Some websites do not load well on wifi

Here's an interesting problem. I am using Linux with Firefox on a
laptop (ubuntu 7.10).

It generally works just fine.

However, right now I am visiting parents and I installed a wifi router
(about 2-3 year old netgear). I am about 30 feet away from the
router. Signal strength is not great, but it works, for example, I
copied about 730 megabyte movie over scp overnight.

The problem is that Firefox is not doing too well downloading
websites. The problem mainly seems to be with sites with a lot of
iframes, javascripts, asshole "third party" javascript trackers and
some such.

The manifestation is that firefox starts downloading stuff, and then
gets stuck saying "transferring data".

It is not consistent, but some sites are particularly bad. One example
could be this page:

http://millerwelds.com/products/multiprocess/

Despite many tries, it never downloaded fully.

I think that it is some kind of a networking issue, like TCP
connections not properly following the TCP resend logic, or some such.

i

["Followup-To:" header set to comp.os.linux.misc.]
On 2007-12-26, Ignoramus4611 <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>
> Here's an interesting problem. I am using Linux with Firefox on a
> laptop (ubuntu 7.10).
>
> It generally works just fine.
>
> However, right now I am visiting parents and I installed a wifi router
> (about 2-3 year old netgear). I am about 30 feet away from the
> router. Signal strength is not great, but it works, for example, I
> copied about 730 megabyte movie over scp overnight.
>
> The problem is that Firefox is not doing too well downloading
> websites. The problem mainly seems to be with sites with a lot of
> iframes, javascripts, asshole "third party" javascript trackers and
> some such.
>
Why are you running Firefox without NoScript?

Ignoramus4611 wrote:
> The manifestation is that firefox starts downloading stuff, and then
> gets stuck saying "transferring data".

In Firefox, try disabling IPv6. In address bar, type about:config
then type network.dns.disableIPv6, double-click it to turn it to true.
Restart Firefox, see if that helps.

If not, then turn IPv6 off completely in Ubuntu:
<https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WebBrowsingSlowIPv6IPv4>

If that doesn't work, try this:
<http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?s=334b4ad7fac438a2b854ccb9b2a5c460& t=604323&page=2>

Watch line wraps.

--
As we enjoy great advantages from inventions of others, we should be
glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours;
and this we should do freely and generously.
--Benjamin Franklin

Ignoramus4611 wrote:
>
> It is not consistent, but some sites are particularly bad. One example
> could be this page:
>
> http://millerwelds.com/products/multiprocess/
>
> Despite many tries, it never downloaded fully.
>
> I think that it is some kind of a networking issue, like TCP
> connections not properly following the TCP resend logic, or some such.

The fact that the problem only occurs when you're using a wireless
connection could indicate an MTU-related problem with your networking
hardware.

Try lowering the MTU on the wireless interface ("ifconfig
<your_wireless_interface> mtu 1492") and/or have iptables clamp the
tcp-mss value to the MTU. ("iptables -A OUTPUT -p tcp --tcp-flags
SYN,RST SYN -j TCPMSS --clamp-mss-to-pmtu")

KR

On 2007-12-27, KR <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> Ignoramus4611 wrote:
>>
>> It is not consistent, but some sites are particularly bad. One example
>> could be this page:
>>
>> http://millerwelds.com/products/multiprocess/
>>
>> Despite many tries, it never downloaded fully.
>>
>> I think that it is some kind of a networking issue, like TCP
>> connections not properly following the TCP resend logic, or some such.
>
> The fact that the problem only occurs when you're using a wireless
> connection could indicate an MTU-related problem with your networking
> hardware.

Could be. It did seem to be such that TCP protocol was not working
properly, which your explanation accounts for.

> Try lowering the MTU on the wireless interface ("ifconfig
><your_wireless_interface> mtu 1492") and/or have iptables clamp the
> tcp-mss value to the MTU. ("iptables -A OUTPUT -p tcp --tcp-flags
> SYN,RST SYN -j TCPMSS --clamp-mss-to-pmtu")

I like this. I have returned home, but when I visit them next time, I
will try this. That could be a few months.

i