AKICILJ: Confused computer, or the trouble with (some) WiFi hotspots

[thatcrazycajun]

Has anyone else run into this problem? You get into a coffee shop, bookstore or such with a WiFi hot-spot, plug in your WinBlows laptop and the Network Connection panel tells you that you're hooked up and have excellent signal strength. But when you try using your Web browser to hit a favorite website or two...nothing. Nada. Zilch. Goose-Egg City. Not even the hot-spot provider's own page for buying access time comes up; just that frustrating "Firefox/IE can't find the server at www.younameit.com." Same for your e-mail client: "failed to connect to server at suchandsuch@whoever.com."

Why would the computer's wireless-connectivity hardware and software insist there's a connection, while the other Net software you have says, "oh, no, there ain't!" and only in some locations? I found this happening far too often trying to use unsecured "free" local networks at hotels and shops when the Songbird and I were traveling last month, and it just happened again today at my local Starbucks (whose T-Mobile WiFi setup I used frequently with very little trouble last year during my home DSL outage). It didn't seem to happen anywhere I can recall when I had the now-stolen XP laptop; is this possibly an issue some places' networks have with Windows Vista? Or is there some other blockage in the ISP-to-net-to-hot-spot-to-laptop chain that can seize up somehow?

With the combined computer and networking expertise of all the folks on my f-list, there should be someone who can figure this out and help me fix it, I figure...or at least explain why it's happening so I can cope better with the inability to do anything about it. How about it, geeks and geekettes?

Comments

[brightvalley.livejournal.com]

At first blush this sounds like a DNS issue. At a command prompt enter "ipconfig /all" and see if you have a valid IP address for DNS servers, something other than "0.0.0.0".

If not, and just for the grins of it (assuming XP, not that familiar with Vista yet), manually set your DNS servers. To do that right-click on your network connection icon and select properties. On the general tab scroll down to Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) then select and click Properties. Next at the bottom of the general tab of TCP/IP properties select "Use the following DNS server addresses" and in the boxes enter 4.2.2.2 and 4.2.2.6 (major league DNS servers from Level 3 Communications) then okay out of everything. You then right-click the network connection icon and select repair.

I'd be interested in hearing what happens.

[shelleybear.livejournal.com]

This is very cool.
I"m having the same problem with my laptop.
BUT I'm running Windows 2000 pro.
What would the command chain be to do the same for that?
Thanks in advance.

[brightvalley.livejournal.com]

I think ipconfig comes from as far back as NT 4.0. Give it a test run by typing (in a command shell) "ipconfig /?" to get help.

What "ipconfig /all" does is print the Windows IP configuration and info from the ethernet adapter.

Here's an example of the output:

Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : Host
Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Unknown
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
DNS Suffix Search List. . . . . . : xyz.az.freaky.net.

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : xyz.az.freaky.net.
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Jaybird Networking Controller
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-11-22-33-44-55
Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.0.0.254
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 10.0.0.1
DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.0.0.1
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 4.2.2.6 4.2.2.2
Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : Saturday, January 25, 2008 2:17:29 AM
Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : Sunday, January 28, 2008 3:17:29 AM

[shelleybear.livejournal.com]

*SIGH*
Signal strength is great.
But my laptop is still talking English and my router is still talking Sanskrit.

[shelleybear.livejournal.com]

Well, that was about as useful as an H.R. person giving a zombie a "come to Jesue" speech.

[brightvalley.livejournal.com]

You're right, of course, and I've deleted that post.

[thatcrazycajun.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the tip; I'll try it next time and let you know if it helps.

[thatcrazycajun.livejournal.com]

Tried that and did not get 0.0.0.0, but tried the fix anyhow; didn't help. Something else must need fixing.

[autographedcat.livejournal.com]

I've had a lot of trouble getting onto public wireless with Vista. If you go to the network tab, you'll find it says you have "local only" access, and no access to the Internet.

I haven't had time to figure out why. I'm seriously considering going and buying a copy of XP and reformatting my laptop and reinstalling that OS instead.

[brightvalley.livejournal.com]

Seriously I prefer to do many things, such as running Vista, as a virtual machine using either Microsoft Virtual PC or VMware Player from within XP (or Mac, or Linux if that be your preference).

[autographedcat.livejournal.com]

I'd prefer not to run vista at all, but it came on the laptop, and I've been too unmotivated to do anything to change it

[brightvalley.livejournal.com]

Well I had to evaluate Vista before making a decision whether I'd deploy it in the office (I didn't) so instead of devoting a whole PC and hard drive to the project I created a virtual machine on my own workstation and evaluated it from there. I went ahead and bought all the licenses we can use and downloaded Vista and Office07 from M$, but that's as far as I went. Hate to say it but XP has become the benchmark OS for the kiddies in Redmond.

But I digress.

[bardling.livejournal.com]

I have occasional issue with my (XP) laptop in that sometimes my wireless card picks up the new network when I move from one place to another with it in sleep moce, but the DHCP bit that assigns IP address & DNS servers for some reason doesn't wake up.

I get exactly the symptoms Cajun describes. Going into a DOS commandline window and typing
ipconfig /all
proves it to me, as I can then see that the machine still thinks, despite having correctly identifed e.g. the Millhouse network, that it's on the e.g. home IP addy & DNS (although in that example, DNS actually happens to be the same).

My cure: right-click on 'My Network Places', select properties.
Find the WiFi connection, disable it (right-click, select), then re-enable it. That wakes everything up properly for me, reliably, and both WiFi network & DHCP then work, I get an appropriately assigned IP & DNS.

[sunfell.livejournal.com]

That was what I was going to suggest too- giving it a poke in that manner. Works for me. No messing around with the DNS- it might bollix up stuff elsewhere.

[autographedcat.livejournal.com]

Checking further, this may be the issue:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928233/en-us

[brightvalley.livejournal.com]

Interesting.