Page 1 of 3

Internet crashes during church meetings

Posted: Thu Oct 08, 2015 10:30 pm
by steele7
Hello,

I am sure this topic has been discussed before but wanted to ask anyway. Over the past month, our ward buildings internet crashes and doesn't recover until we reset the router (which takes a while as we have to contact the HC with the key to the room with the router). The bigger problem with this is that the internet crashes right during the time we need to submit our ward donations. Over the past 4 weeks we have had to postpone our donations as we were unable to connect to MLS. We have contacted our FM group regarding this and they don't have any clue why this is happening, so it seems. Our building apparently has the upgraded firewall and according to FM we have never exceeded the number of available connections however the firewall still will crash.

Is this a hardware/equipment problem? Bandwidth? I am not familiar with what the church provides for this is standard.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to what we can do to prevent this from occurring? We cannot continue down the path of not being able to submit donations each week.

Thanks.

Re: Internet crashes during church meetings

Posted: Thu Oct 08, 2015 11:27 pm
by russellhltn
Will it only come back up if you reset the firewall, or will it come back up if you reset something else - like the ISP's modem?

I'd also work though your STS to talk to the folks in SLC about what they see in the firewall logs. FM may be talking to them, but I'd rather not get my information filtered though them.

And how is the ward computer connected to the Internet? Hardware or Wireless?

Re: Wireless Survey of church building with Netspot

Posted: Fri Oct 09, 2015 1:52 am
by Biggles
steele7 wrote:Over the past 4 weeks we have had to postpone our donations as we were unable to connect to MLS.
Would you clarify this statement, as this as it stands, implies that access to MLS is done remotely, which isn't permitted!

Re: Internet crashes during church meetings

Posted: Fri Oct 09, 2015 11:40 am
by steele7
Russ - so far, the only way we have been able to get it to come back up that I am aware of is by rebooting the router. Even then, sometimes within 30-45 min of doing that, it will crash again. Can you tell me who/what STS is? I am unfamiliar with this. As the ward clerk, I am trying to figure this out on my own as FM hasn't been much help so far. My guess as far as how the ward computer connects is through hardware. When we were having issues with Wifi, MLS could not connect either. A few weeks ago, FM disabled Wifi in the building so we could submit our donations, which worked. This is why I am assuming it is through hardware but even then, why would the ward computer not be able to connect when the wifi crashes but it is able to connect when the wifi is disabled?

Biggles - to clarify, we are not accessing MLS remotely. I am not even sure how this is done. What is happening is when the wifi crashes in the building, MLS on the ward computer is also unable to connect to the internet. This has happened multiple times when we have been trying to submit ward donations. If there is no connection on MLS, we cannot send/receive updates.

Re: Internet crashes during church meetings

Posted: Fri Oct 09, 2015 11:55 am
by russellhltn
steele7 wrote:Can you tell me who/what STS is? I am unfamiliar with this.
The full title is "Stake Assistant Clerk - Technology Specialist", or Stake Technology Specialist. As the name suggests, this should be something he works on. Not all stakes have one, but you should at least check by contacting the Stake Clerk.

steele7 wrote:so far, the only way we have get it to come back up that I am aware of is by rebooting the router.
Next time, try just the modem and see if that changes things.

Also, open a DOS box on your computer and type in "IPCONFIG". Note the assigned IP address. Do this when things are working and do it again when it fails. If you notice the gateway address changing, unplug the computer's network connect and plug it back in again. Run another IPCONFIG and see if it goes back to what it was when it worked.

steele7 wrote:Even then, sometimes within 30-45 min of doing that, it will crash again. ... A few weeks ago, FM disabled Wifi in the building so we could submit our donations, which worked.
So now the question is, is the system failing because of overload, or is it failing because you've got a "poison user". If you find the gateway changing, you may have to change the computer to static IP. I'm thinking you may have a wireless user that's a rogue DHCP server.

Re: Internet crashes during church meetings

Posted: Fri Oct 09, 2015 12:36 pm
by steele7
Thanks Russ for the info. We unfortunately don't have an STS. I will look at your other suggestions and see what we can find out. Thank you.

Re: Internet crashes during church meetings

Posted: Fri Oct 09, 2015 1:36 pm
by lajackson
steele7 wrote:We unfortunately don't have an STS.
Does your stake clerk have computer experience? He is the STS by default if he does not have an assistant clerk called to do it.

If the FM group disabled the WiFi and you were able to Send/Receive, your computer is hard wired to the network, which is good. After that, I think RussellHltn is on track with the IP, or a possible bandwidth issue. If you know how to run a speedtest, you can check if bandwidth may be holding you back.

Another thing to consider is that if your computer is able to connect with either WiFi or directly wired, it may be having some confusion when both are working.

Re: Internet crashes during church meetings

Posted: Fri Oct 09, 2015 2:58 pm
by ccmichaelson
I am having the exact same issue... For about the past 3-4 weeks at least 2 of my buildings the Internet stops complete. I am the STS. I've directly connected to the Cisco firewall and unplugged everyone else (clerk machines, WIFI, etc.). If i open up a command window I can ping any IP address with no issue (e.g. 4.2.2.2, 8.8.8.8) but if I ping a dns name it fails every time. If i bypass the firewall everything works great. The only way I've been able to resolve the issue is to power down/up the router but that is short lived.

I believe the Church DNS servers are having issues on Sunday (I never have had issues during the week).

Re: Internet crashes during church meetings

Posted: Fri Oct 09, 2015 9:27 pm
by russellhltn
Something to consider - The networking part of the Global Service Desk opens up late Sunday afternoon US time. I'd suggest the next time it crashes to leave it "crashed" and give them a call. While some logs probably survive a reboot, I imagine a lot of status information does not. They can also guide you though some tests to find out what's going on.

Re: Internet crashes during church meetings

Posted: Sun Oct 11, 2015 8:26 am
by harddrive
To let you know that the 4.2.2.2 and 8.8.8.8 DNS servers are not church owned DNS system. The 4.2.2.2 is for company that are a Level-3 customer. The church may or may not be level-3 customers and based on an article I read, I believe that the church is a level-3 customer. Now the 8.8.8.8 is the publlc google DNS.

I agree with Russ to call the global service desk the next time this happens. They should be able to troubleshoot or at least get logs and data for the tier 3 folks to investigate further. It really sounds like something isn't set up correctly.

I hope that you get it solved.