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Eug · Oct 25, 2006, 11:09 PM

In case you're in Canada and on Rogers cable internet, and have been wondering why your internet access is so flakey, it's because you're on a *nix machine, and for some reason Rogers.com is having serious (DNS?) problems with both Linux and Mac OS X machines.

Symptom: Sometimes internet access works fine, sometimes it's really slow, and sometimes web sites time out.

This has been for the last two days, and the guy there at Rogers tells me he's gotten calls from people on various different versions of 10.4, not just 10.4.8.

They haven't figured out why this is happening yet, but they say that for the last two days they've spent most of their time talking to Mac users, with a few Linux users thrown in. One customer had several Macs, Linux boxes, and Windows boxes, and only the Windows boxes worked fine.

Just FYI.

kick52 · Oct 26, 2006, 03:45 AM

i hate ISPs that exclude macs...

i have the worst modem drivers... KPs happen when you take it out of the USB while connected. (yes, i know.. you shouldnt do that, but it shouldnt come up with a KP. and its annoying because my mum has no idea how to disconnect from the intenet so she screws it up when she needs the modem)

Mastrap · Oct 26, 2006, 06:53 AM

That explains it then, thanks Eug. I was wondering what was up. It's ok this morning btw.

kick52, Rogers is normally an ok ISP with decent Mac support.

Visnaut · Oct 26, 2006, 10:16 AM

So THAT'S it!

My net access had been flaky the last two days, and it started happening right after I had re-wired the cable inside my home, so I had begun to conclude that was the problem. But it didn't make sense to me that only DNS-related problems were occurring, not dropped connections, or interrupted downloads.

I didn't know it was this wide-spread. I thought if it wasn't just my wiring, that it could possibly be just the local node I'm on, or they were upgrading their DNS servers.

It's amazing you got that much information out of a Rogers phone tech. Usually they'll assume you're an idiot, make you trouble-shoot all of the things you would have naturally done on your own, and then, when all that fails (hence, why you called in the first place), they conclude the problem is naturally on your end, so they'll send out a tech in a few days to your home to check all your wiring and equipment. Who will then never show up, or decide to do so when you specifically told them not to.

Anyway, enough with my bitterness. I wonder if it is localized. Both of you are in Toronto, whereabouts? I'm more on the west end, Keele & St. Clair area.

besson3c · Oct 26, 2006, 10:18 AM

In the meantime, you guys could enable named on your personal workstations, and change your network settings so that DNS lookups occur locally.

Eug Wanker · Oct 26, 2006, 10:36 AM

Originally Posted by Visnaut

So THAT'S it!

My net access had been flaky the last two days, and it started happening right after I had re-wired the cable inside my home, so I had begun to conclude that was the problem. But it didn't make sense to me that only DNS-related problems were occurring, not dropped connections, or interrupted downloads.

I didn't know it was this wide-spread. I thought if it wasn't just my wiring, that it could possibly be just the local node I'm on, or they were upgrading their DNS servers.

It's amazing you got that much information out of a Rogers phone tech. Usually they'll assume you're an idiot, make you trouble-shoot all of the things you would have naturally done on your own, and then, when all that fails (hence, why you called in the first place), they conclude the problem is naturally on your end, so they'll send out a tech in a few days to your home to check all your wiring and equipment. Who will then never show up, or decide to do so when you specifically told them not to.

Anyway, enough with my bitterness. I wonder if it is localized. Both of you are in Toronto, whereabouts? I'm more on the west end, Keele & St. Clair area.

I'm on the west end of the main downtown core. Yeah the guy was more forthcoming than most, but it was pretty obvious it was a widespread problem because he said he said he hadn't spoken to that many Mac users for a very long time.

In fact, I hadn't told him I was on a Mac. He specifically asked when I described the problem, which was ONLY affecting *nix users.

Yeah, the downloads thing is something I noticed too. I'd start a download and it would run at full speed until completion. Yet, I would get timeout errors just accessing the front page of major sites.

He wasn't sure how localized it was, but he did say that most of the people he talked to were from Toronto, or at least Ontario.

Originally Posted by Mastrap

That explains it then, thanks Eug. I was wondering what was up. It's ok this morning btw.

Yeah, I was up late and when I checked around 3 am it was fine.

Originally Posted by besson3c

In the meantime, you guys could enable named on your personal workstations, and change your network settings so that DNS lookups occur locally.

It's fixed now, but maybe I'll look up how to do that for next time.

Dark Helmet · Oct 26, 2006, 11:34 AM

Visnaut, I am about 1 mile south of where you live and I've been having the problem with Sympatico in Toronto also since 10.4.8 came out (a month). Pings are so so but my download speed it 100%. The bad part is some sites take forever to look up whole some are fast. I called for the past month to complain but they say everything is fine connection wise but they are having some "Server problems". They gave me 2 months free though.

I am going to test it on my Windows and see if the mac is the real problem.

Mastrap · Oct 26, 2006, 11:34 AM

Originally Posted by Visnaut

I wonder if it is localized. Both of you are in Toronto, whereabouts? I'm more on the west end, Keele & St. Clair area.

West here too, Dundas and Dufferin. Anyway, it's fixed now by the looks of it.

Dark Helmet · Oct 26, 2006, 11:35 AM

Originally Posted by besson3c

In the meantime, you guys could enable named on your personal workstations, and change your network settings so that DNS lookups occur locally.

What do you mean?

besson3c · Oct 26, 2006, 11:38 AM

Originally Posted by Dark Helmet

What do you mean?

I was saying that you could do your own DNS lookups rather than using the Rogers DNS server, assuming that their DNS server is having problems as claimed. Unless they were running some really crazy DNS server that was handling requests out of spec, I have no clue why this would be a platform specific problem.

Dark Helmet · Oct 26, 2006, 12:14 PM

Originally Posted by besson3c

I was saying that you could do your own DNS lookups rather than using the Rogers DNS server, assuming that their DNS server is having problems as claimed.

Well what I meant was "How do I do this?".

Also I am on Sympatico and not rogers so it seems the problem might be more widespread.

besson3c · Oct 26, 2006, 12:25 PM

Originally Posted by Dark Helmet

Well what I meant was "How do I do this?".

Also I am on Sympatico and not rogers so it seems the problem might be more widespread.

Found some instructions here:

macosxhints.com - Speed internet browsing via a local domain name server

You should be able to ignore the "forwarders" part of this hint, I think...

Eug Wanker · Oct 26, 2006, 01:29 PM

Originally Posted by Dark Helmet

Also I am on Sympatico and not rogers so it seems the problem might be more widespread.

I had zero problems on Rogers when I upgraded to 10.4.8. It was only since a couple of days ago, and it started very suddenly. And today, just as suddenly, all my problems are gone.

Dark Helmet · Oct 26, 2006, 01:49 PM

Originally Posted by Eug Wanker

I had zero problems on Rogers when I upgraded to 10.4.8. It was only since a couple of days ago, and it started very suddenly. And today, just as suddenly, all my problems are gone.

My friend has had the same problem for a week. I use rogers at work and it has also been bad for a week or so.

ReggieX · Oct 27, 2006, 11:11 PM

Crap, I wondered what was going on! Thanks, Eug.

Visnaut · Oct 28, 2006, 10:49 AM

It's better now, but I still experience moments of flakiness.

For example, I open pages from the board here, and they open fine, but then most users' signatures fail to load. I'll hit refresh and then everything will be fine again.

Oh well, at least they're working on it.

ReggieX · Oct 29, 2006, 01:56 PM

I'm more than amused that they don't have my usage stats from October 5 onward...

ReggieX · Nov 11, 2006, 03:25 AM

When in doubt: OpenDNS | Providing A Safer And Faster DNS or 4.2.2.2, 4.2.2.3

turtle777 · Nov 11, 2006, 01:58 PM

Originally Posted by ReggieX

When in doubt: OpenDNS | Providing A Safer And Faster DNS or 4.2.2.2, 4.2.2.3

I like their anti-phising protection

-t

06:45 PM

edit

kmkkid · Nov 12, 2006, 06:22 PM

I had these issues during the OP time period. I'm in Brantford, so it wasn't just a toronto to thing. I refused to pay my bill until it was sorted out. All is fine now however.