RIBnet access

[Leapy]

Anyone else apart from me having trouble accessing RIBnet? If I surf around for more than 2 or 3 minutes I get to a situation where the page I am trying to access never arrives and I'm left with a blank page and the little wirly wheel status thing just going around and around...The only way I can recover is to log out, close down RIBnet and start again. But then it happens again...I have no trouble with any other website.

Running Vista Home Premium and IE on a new Dell with loads of RAM and all that other good stuff.

[Nos4r2]

Originally Posted by Leapy

Anyone else apart from me having trouble accessing RIBnet? If I surf around for more than 2 or 3 minutes I get to a situation where the page I am trying to access never arrives and I'm left with a blank page and the little wirly wheel status thing just going around and around...The only way I can recover is to log out, close down RIBnet and start again. But then it happens again...I have no trouble with any other website.

Running Vista Home Premium and IE on a new Dell with loads of RAM and all that other good stuff.

It was a bit slow for me last night on firefox, but seems OK now.

[jambo]

Leapy
are you sure it is not your browser connection?

[Leapy]

Originally Posted by jambo

Leapy
are you sure it is not your browser connection?

Only if my browser is sensitive to RIBnet only. All other forums/sites are good.

By the way, and this may link into another thread discussing RIBnet access, it took one hour forty minutes for my 'new' thread to appear as a 'new' thread. It appeared quickly in the category I posted it in but took 100 minutes to appear as 'new'. As I'm regularly searching 'new posts' for updates maybe this is where the problem resides.

[Poly]

Originally Posted by Leapy

it took one hour forty minutes for my 'new' thread to appear as a 'new' thread. It appeared quickly in the category I posted it in but took 100 minutes to appear as 'new'.

I don't think that is a problem - that is how it is meant to work. So it is not a "new post" to you as you wrote it. About 1 hr 40 min after you posted the question Nos replied - hence why it then showed up.

As a suggestion for debugging - run the command

tracert www.rib.net

at the command prompt (not sure how you get to that in Vista - but Run... and then type

cmd

would be my guess.

Do this when connection is working and not working and cut and paste the results into this thread and someone may be able to tell where it is tripping over. (if you can't cut and paste without rebooting you may prefer to use the commant

tracert www.rib.net > C:\ribnet.txt

and then paste the contents of that file here after rebooting.

[Leapy]

Ran tracert www.rib.net and the system goes off and looks like it's pinging the RIBnet site. It says it'll make 30 attempts...it gets half way through and then says it's timed out...there's nothing to cut and paste as the DOS screen disappears

By the way, I had to enter and exit RIBnet three times in order to make this reply...same thing as before

[Poly]

OK you should see something like this:

Tracing route to www.rib.net [216.18.2.16]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
 
  1    96 ms    99 ms   100 ms  O2WirelessBox.lan [192.168.1.254] 
  2     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  3     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  4    48 ms    49 ms    47 ms  213.161.72.69 
  5    59 ms    53 ms    49 ms  so-0-0-0.mpr1.lhr2.uk.above.net [64.125.27.225] 
  6   115 ms   130 ms   128 ms  so-1-1-0.mpr1.dca2.us.above.net [64.125.31.186] 
  7   118 ms   120 ms   118 ms  xe-1-1-0.er1.dca2.us.above.net [64.125.26.174] 
  8   116 ms   117 ms   155 ms  64.125.31.206 
  9   114 ms   118 ms   117 ms  206.223.115.113 
 10   121 ms   122 ms   120 ms  POS13-0.PEERA-NYCMNY.IP.GROUPTELECOM.NET [66.59.191.221] 
 11   130 ms   131 ms   129 ms  POS9-0.WANB-MTRLPQ.IP.GROUPTELECOM.NET [66.59.191.209] 
 12   195 ms   196 ms   193 ms  POS13-0.WANB-TOROONXN.IP.GROUPTELECOM.NET [216.18.63.197] 
 13   191 ms   190 ms   192 ms  POS6-0.WANB-VANCBC.IP.GROUPTELECOM.NET [66.59.190.62] 
 14   192 ms   192 ms   193 ms  216.18.31.134 
 15   194 ms   191 ms   193 ms  GE2-0.WANB-VANCBC.IP.GROUPTELECOM.NET [216.18.31.133] 
 16   192 ms   192 ms   192 ms  66.59.190.109 
 17     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 18   199 ms   197 ms   200 ms  a23.nmsrv.com [216.18.2.16] 
 
Trace complete.

Steps 2 and 3 always timeout on my network as O2 broadbands routers don't support the tracert command.

If you timed out on all the steps/hops the problem is not at the ribnet end but is somewhere on your PC or connection (I am assuming you can tracert www.yahoo.com OK). This is consistent with noone else having this problem.

Does tracert or ping correctly resolve the IP address for rib.net to 216.18.2.16 ? Can you ping rib.net using the name and IP address?

The bizzare thing is that it is just one site you are having the problem with. I notice you are relatively new here - but I guess you have been "lurking" for a while - so I wonder if it is something to with you signing up as a member. That makes me suspect security/firewall settings - but then it is surprising that sometimes it works and sometimes it does not.

Since tracert is not working it doesn't seem to be an IE issue.

[Leapy]

Polwart...yes, the clip you show is exactly what I see and the IP address is the same too.

One new thing I've just spotted...as I roam around the RIBnet site the problem is always preceded by accessing a page that doesn't completely load...by that I mean that the content of the page isn't fully complete and to the left of the RIBnet title of the IE page tab at the head of the document the little wirly thing (what's the real name?!) keeps spinning and the green status bar at the bottom of the page only gets half way across its scale, confirming that the page isn't complete and that it is still accessing, or trying to access, the RIBnet server (?)

As an example of an incomplete page: if I go to the forum category listing page the categories only will be listed but with an exaggerated and uneven spacing and all else never arrives. Any further key strokes beyond this - say to access one of the categories - just brings a blank screen that no amount of waiting changes.

I've tried disabling adverts - no change.

A couple of other pieces of (irrelevant?) info...Firstly, I've been searching to find the smiley option...I've found it but even though it's turned on they don't appear. Secondly, I originally registered with my real name as my user id, then, I decided to use a 'handle'. It seems the system doesn't allow you to change your 'handle' and use the same email address so I changed my original user id to use my 'old' email address and created 'Leapy' with my current email address. Anybody know (Mr Administrator?) if this might be screwing things up? I've looked for how to delete my other user id but can't find out how. I emailed RIBnet for advice on how to do all this but didn't get a reply! :-(

Sorry to be a nuisance...I've been finding the site very useful as a knowledge base but I'm also finding the access very frustrating (no angry smiley attached as I can't access them!)

[Poly]

Originally Posted by Leapy

Polwart...yes, the clip you show is exactly what I see and the IP address is the same too.

that is what you see when it is working. when it crashes do you still see that? as for the questions for the Admin then it will need John Kennett or possible Nos4r2 to help.

[Leapy]

Originally Posted by Polwart

when it crashes do you still see that?

Murphy's Law: It took me ages to get it to crash and run the check...then I couldn't get back in!

As far as I can see the tracert appears the same...a number of pings through different IP addresses and a ms response time ranging from 20's through to 130's. Unlike your image though I don't get a 'test complete' message; it merely times out and the DOS screen disappears.

On the very last line of the screen in the left hand corner is says "Waiting for http://rib.net/forum/showthread.ph?p=264832#post264832..." In the centre of this line is the green status bar which doesn't get to the end and the wirly thing I talked about earlier on the top of screen tab is still wirlying.

Doesn't this all suggest the pc is waiting for further info from the RIBnet server?

[Poly]

Originally Posted by Leapy

Doesn't this all suggest the pc is waiting for further info from the RIBnet server?

yes but it doesn't mean that it is the ribnet server that has the problem. it could be a network or security problem between your machine and theirs. either your request for the data isn't reaching rib net or their response isn't reaching you. generally in my experience the rib net servers are pretty good at reporting an actual error when (rarely) there is a probelm rather than just hanging.

its now out of my troubleshooting skills though. Hopefully JK can steer you in the right direction when he gets a change. My only other thought though (to rule out your concern that it is a problem with your u/name profile) would be to try using those settings on a completely different machine/connection e.g. at work, friends etc.

[Poly]

Originally Posted by Leapy

Unlike your image though I don't get a 'test complete' message; it merely times out and the DOS screen disappears.

that doesn't sound right though. just realised there is no cut and paste in dos windows. so if you can be bothered next time it crashes run

tracert rib.net > C:\ribnet.txt

then when it reboots copy and paste the contents of the file ribnet.txt file from notepad.

[Leapy]

Originally Posted by Polwart

try using those settings on a completely different machine/connection e.g. at work, friends etc.

Hmmm...All the above relates to my laptop...if I access RIBnet from the kids desktop then all is ok! The desktop OS is XP rather than Vista on the laptop.

[Leapy]

Originally Posted by Polwart

that doesn't sound right though. just realised there is no cut and paste in dos windows. so if you can be bothered next time it crashes run

tracert rib.net > C:\ribnet.txt

then when it reboots copy and paste the contents of the file ribnet.txt file from notepad.

Tried this...nothing seems to happen other than a very quick flash of a DOS screen comes up. It's so fast, there's no chance of reading it. There's also no resulting text file at C:\ribnet.txt

[Poly]

Originally Posted by Leapy

Tried this...nothing seems to happen other than a very quick flash of a DOS screen comes up. It's so fast, there's no chance of reading it. There's also no resulting text file at C:\ribnet.txt

ok then suggest you try opening command prompt first then type it. it will then take a minute or two to run as the tracert command usually does. BUT if this is only happening on the Vista machine it is a vista or PC issue. Probably security/firewall, what firewall are you running?

NEIL

[Leapy]

Originally Posted by Polwart

what firewall are you running?

NEIL

Microsoft Live One Care - it's a firewall/spyware/virus scan/pc maintenance package

[Leapy]

Originally Posted by Polwart

ok then suggest you try opening command prompt first then type it. it will then take a minute or two to run as the tracert command usually does. NEIL

Neil - All this is new territory for me but I've tried what I think you are asking...at 'Run' I've typed in 'cmd'...that opens the DOS screen in a new window...then typed in as you suggest but all that comes up is 'Access Denied'.

This is now officially 'doing my head in'...the best I can do on RIBnet is to open it, log in, open up 'new posts', maybe look at two or three threads...and then that's it. If it was a security issue wouldn't access be continually denied rather than after a couple of minutes?

[jwalker]

Leapy, are you using Microsoft IE?

[Leapy]

Originally Posted by jwalker

Leapy, are you using Microsoft IE?

Yep, IE 7 with all the latest versions of Vista Home Premium and everthing else you can think of as the machine is setup to automatically update...

Was surfing around last night (as you do) The issue seems to occur when the laptop tries to load the icons to the left of each thread line...the little mail box symbol that tells you whether there's unread mail and the like. It loads up the thread titles - they become irregularly spaced immediately before the problem starts - and then seems to stutter and stall at the icon graphics. Even when it manages to load them there's some stuttering.

Still got the same problem...I can access about three different threads and then it all grinds to a halt...the page doesn't fully load and any amount of further button pressing doesn't achieve anything. Doing nothing doesn't achieve anything either: it just sits there trying to finish loading the page and saying 'Waiting for RIBnet server'. I'm happy to believe it could be a firewall setting but I don't now which settings to adjust - if that's what needed - to achieve a result. I've looked, but there's nothing obvious to - to me - to change. Adding RIBnet to the 'Safe Senders' list made no difference.

But why does this ONLY happen with RIBnet. I spent ages yesterday trawling around other websites, including other forums, with no problems whatsoever.

Hope my new rib turns out more reliable than this

Thanks for any help you can offer...

[Leapy]

Originally Posted by Leapy

Hmmm...All the above relates to my laptop...if I access RIBnet from the kids desktop then all is ok! The desktop OS is XP rather than Vista on the laptop.

After giving up with my laptop I decided to stick with the desktop...guess what? This now has the same issue...After reading three or four posts the system just hangs saying 'Waiting for RIBnet...'