ANSWERED Throughput while connected no throughput while not connected

[mcharris 1]

Ok, long story short....

 

     So I was connected with my AirVPN client ealier today. I was using a bit torrent client and watching some Youtube videos. All of a sudden, the video stops and starts buffering. I figure no big deal, until I look at my bit torrent client and realize that it's showing 0.00's. No traffic in or out. Sometimes temporary slowdowns happen, so again, I figure no big deal. But then after like 2 minutes, it hasn't recovered. Then I shut down my bit torrent client and disconnect from AirVPN. I try to reload the Youtube page but it is still not working. Then I try to reset my modem: unplug, wait, plug in. All the lights come on. I try my internet again and still nothing. So then I right click my my ethernet adapter in Network Connections and click Diagnose. It says: "Your computer appears to be correctly configured, but the device or resource (DNS server) is not responding." At this point, I am thinking: "Hey it's been raining pretty good for the last couple hours. Maybe my ISP had some kind of power issue." I didn't have anything important to do. So I left my modem unplugged, my ethernet adapter disabled, and shut down my computer. Leaving me to do some other stuff for a couple hours.

     I come back and plug in my modem, start my computer, and re-enable my ethernet adapter. Still no internet connectivity. So I am kind of frustrated at this point. I consider calling my ISP to confirm there is no storm related issue on their end of the line. In this moment I get the idea that I should hook up a wireless router and try to connect with my phone. So as to verify that my computer is definitely not the problem. Surprisingly, my phone connects to the internet just fine. So obviously I turn on my laptops wireless card and find out that it connects and load webpages just fine. So now I'm thinking my ethernet adapter has broken. I then disable my wirless card again.

     My next course of action was to uninstall/reinstall my ethernet adapter driver. But just before I uninstall/reinstall the driver, the fact that I was connected to AirVPN at the time of the initial problem pops into my head. I don't know why, but I tried to connect to Airvpn. AND IT WORKED!! I can load webpages just fine while connected. So now I am feeling a little better as I have identified the culprit. So I proceed to uninstall AirVPN, TAP Windows Adapter V9, and OpenDNS. I then try my web browser. but is still won't load pages! I then reinstall AirVPN and weirdly it already has my login name and password filled in with the "remember me" box checked. Shouldn't that have been erased when I unistalled AirVPN? Anyways, I connect with AirVPN and my browser is working fine again. Disconnect and then it doesn't work.

     So now I am thinking: "Screw it. I haven't done anything important in the last 24 hours. I will just do a system restore back to before this problem occured. Whatever setting/error/glitch is causing this, it will be changed back and corrected." So I do a restore back to yesterday. I try my browser and it still doesn't work. I connect with AirVPN and it works just fine. This is where you guys come in...

     I am above average when it comes to computer literacy but I am by no means an expert. I have much to learn. Whatever is causing this, is far outside my skill level. I do not have any idea about how to research this specific of a problem with a search engine.

     In summary, my modem seems to be working fine. My wireless adpater is working fine. But my ethernet adapter only works when connected with AirVPN?!? What would cause this? How can I fix it?

[mcharris 1]

     Alright, an update. So to make this weirder I'm going to add that ipconfig looks normal. So then I did a ping and noticed that it went through. Which led me to do some tracert's and pathping's. Both of which also went through. However, both browsers I tried still get nothing. This led me to start thinking virus/malware. So when I start to use my antivirus and anti-malware porgrams, they also are able to update just fine?!? They didn't find anything though. So at this poiint I was really like WTFand I'm just trying random things. Battle.net and Steam wouldn't get through. No idea what is causing this or what to reasearch. I was really grasping at straws at this point. One of those straws was to unistall the ethernet adapter driver and restart my system. It reinstalled apon reboot. Now my browsers work!!! I can't for the life of me figure out what that would have done/changed that the system restore I performed did not?!?  If you have taken the time to read everything to this point and you think you can shed some light on what happened, I would be fascinated to hear an explanation. Thank you for your time.

[zhang888 1065]

TL;DR did you try port forwarding?

[go558a83nk 352]

did you have a proxy setup in your browsers?

[rickjames 106]

Did you ping a domain or ip? Pinging a domain requires dns, the ip won't.

 

It sounds like a dns issue. Try manually setting up the dns servers @ your network adapter while not connected @ air.

 

And FWIW I'm fairly sure OpenDNS logs.

[mcharris 1]

     Thank you for the replys. To reiterate, the problem is now fixed. I did not mark this topic as solved because I am genuinely interested in finding out what happened. I would like to improve my understanding of the this issue so I am able to correct it, if it happens again, and also so I can improve my overall knowledge of computers. Thanks in advance for any future replies.

    

     To answer a few of your questions:

TL;DR did you try port forwarding?

 

I'm not sure how port forwarding with a browser works. I have never done it. Isn't port forwarding for allowing an outside computer to remote connect to your computer, not the other way around? I have some ports forwarded for my bit torrent client. I don't see how this would relate to the symptoms of my problem. Maybe you could expound further?

 

did you have a proxy setup in your browsers?

 

No. I do not have any proxy settings enabled with either of the browsers I tried. I specifically checked that, just in case. I also checked my windows settings to make sure there were no proxies set up.

 

Did you ping a domain or ip? Pinging a domain requires dns, the ip won't.

It sounds like a dns issue. Try manually setting up the dns servers @ your network adapter while not connected @ air.

And FWIW I'm fairly sure OpenDNS logs.

 

Okay. Forgive my ignorance. I did try to ping a domain first. It didn't work. I do not remember the specific message that was returned. At the time I assumed that I made some kind of grammatical/syntax error. I am not super familiar with these concepts, let alone that command in particular. Pinging an IP worked fine. This would seem to indicate it was a DNS issue. Again, forgive me. I am not super familiar with DNS. Off the top of my head (without looking it up and cheating), DNS stands Domain Name System. In layman's terms, when I type "www.theNameGoesHere.com" into my browser, my computer has to look up the IP address for that set of characters. It does this by querying(?) the DNS (not sure if this is the correct temrinology) which then compares that character set to a table. If it finds a match, it returns the matched IP address to my computer, which then uses it to connect to that website (computer). Based off of your reply, it would seem that I did have a DNS issue. Something else to add. While attempting to search for solutions to this problem. I came across the flushDNS command. My understanding is that my computer stores a list of the IP addresses for the websites I frequent the most. This allows for a faster load time, as it does not have to query the DNS every time. It already knows the IP addresses. When IP addresses change, this stored list can cause problems. When I used the flushDNS command it did not fix the problem.

 

 

My main question in all of this was: Why did uninstall/reinstall of the ethernet adapter driver fix the problem but the system restore I performed did not?

 

As I am typing this, I am starting to vaguely remember. It was soooo long ago, but I believe that I configured the the TCP/IPv4 Properties for my ethernet adapter to use OpenDNS (208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220, I don't remember the specific numbers off the top of my head. I just googled these quick.). I had kinda forgotten about this untill reading what you typed. So based off of what you said and everything I just typed: When I performed a system restore. It didn't change the DNS settings I had set up. But when I uninstalled/reinstalled the driver. It cleared those settings. Which solved the problem because I am now using my ISP's default DNS. This would explain it, no? I never use wireless, so I had never changed the DNS setting for it. My other programs: antivirus, Battle.net, etc. weren't affected because they know the IP's they are connecting too. No DNS involved. So the problem was with OpenDNS or...? If my DNS settings were the culprit, why did they all of a sudden cause a problem now? Sorry for the novel. Just trying to learn so I don't have to bother you again next time. Thank you for your time.

[rickjames 106]

My main question in all of this was: Why did uninstall/reinstall of the ethernet adapter driver fix the problem but the system restore I performed did not?

 

The system restore probably just restored to some earlier point that also had problematic dns settings.

 

I'm unsure what the exact problem was. Who knows with windows. But for privacy sake I wouldn't use OpenDNS nor your ISP's dns while using air. Even though the dns queries will/should be tunneled its pointless to call your isp's dns servers for requests while on air.

 

Airvpn has their own dns servers built in: 10.4.0.1

If you use the client there a dns option in the advanced settings.

 

You can check your dns here:

https://ipleak.net/

https://www.dnsleaktest.com/

http://entropy.dns-oarc.net/test/

 

Some other informative links.

http://whoer.net/extended

http://www.xmyip.com/

[OpenSourcerer 1359]

You should have just disconnected from AirVPN and then disabled and reenabled the TAP driver... so far fixed every issue I had with connections. If you connect with OpenVPN, the only thing that changes is the configuration of the TAP driver.. your hardware NIC is not touched at all, so most problems can be solved by just resetting the TAP driver config.

Except for DNS issues, where you have changed your hardware NIC's DNS to static, but this is an additional step done manually; OpenVPN doesn't do it.

[mcharris 1]

     Yeah, I'm pretty sure I never messed with the TAP 9 DNS settings before. But it was so long ago, who knows. Anyways, I checked and it is definitely set to 10.4.0.1 right now. All of the links you provided are showing I do not have a DNS leak. I guess, at this point, there is not anything more to investigate now that everything is working correctly. (Probably just beating a dead horse at this point.) I appreciate all your responses. Thanks again. Adieu.