lines and swopped the port on the DSLAN. The problem is not going away.

The problem has become so bad that I have written an automated script that resets my modem everytime I run into the problem. The script is developed in Perl and monitors the internet connection - running a traceroute -I -n www.google.com on failure to try and trace and log where the connectivity problem is.

I have around two months worth of logs - the analyses points overwhelmingly to IP address 165.165.224.1, the first hop after my router which is 192.168.10.200.

The problem is worse at certain times of working weekdays in particular.

I have included healthy traceroutes and then I have encluded entries from my script generated error logs.

Any help will be very much appreciated.

(BTW My internet monitoring script is available under the GPL - just let me know if you are interested and I can send you a copy.

*****
A healthy traceroute should looks like this:

traceroute -I -n 196.25.1.1
traceroute to 196.25.1.1 (196.25.1.1), 30 hops max, 38 byte packets
1 192.168.0.65 0.951 ms 0.667 ms 0.484 ms
2 192.168.10.200 1.810 ms 1.603 ms 1.584 ms
3 165.165.224.1 38.735 ms 57.562 ms 15.766 ms
4 196.43.10.174 17.036 ms 17.374 ms 17.233 ms
5 196.43.11.30 38.829 ms 37.755 ms 39.483 ms
6 196.25.1.1 38.602 ms 39.229 ms 38.750 ms

*****

here are my script generated error logs from the past few hours:


2005-08-11 16h19 33: wan failed
2005-08-11 16h19 33: trace wan path
1 192.168.0.65 0.618 ms 0.484 ms 0.483 ms
2 192.168.10.200 1.610 ms 4.139 ms 1.547 ms
3 * * *
4 * * *
5 * * *

2005-08-11 16h20 18: reseting router
2005-08-11 16h21 14: router reset
2005-08-11 16h23 15: wan failed
2005-08-11 16h23 15: trace wan path
1 192.168.0.65 0.650 ms 0.510 ms 0.480 ms
2 192.168.10.200 1.607 ms 1.532 ms 1.578 ms
3 * * *
4 * * *
5 * * *

2005-08-11 16h24 00: reseting router
2005-08-11 16h24 55: router reset
2005-08-11 16h27 25: wan failed
2005-08-11 16h27 25: trace wan path
1 192.168.0.65 0.654 ms 0.483 ms 0.496 ms
2 192.168.10.200 1.631 ms 1.524 ms 1.516 ms
3 * * *
4 * * *
5 * 196.43.9.50 453.173 ms 599.953 ms

2005-08-11 16h28 01: reseting router
2005-08-11 16h28 56: router reset
2005-08-11 16h31 59: wan failed
2005-08-11 16h31 59: trace wan path
1 192.168.0.65 0.642 ms 0.491 ms 0.465 ms
2 192.168.10.200 1.655 ms 1.547 ms 1.524 ms
3 * * *
4 * * *
5 * * *

2005-08-11 16h32 44: reseting router
2005-08-11 16h33 39: router reset
2005-08-11 16h35 10: wan failed
2005-08-11 16h35 10: trace wan path
1 192.168.0.65 0.659 ms 0.482 ms 0.470 ms
2 192.168.10.200 1.642 ms 1.535 ms 1.517 ms
3 * * *
4 * * *
5 * * *

2005-08-11 16h35 56: reseting router
2005-08-11 16h36 51: router reset
2005-08-11 16h39 21: wan failed
2005-08-11 16h39 21: trace wan path
1 192.168.0.65 0.616 ms 0.485 ms 0.508 ms
2 192.168.10.200 1.809 ms 1.534 ms 1.741 ms
3 * * *
4 * * *
5 * 196.43.9.50 399.167 ms 408.782 ms

2005-08-11 16h39 57: reseting router
2005-08-11 16h40 52: router reset
2005-08-11 16h42 25: wan failed
2005-08-11 16h42 25: trace wan path
1 192.168.0.65 0.696 ms 0.538 ms 0.510 ms
2 192.168.10.200 1.661 ms 1.572 ms 1.587 ms
3 * * *
4 * * *
5 * * *

2005-08-11 16h43 10: reseting router
2005-08-11 16h44 05: router reset

 

[vangend]

I had problems like that at a client, changed the router and it stopped. They also had the Telkom supplied ADSL POTS router

 

[Gerry]

I agree - borrow a router from a friend and test.

 

[eugene]

I had problems like that at a client, changed the router and it stopped. They also had the Telkom supplied ADSL POTS router

Thanks for the replies.

Telkom did change the router for another Marconi ADSL POTS router (newer model) - this was done over a weekend when we normally don't have any problems - so the fact that we didn't experience any problems over a weekend with the new router didn't prove anyting.

I fail to understand how the router can work well over weekends and after hours - but all of a sudden for example on Monday at 12h25, 13h15 and 14h45 we have a problem? My logic tells me it must be SAIX traffic related and likely because the router at 165.165.224.1 gets hit with spurious loads of traffic at ad hoc times of a normal business day.

Nevertheless - I am quite desperate and will try just about anything - so what brand of router/ADSL modem which is affordable and generally availabe off-the-shelf in RSA will be a better replacement? Also - I don't want anything that needs special software that runs on Windows only to configure.

 

[alaincraven]

Thanks for the replies.

Telkom did change the router for another Marconi ADSL POTS router (newer model) - this was done over a weekend when we normally don't have any problems - so the fact that we didn't experience any problems over a weekend with the new router didn't prove anyting.

I fail to understand how the router can work well over weekends and after hours - but all of a sudden for example on Monday at 12h25, 13h15 and 14h45 we have a problem? My logic tells me it must be SAIX traffic related and likely because the router at 165.165.224.1 gets hit with spurious loads of traffic at ad hoc times of a normal business day.

Nevertheless - I am quite desperate and will try just about anything - so what brand of router/ADSL modem which is affordable and generally availabe off-the-shelf in RSA will be a better replacement? Also - I don't want anything that needs special software that runs on Windows only to configure.

Linksys routers are best. Around R900 for the wireless one with 4 ethernet ports. I use it from my RHEL4 and Fedora computers, no problem (it uses an HTTP interface for configuration - also, a very nice feature is the built in support for dyndns.org, if you use that for domain names). I have seen the Linksys ADSL2 routers for the same price as well, so look around.

 

[Clipse]

Hey Eugene, afaik the marconi router(s) have an caching issue, not sure how and where it happens, but it caches "something" where it starts to timeout after a while of using it. Changing router fixes it naturally.

Strange enough, it also seems like defects, since some marconi router DO NOT have this issue and work perfectly.

 

[PostmanPot]

i have the same problems with my marconi. any advice?