Here's one I've never seen before. Any assistance is appreciated.

The "server" box, my development laptop, is running D3NT. I can
easily telnet into any MV DBMS from localhost and do anything else I
want. If I telnet in from another XP system here (the "workstation"),
the server will go into a tight CPU loop and only come up for air
about once every 30 seconds or so. It will then start racing again.
During the pauses, a ping to my router from the server times-out, so
in effect the server loses network connectivity when the workstation
telnets in. If I disable my Local Area Connection during a pause, the
pattern is broken and I can get the server back. Re-enabling the
network device brings everything back to normal.

Environment: We have a hardware firewall/router between the internet
and our internal net. We're running NAT internally. Both systems are
fully patched XP/SP2 with Windows Firewall and no other soft
firewalls. These boxes have no problem seeing each other for file
sharing, ping, etc. I have fixed IP's, not using DHCP. I turned off
the Windows Firewall on the server but the problem can still be
created. There are no related Windows Events recorded. The
workstation will display the D3 login prompt and I can type "d3", but
that's when it appears to hang and the server goes into overdrive.
This happens with Accuterm or Windows Telnet. The NIC on the
server/laptop is an onboard National Semiconductor PCI device - I'm
not experiencing any other network issues and I haven't heard any
reports of D3 misbehaving with laptop NICs, but then again, how many
people are telnetting into laptops...

Did I leave any info out?

Thanks.
Tony

Hi Tony: The good notice is i had seen this some months ago. The bad
notice is i did not find out a good solution. I am quite sure it has
something to be with the SP2 Firewall and the router firewall loosing
something. In the situation of my customer it was not an important
server, it was just a test server so i reinstall XP WITHOUT SP2, open
the telnet port on the router/firewall and redirect it to the laptop.
Everything works.

joseba

Tony i forgot: My usual problems with laptops usually are their
"intelligent" way of "sleeping" things. F.I. with VMware i need to make
a network loop cable with the input pins to the output pins. If not,
the laptop always disconnect the network card. Take a look at the
energy options. Of course i never use screen savers etc. on servers.
But i do not think this is your case

joseba

G'day Tony,

You forgot to mention which version of D3 you are running - it CAN make
a difference, though recent releases have had better telnet servers.

Things I'd check would be :

- turning firewall off on both systems - has been a real pain at some
sites

- do you have "internet connection sharing" enabled? If so, turn it off
!

- do you see the problem when you move BIG files (copy a couple of
hundred megs) between the machines

- check the default gateways and routes on both machines - there can
sometimes be beneits of DHCP


When you say you are running NAT internally, do you just mean that your
router provides NAT, or something else ?

Thanks for the responses so far.

- This is D3 6.0 ... just kidding, it's the latest 7.4.x.
- I'll try the firewall suggestion.
- ICS, no. Here's the config, single NIC in each box.
PC/NIC<>RJ45<>router<>cablemodem<>big-bad-internet
PC/NIC<>RJ45<--^
I don't believe the router is filtering internal Telnet traffic but
I need to check on that.
- large data transfer no problem
- dhcp, I had issues with some configs and MS Virtual PC accessing LAN
systems, so and switched to static IP but I've worked around those
issues and might try switching back. I'd like to understand the
problem though, this is obviously quite brutal.

Mark Brown also asked what task manager showed when the system froze.
Well, when the CPU spins the task manager doesn't refresh, so I see
nothing, and by the time the system unfreezes the problem is gone so
task manager has nothing to show then either - quite paradox, eh?

I haven't had time to work on this too much, it's obviously difficult,
not to mention traumatic, to take the time to force my primary
development system into a non-responsive state. I'll come back to
this thread when I have more info. Any other notes are welcome.

Thanks again.
T

"Ross Ferris" <rossf (AT) stamina (DOT) com.au> wrote:

Tony Gravagno wrote:
Might I respectfully suggest that you eliminate all external networking
components by connecting the two laptops together using a cross-over UTP
cable. If the problem's still there, it is between the two laptops. If it
isn't, then it would be worth spending more time investigating the router,
cablemodem, etc., in more detail.

As another suggestion, as nobody else has mentioned it, (although it does
feel a little "unnatural" offering such simplistic advice to you) have you
shut down all unnecessary services on both laptops?

Last, but by no means least, I have seen similar (not D3 related though)
with a client using Norton Internet Security. The solution in that instance
was to un-install Norton and use alternatives.

HTH

With Kindest Regards

Mike Wooding

Norton!

As far as I'm concerned , Norton is the anti-christ when it comes to
screwing up networks. We get no end of problems relating to printers that
won't print, telnets that won't work etc. that are all down to Norton
"taking over" the PC's in question. It sounds quite likely that this could
be the problem if Tony is using Norton.

I absolutely refuse to have Norton in my network anywhere.

I can't think how SP2 could be causing a problem of this magnitude though I
suppose it might - I don't have any specific expertise on D3 Telnet, but I
run jBase on my XP/SP2 machine here without a problem (though I don't run
the windows firewall preferring a hardware solution).

Hopefully Tony, you find the solution soon.. Nothing worse than having your
development server grind to a halt on you!

Regards

"Mike Wooding" <mikewooding (AT) email (DOT) com> wrote

Do you have a gigabit card?
Raining Data made me deactivate my onboard card and install a 10/100.
(And do not use a linksys, not recomended by Raining Data either)

Tony Gravagno wrote:

To answer the questions:
I tried turning off Windows Firewall on both systems. I am
using Norton AntiVirus but I do not run Norton Internet Security or
any other soft firewall products. (Fear of the antichrist as Simon
alludes? No, but how many firewalls do we really need?)
The card is a generic onboard 10/100Mb/s. Mike's suggestion
to remove all middle-tiers is good but not necessary at this point.

Here's the latest info which tells me this is definitely a D3NT issue:

If I come in as user 'dm' in D3NT the lockup occurs at the same place
every time. I created a user called 'null' with sys1 privs and
removed all of the macros that get executed by default. On login I'm
prompted for an MD where I enter DM and get to TCL OK. I can set Term
but some other commands cause lockup. Accessing mds with sys1 tells
me I don't have the correct privs (so internally it must be reading
Users and MDS). Setting sys2 and logging in again I lockup on any
file access, VME or FSI. (I had to set sys2 from the localhost to
avoid lockup). It seems like any TCL2-class verb and any ACCESS-class
verb executed from the workstation will cause server lockup in D3NT.
This is the weirdest thing I've seen in a LONG time.

I'm running MS Virtual PC on this server/laptop too. I booted up my
Linux environment and can telnet into here from the workstation with
no problem. (My NIC is bridged with a loopback so that I can get into
VPC like this.) I can do anything I want in Linux through this remote
telnet - no lockups. I can boot D3Linux and do anything I want in
there as well. This points directly to D3NT.

I only have so much time for diagnostics like this but my next step is
to report this to RD Support (which is what I'd suggest anyone here to
do at this point). I had an idea from the start that this was a D3
issue which is why I brought it to CDP, but this is apparently not a
recognized issue.

I'll let you know what happens. Thanks again for your well considered
responses!!

T


"Kilo MicroAir" <kilomike[at]gci.net> wrote:

one last trick to try -- go into services applet of control panel and make sure
the d3vme task is launched as userid administrator. Clutching at straws,
but easy to check...