Router can connect to broadband but cannot ping external addresses

A customer has a problem with her ADSL connection. It worked until a few
days ago but now, although the router can still connect and is given valid
WAN IP, gateway and DNS server addresses by the ISP (BT Broadband), she
cannot access any web sites - pinging any site either by domain name or IP
fails with "cannot resolve" or "no reply" respectively.

I've tried with a different router and a different PC, and these fail in
exactly the same way. That tends to eliminate router and PC faults.

Her router, a Netgear DG834G, has the ability to ping from the router
itself, as opposed to pinging from a PC connected to the router, and that
also fails.

BT Broadband technical support took a long time and tested a lot but did not
achieve anything, but eventually I persauded them to do a line test which
showed no fault. They thought that there was "an outage" with this exchange,
but it's not one of the ones that they mention on their service status phone
number.

What is the next step I should take in getting the fault fixed?

Has anyone seen this sort of fault, where the router indicates that it is
successfully connected but cannot access any external address, either by
browsing or pinging - and that includes the gateway and DNS servers that are
allocated to the router by the ISP's DHCP.

"Mortimer" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed) et...
>A customer has a problem with her ADSL connection. It worked until a few
>days ago but now, although the router can still connect and is given valid
>WAN IP, gateway and DNS server addresses by the ISP (BT Broadband), she
>cannot access any web sites - pinging any site either by domain name or IP
>fails with "cannot resolve" or "no reply" respectively.
>
> I've tried with a different router and a different PC, and these fail in
> exactly the same way. That tends to eliminate router and PC faults.
>
> Her router, a Netgear DG834G, has the ability to ping from the router
> itself, as opposed to pinging from a PC connected to the router, and that
> also fails.
>
> BT Broadband technical support took a long time and tested a lot but did
> not achieve anything, but eventually I persauded them to do a line test
> which showed no fault. They thought that there was "an outage" with this
> exchange, but it's not one of the ones that they mention on their service
> status phone number.
>
> What is the next step I should take in getting the fault fixed?
>
> Has anyone seen this sort of fault, where the router indicates that it is
> successfully connected but cannot access any external address, either by
> browsing or pinging - and that includes the gateway and DNS servers that
> are allocated to the router by the ISP's DHCP.

She hasn't just installed Bullguard or similar, has she? (See separate
thread below)

George

"Mortimer" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed) et...
>A customer has a problem with her ADSL connection. It worked until a few
>days ago but now, although the router can still connect and is given valid
>WAN IP, gateway and DNS server addresses by the ISP (BT Broadband), she
>cannot access any web sites - pinging any site either by domain name or IP
>fails with "cannot resolve" or "no reply" respectively.
>
> I've tried with a different router and a different PC, and these fail in
> exactly the same way. That tends to eliminate router and PC faults.
>
> Her router, a Netgear DG834G, has the ability to ping from the router
> itself, as opposed to pinging from a PC connected to the router, and that
> also fails.
>
> BT Broadband technical support took a long time and tested a lot but did
> not achieve anything, but eventually I persauded them to do a line test
> which showed no fault. They thought that there was "an outage" with this
> exchange, but it's not one of the ones that they mention on their service
> status phone number.
>
> What is the next step I should take in getting the fault fixed?
>
> Has anyone seen this sort of fault, where the router indicates that it is
> successfully connected but cannot access any external address, either by
> browsing or pinging - and that includes the gateway and DNS servers that
> are allocated to the router by the ISP's DHCP.

I think this is clearly a fault with BT.

You should change to a different ISP.

Ring the sales department of the ISP of your choice, and explain that you
have a problem with the current supplier. Explain that you want to migrate
but would need some idea of their technical competence first, so you wish to
talk to their technical support staff. When they put you through, explain
why you are talking to them (which is in contemplation of becoming a
customer) and describe the fault you are experiencing. The new technical
people should understand immediately the nature of the problem and will
explain how they will fix it. If you are happy with their explanation, then
migrate to them.

I experienced a similar problem with a BT connection where ping times to the
default gateway were intermittently very poor - tens of seconds or complete
failures - rendering the service virtually unusable. BT simply did not
understand the problem. I therefore rang Zen and explained my predicament,
as above. After a short wait I spoke to an engineer who agreed that the
fault was within the BT system and that if it had been their account they
would know how to get BT to fix it.

--
Graham J

"Mortimer" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed) et...
>A customer has a problem with her ADSL connection. It worked until a few
>days ago but now, although the router can still connect and is given valid
>WAN IP, gateway and DNS server addresses by the ISP (BT Broadband), she
>cannot access any web sites - pinging any site either by domain name or IP
>fails with "cannot resolve" or "no reply" respectively.
>
> I've tried with a different router and a different PC, and these fail in
> exactly the same way. That tends to eliminate router and PC faults.
>
> Her router, a Netgear DG834G, has the ability to ping from the router
> itself, as opposed to pinging from a PC connected to the router, and that
> also fails.
>
> BT Broadband technical support took a long time and tested a lot but did
> not achieve anything, but eventually I persauded them to do a line test
> which showed no fault. They thought that there was "an outage" with this
> exchange, but it's not one of the ones that they mention on their service
> status phone number.
>
> What is the next step I should take in getting the fault fixed?
>

Give me her phone number - it's just one simple setting to change.


> Has anyone seen this sort of fault, where the router indicates that it is
> successfully connected but cannot access any external address, either by
> browsing or pinging - and that includes the gateway and DNS servers that
> are allocated to the router by the ISP's DHCP.
>

"john m" <john@nospam.2net> wrote in message
news:g3otc6$ckh$(E-Mail Removed)...
>
>> What is the next step I should take in getting the fault fixed?
>>
>
> Give me her phone number - it's just one simple setting to change.

And what is that setting? Bear in mind that it happens with two different
PCs and two different routers, so it (surely?) cannot be a router or PC
configuration problem.

"Mortimer" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed) et...
> "john m" <john@nospam.2net> wrote in message
> news:g3otc6$ckh$(E-Mail Removed)...
>>
>>> What is the next step I should take in getting the fault fixed?
>>>
>>
>> Give me her phone number - it's just one simple setting to change.
>
> And what is that setting? Bear in mind that it happens with two different
> PCs and two different routers, so it (surely?) cannot be a router or PC
> configuration problem.

He's a troll - ignore him

George

Mortimer wrote:
> A customer has a problem with her ADSL connection. It worked until
> a few days ago but now, although the router can still connect and
> is given valid WAN IP, gateway and DNS server addresses by the ISP
> (BT Broadband), she cannot access any web sites - pinging any site
> either by domain name or IP fails with "cannot resolve" or "no
> reply" respectively.
>
> I've tried with a different router and a different PC, and these
> fail in exactly the same way. That tends to eliminate router and PC
> faults.
> Her router, a Netgear DG834G, has the ability to ping from the
> router itself, as opposed to pinging from a PC connected to the
> router, and that also fails.
>
> BT Broadband technical support took a long time and tested a lot
> but did not achieve anything, but eventually I persauded them to do
> a line test which showed no fault. They thought that there was "an
> outage" with this exchange, but it's not one of the ones that they
> mention on their service status phone number.
>
> What is the next step I should take in getting the fault fixed?
>
> Has anyone seen this sort of fault, where the router indicates that
> it is successfully connected but cannot access any external
> address, either by browsing or pinging - and that includes the
> gateway and DNS servers that are allocated to the router by the
> ISP's DHCP.

You've checked all the obviouse things. It could be that the 'virtual
pathway' has become corrupted or even that they have been jumpered to
another DSLAM port (both have been known to happen in the past) & if so
there is little you can do other than go to the support desk, the problem
will be getting them to understand let alone do something about it.

Your customer hasn't changed any of her payment plans has she, this has been
known to lead to ceasation of service as the left hand often doesn't know
what the right is doing & lastly your customer hasn't changed the number of
the line which carries the DSL service as this has also been known to cause
the service to be ceased...

Just a couple of ideas, all of which I'm afraid you can do little with other
than go to support.

"kraftee" <kraftee@b&e-cottee.me.uk> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Mortimer wrote:

> You've checked all the obviouse things. It could be that the 'virtual
> pathway' has become corrupted or even that they have been jumpered to
> another DSLAM port (both have been known to happen in the past) & if so
> there is little you can do other than go to the support desk, the problem
> will be getting them to understand let alone do something about it.

Yes I spent a long time on the phone to BT Broadband Support while the droid
(I wouldn't grace her with the term "technician") made me try all sorts of
things on the PC such as disabling firewall, rebooting, starting in safe
mode. She came to the conclusion that because the router was establishing a
connection and getting an IP address, the fault must lie in the PC that was
connecting to the router. I pointed out that it was a fault which affected
two different PCs and two different routers (one PC and one router were mine
and were known to be good). Eventually she passed me to a supervisor who at
least could work "off script" and also had a better command of English, and
could adjust her description of what needed to be done to my level of
technical knowledge.

But the problem wasn't solved. They did a line test but I've lost faith in
those because I've seen cases so many times when the line test comes back
clear but there's still a problem as seen at the customer's end.

> Your customer hasn't changed any of her payment plans has she, this has
> been known to lead to ceasation of service as the left hand often doesn't
> know what the right is doing & lastly your customer hasn't changed the
> number of the line which carries the DSL service as this has also been
> known to cause the service to be ceased...

No. Nothing has been changed. The problem first occurred last Wednesday, so
not very long ago.

Mortimer wrote :

>
> No. Nothing has been changed. The problem first occurred last Wednesday, so
> not very long ago.

What happens if you change the router's log in credentials to
bt_test@startup_domain with a password of test....?

You should only be able to browse to one page - www.bt.net/digitaldemo

"Jono" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed). ..
> Mortimer wrote :
>
>>
>> No. Nothing has been changed. The problem first occurred last Wednesday,
>> so not very long ago.
>
> What happens if you change the router's log in credentials to
> bt_test@startup_domain with a password of test....?
>
> You should only be able to browse to one page - www.bt.net/digitaldemo

Ah I didn't try that.

I've just had a sinister thought: suppose the router was somehow connecting
to bt_test@startup_domain even though it was configured to use the
customer's username and password... Could that cause this symptom?

I did notice that when I plugged my own router in, it connected even though
the ADSL username/password were wrong (because I hadn't even got to that
config page by the time it established a connection). I've seen this with BT
broadband before - it looks as if they accept *any* username and password,
unlike most other ISPs. I did try with the router configured to the correct
username/password to make certain that I was doing things properly.