Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

putrid · May 24, 2009, 02:58 AM

Howdy all. Just switched to DSL from dial up. On dial up every half hour Safari would stop dead in it’s tracks with a window asking me if I wanted to stay connected. Now it seems Safari on DSL wants to do the same. How can I fix this?
Thanks.

CharlesS · May 24, 2009, 03:53 AM

I've never heard of any such window. What's the exact text of the message?

TETENAL · May 24, 2009, 08:49 AM

System Preferences-Network->Ethernet->PPPoE Options->Prompt every XXX minutes to maintain connection.

Set as appropriate.

ghporter · May 24, 2009, 09:32 AM

You should configure your router to make the PPPoE connection for you. It's a MUCH better option, because it puts all the "DSL" work on the router and leaves the computer to do computer stuff.

Post your network hardware (modem, router, etc.) and we'll help you get this reconfigured and get you into the 21st Century.

Oh, and I'm moving this to the Networking forum, because that's really what it's about.

putrid · May 24, 2009, 02:52 PM

Sorry about that ghporter. Trying not to be a newbie problem. LOL It's a Westell router connected to the eithernet. The on the phone tech and I made 4 different connections. I'd like to be able to get rid of them all

TETENAL, I went in and turned those options off all together. Still not working right.

CharlesS this is the massage,

The update “Mac OS X update combined’ can’t be saved.
a networking error has occurred: timed out (-1001) Make sure you can connect to the internet. then try again.

There's a thing on my menu bar that looks kinda like this <...>. I have to click on it and turn it off in order to launch Safari. I then have to click on it repeatedly to (3 or 4 times) to keep it off. When it starts to try to connect it blocks the already opened eithernet.

Thanks again for the help folks.

ghporter · May 24, 2009, 03:05 PM

A model number for that Westell unit would help. Almost every North American DSL modem is also a router, and Westell has made a bunch of 'em. I'm still using the one I got from AT&T (thinks for a bit) 8 years ago. Different models have different capabilities and different ways to configure them, so knowing which one you have will help.

The ultimate goal here is to have your router do everything to handle the DSL so your computer won't need a PPPoE connection-it'll just connect via Ethernet to your LAN. This will allow you to get rid of all those superfluous connections too.

Spheric Harlot · May 24, 2009, 03:13 PM

Originally Posted by putrid

There's a thing on my menu bar that looks kinda like this <...>. I have to click on it and turn it off in order to launch Safari. I then have to click on it repeatedly to (3 or 4 times) to keep it off. When it starts to try to connect it blocks the already opened eithernet.

Ah - now it's starting to make sense.

That double-ended arrow is a DSL connection via PPPoE.

If your router is taking care of the DSL internet connection (and it appears to be), any attempt your computer makes to run PPPoE on the Ethernet port will **** up the connection to your router.

In your network settings for the Ethernet port, you need to TURN OFF PPPoE.

In fact, you can probably delete all Network Locations (in the Network system preference pane) except for automatic, and then turn off PPPoE in that.

Everything should work just fine after that.

putrid · May 24, 2009, 03:42 PM

Ghporter, the mod no is E90-610014-06 Rev. E

Spheric Harlot. ..."should work"... my first thought when I read that was 'only if someone else was attempting this. LOL Hopefully it is the PPPoE connection attempts that are causing the download failures. I've gone in and got rid of the PPPoE, well first i got rid of the eithernet by accident cuz I have NO idea what I'm doing. Just learned what the 'revert' button does. Noticed the object is no longer on my menu bar. Will try to download all the updates again.

putrid · 06:59 PM

Nope still getting the timed out. Downloading Open office and this is what I have,

43.8 of 167 MB - timed out.

Thats in the downloads window.

Question, could this be happening when the computer goes black because of in activity?

added after I posted question.
I was able to restart this download from within the download window....... things that are making me go Mmmm... I'd like to be able to fix this...LOL

ghporter · May 24, 2009, 09:13 PM

Oh crap. Westell's tech support doesn't offer a manual for that model because it's specific to Century Tel. However, the 6100 series modems are all pretty much the same, so that's a good note. Effectively, what you have is a box that is acting like both a modem and a router. That's good and bad; it's good if you only will connect one computer to your broadband connection ever, but it's bad if you want it to do anything beyond a very basic router function.

Try this. Turn off any firewall you might be running (including the OS X firewall-in the Security Preferences pane, under the Firewall tab, select "allow all incoming connections"). Now connect to the device directly from your computer's Ethernet port to its LAN port. Now open Safari and type "192.168.1.1" in the address bar (no quotes) and press Return. You should get the configuration routine's login page. Typically the user name is "admin" and the password is "password" again without the quotes.

If you get that far, please let us know. The next steps may or may not be easy to do, and that will depend on how the configuration screen looks and what firmware level you have.

putrid · May 25, 2009, 01:30 AM

Ghporter, i can't tell you how many times I entered 192.168.1.1 wile the tech was on the phone with me. LOL What I've done seams to be working. Deleted the PPPoE connection. Now when I have to restart the computer I don't have to go into Networking and change things there just to get back on line. I turn the computer back on and I'm on line. Thanks for the offer to help farther but I'm going to let this house walk this way for a wile. Besides, if I go off line it'd be kinda hard for me to tell ya what's going on. LOL

ghporter · May 25, 2009, 08:57 AM

Check back when/if you want to add another computer or something. It should be fun now, though, with the "always on" connection; compared to dial-up, it'll feel like freedom!

putrid · May 25, 2009, 01:33 PM

Thanks again Ghporter and everyone else for ya'll help. DSL is fun. It's like the difference between driving a car and walking. They'll both get you there. But you can go more places in the same amount of time in a car. LOL