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Re: Internet crashes during church meetings

Posted: Sun Oct 11, 2015 12:41 pm
by russellhltn
One of my "goto" tests is to ping yahoo.com.

If the system is unable to resolve "yahoo.com" to an IP address, then you've got a DNS problem.

If it does resolve to an IP address, then DNS is working. But if the ping itself fails, then there's a connectivity problem.

Now, I think yahoo.com will work inside of the church's filters. I'll have to test that.

You could also try pinging lds.org. (Note, not all websites will respond to a ping. So unless you've tested somewhere else, a failure to ping might be because the website blocks ping. But in each case, the name should resolve to a IP address.)

Re: Internet crashes during church meetings

Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2015 11:41 am
by steele7
Thanks for the all responses. Quick update. The issue occurred yet again yesterday during our block however the previous fixes of rebooting the router did not work. I called Global Support while at church and spent over 2 hours on the phone with them while they tried troubleshooting. They even remoted in to our computer with no luck. I got a follow up call with GS earlier today and they believe that it is a DNS issue. GS tried pinging yahoo.com yesterday and 90% of the time it failed.

Our FM contact doesn't agree with this idea (that it is a DNS issue). FM is supposed to be working with GS this week to see if they can get it resolved. The concerning this about this is they will probably see positive results during the week when the building is empty, so who knows if any solution will work and we won't really know for sure until Sunday. Keeping my fingers crossed. At least it appears that some progress is being made but it is extremely frustrating given that this issue has gone on for this long without any resolution.

Re: Internet crashes during church meetings

Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2015 12:05 pm
by russellhltn
steele7 wrote:They even remoted in to our computer with no luck.
What was "no luck"? If they were able to remote in, then it would seem that the computer IS connected to the internet.

Re: Internet crashes during church meetings

Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2015 12:14 pm
by steele7
russellhltn wrote:
steele7 wrote:They even remoted in to our computer with no luck.
What was "no luck"? If they were able to remote in, then it would seem that the computer IS connected to the internet.
Correct. The internet was up at the time but MLS was still not able to send/receive changes. He continued to mention that the firewall was not coming online after the remote reboots. The did multiple tests and pings and after more than an hour nothing came from it. Internet was up somehow but the firewall was not responsive.

Re: Internet crashes during church meetings

Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2015 12:27 pm
by russellhltn
Hmmmm. Something in the back of my brain says the router will flip out if there's some illegal device (like a rogue DHCP) in the system. If my theory of someone with a bad device is correct, then when that person goes home the system will return to normal.

I'd run a IPCONFIG /ALL when the system is good and when it's acting up. The key things are the subnet, DNS and gateway. The IP can change but those others shouldn't be changing.

Also, you should not have more than one interface with a valid IP address. Doing so suggests the computer could be connected both wired and wireless and that could cause problems.

Re: Internet crashes during church meetings

Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2015 1:25 pm
by steele7
Hmmmm. And if it does happen to be a Rouge DHCP that is corrupting the firewall, what can be done to fix that so the firewall doesn't crash? Is there a way to find out what device it is coming from? And what causes a device to be Rouge? Thanks!

Re: Internet crashes during church meetings

Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2015 1:37 pm
by russellhltn
steele7 wrote:And what causes a device to be Rouge?
Designer paint. :mrgreen:

I assume you mean "rogue". Same letters, different order, completely different meaning. And both pass spellcheck. (Don't feel bad, I always have to check I've got it right.)

steele7 wrote:Hmmmm. And if it does happen to be a Rouge DHCP that is corrupting the firewall, what can be done to fix that so the firewall doesn't crash? Is there a way to find out what device it is coming from?
That's deeper than I've ever gone into networking. Some of that might be deep in the firmware of the Cisco device. I'm not sure what GSD can do to diagnose the problem or offender.

Without a network sniffer, I'm not sure as there's any solution short of turning off the wireless. You might get some relief for the clerk computer by assigning a static IP and DNS.

Re: Internet crashes during church meetings

Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2015 4:19 pm
by steele7
russellhltn wrote:
steele7 wrote:And what causes a device to be Rouge?
Designer paint. :mrgreen:

I assume you mean "rogue". Same letters, different order, completely different meaning. And both pass spellcheck. (Don't feel bad, I always have to check I've got it right.)
Haha... :oops:

Thanks.

Re: Internet crashes during church meetings

Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2015 6:02 pm
by Mikerowaved
steele7 wrote:Our FM contact doesn't agree with this idea (that it is a DNS issue). FM is supposed to be working with GS this week to see if they can get it resolved.
As an STS myself, I like to work directly with GSD and only involve the FM folks if I need something, like a replacement part, or additional wiring. My FM group actually prefers it this way. If they have to send someone out to do some on-site troubleshooting, it's usually an on-call person they contract with with and that dips into their budget.

Not being there, we in the forum can only shoot from the hip with suggestions, however, I hope GSD hasn't ruled out the possibility of your Cisco firewall being flaky. I had to replace one once that we giving us fits.

Re: Internet crashes during church meetings

Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2015 7:35 pm
by harddrive
I had one of my routers completely lose connectivity to the Internet. The issue was that the ethernet port that goes from the firewall to the router that is connected to the Internet wouldn't come up and up. We eventually had to replace the firewall. Do you have another firewall you can put there to test?

I would also look in TM to at show internet brief, show ip DHCP Pool and then the arp table and the mac address table. This would show the interfaces and what state they are in, who the IP address range is and then which devices are connected to the machine. I would also look at the log to see if it is "phoning home."

So there are some stuff you can try to diagnose the device.