Problem with dial-up connection under Linux

DarkLight · 07-16-2004, 10:26 PM

I have strange problem with my dial-up connection. Problem only one: VERY often loading of any files from Internet (including web-page's content) stall. For example, I load to my browser picture about few hundreds of kilobytes. Chance that I see whole picture is low, because on some step loading of picture stall and I can see only part of image. Same problem with loading ANY other content from the Internet; for example, with Mozilla 1.0.0 no chance to download big file - when loading of it stall, Mozilla will not continue download even if press Pause and Resume after. Please do not suggest me use downloader (wget, etc.). I already have such program. But I cannot normally surf Web because of this problem! Often I get pages with broken images or simply part of page.

I KNOW that my connection is good, as well as my provider and modem (ZyXEL omni56k Pro. Under Windows I have NO PROBLEM! Because my connection is very good I can surf Web without problem under Windows, even can download very large file without "resume" function (this ability is very useful when you wish to download a site because site-downloaders do not support "resume"). But in Linux because of this I cannot work within Internet normally. I do not wish work under Windows anymore after I buy and install CDs with Debian GNU/Linux 3.0r2... So I very appreñiate if someone help me to solve this problem.

vectordrake · 07-16-2004, 11:29 PM

I don't know for sure what's the problem, but I haven't used any Mozill versions before 1.2 and I know that I wouldn't use anything less than 1.5 now. The web has progressed so much that your 1.0 browser from 2000 is 4 years old - almost as old as IE6. Consider a browser upgrade. Try Mozilla 1.7 or Mozilla Firefox 0.9. Or forget the Mozilla hell and get Opera 7.52. Its fast and it rocks.

DarkLight · 07-17-2004, 02:20 AM

I know that Mozilla 1.0.0 is very old and I need install something else (latest version of FireFox, for example, or even try Opera). Thank you for your reply, BUT this topic not about browsers...

Problem that I described is very annoying, and even very good and new browser will change nothing while this problem exist. Because I very need Web for work, I MUST find a way to solve it, or Linux will be useless platform for me. But I have no wish to work in buggy Windows again, so I need eliminate this problem for normal and effective work under Linux.

I think that problem not in Linux itself, but somewhere within its default settings that may conflict with settings of my provider, for example, but in Windows many settings set up automatically, so within it I have no problems. Or default settings of PPP or/and TCP/IP (or of something else) are simply incorrect. But my occupation is theoretical physics, not net-programming, so I need at least some clues or suggestions what may cause such "bugs". Any ideas what can cause this problem?...

foo_bar_foo · 07-17-2004, 11:50 AM

make sure as root
lsmod doesn't have ipv6 running.
When it's running the IP protocol is wrong and all connections have to renegotiate all the time.
put
alias net-pf-10 off
in /etc/modprobe.conf
will turn it off after reboot

DarkLight · 07-21-2004, 12:16 PM

Sorry for reply with delay, simply I spend some time in try to solve this problem by myself but now I understand that I never find solution without help.

Quote:

Originally posted by foo_bar_foo
make sure as root
lsmod doesn't have ipv6 running.
When it's running the IP protocol is wrong and all connections have to renegotiate all the time.
put
alias net-pf-10 off
in /etc/modprobe.conf
will turn it off after reboot

I have no file /etc/modprobe.conf, but I have /etc/modutils/aliases, where is string "# alias net-pf-10 off". But I do not need to uncomment it because IPv6 not running - instead my Linux use IPv4.

When I tried to found solution I install new browser (Opera 7.52). It is more better, and even after my connection stall it may download rest of page's content. Unfortunately "may" not means "always". I continue to experience same problems. I have no chance to see huge objects such as Flash. Good example site http://www.go-l.com. It contain some Flash objects. When I tried to load first page I get part of Intro video! Only after second attempt I get full Intro. But even many attempts to load will not help if object is too large. Example - http://www.go-l.com/about/index.htm. Even many tries to load it give only broken Flash-object (of course my cache is turned off). But not only huge objects cannot be loaded. Sometimes I get incomplete small HTML-pages without any graphic (or with small amount of it)! As I already said under Windows I have no problems and all work correctly.

I read within last few days lot of docs but found nothing useful and even do not imagine what can cause this problem! I simply do not know what to do... Maybe using ADSL or another wide channel can solve my problem but I currently have no ability to buy it because of too high price for traffic and installation in my city. So I hope that someone help me find solution or at least answer why under Windows everything work without problem but under Linux connection very often stall...

vectordrake · 07-21-2004, 06:02 PM

Really it sounds more like the module for your modem is not negotiating properly. There are such things as bad drivers. What is the output of "lspci" for your modem? What does lsmod show for modulers loaded? Perhaps it is something different like that. Does your ISP force you to connect through a proxy? Those settings may need looking at if so.

DarkLight · 07-23-2004, 05:04 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by vectordrake
Really it sounds more like the module for your modem is not negotiating properly. There are such things as bad drivers. What is the output of "lspci" for your modem? What does lsmod show for modulers loaded? Perhaps it is something different like that. Does your ISP force you to connect through a proxy? Those settings may need looking at if so.

I use hi-end hardware modem ZyXEL omni56K Pro connected to ttyS1 port, so lspci command give nothing about my modem. I use built-in standart driver for hardware modems, so driver must be good as well as my modem. And my ISP have no proxy... But maybe info from lsmod and dmesg will help determine what cause my problem.

Code:

lsmod

Module                  Size  Used by    Tainted: P  
ppp_deflate            38944   0  (autoclean)
bsd_comp                3936   2  (autoclean)
ppp_async               6464   1  (autoclean)
ppp_generic            18728   3  (autoclean) [ppp_deflate bsd_comp ppp_async]
slhc                    4432   1  (autoclean) [ppp_generic]
nls_cp437               4384   1  (autoclean)
nls_iso8859-1           2880   0  (autoclean)
pcmcia_core            41408   0 
parport_pc             25704   1  (autoclean)
lp                      6912   0  (unused)
parport                21728   1  [parport_pc lp]
ntfs                   48544   1 
usbmouse                1760   0  (unused)
hid                    18816   0  (unused)
ip_nat_irc              2368   0  (unused)
ip_nat_ftp              2944   0  (unused)
iptable_nat            12660   2  [ip_nat_irc ip_nat_ftp]
ip_tables              10432   3  [iptable_nat]
ip_conntrack_irc        2496   0  (unused)
ip_conntrack_ftp        3200   0  (unused)
ip_conntrack           12684   3  [ip_nat_irc ip_nat_ftp iptable_nat ip_conntrack_irc ip_conntrack_ftp]
ipx                    15636   0 
ipip                    6080   0  (unused)
ip_gre                  7264   0  (unused)
msr                     1376   0  (unused)
microcode               2844   0  (unused)
cpuid                   1184   0  (unused)
apm                     9148   0 
soundcore               3236   0  (unused)
mousedev                3776   0 
evdev                   4544   0  (unused)
agpgart                29824   0  (unused)
keybdev                 1664   0  (unused)
usbkbd                  2848   0  (unused)
input                   3072   0  [usbmouse hid mousedev evdev keybdev usbkbd]
usb-uhci               20708   0  (unused)
usbcore                48032   0  [usbmouse hid usbkbd usb-uhci]

Code:

dmesg

Linux version 2.4.18-bf2.4 (root@zombie) (gcc version 2.95.4 20011002 (Debian prerelease)) #1 Son Apr 14 09:53:28 CEST 2002
BIOS-provided physical RAM map:
 BIOS-e820: 0000000000000000 - 00000000000a0000 (usable)
 BIOS-e820: 00000000000f0000 - 0000000000100000 (reserved)
 BIOS-e820: 0000000000100000 - 000000000fff0000 (usable)
 BIOS-e820: 000000000fff0000 - 000000000fff3000 (ACPI NVS)
 BIOS-e820: 000000000fff3000 - 0000000010000000 (ACPI data)
 BIOS-e820: 00000000ffff0000 - 0000000100000000 (reserved)
On node 0 totalpages: 65520
zone(0): 4096 pages.
zone(1): 61424 pages.
zone(2): 0 pages.
Local APIC disabled by BIOS -- reenabling.
Found and enabled local APIC!
Kernel command line: auto BOOT_IMAGE=Linux ro root=302
Initializing CPU#0
Detected 1660.946 MHz processor.
Console: colour VGA+ 80x25
Calibrating delay loop... 3316.12 BogoMIPS
Memory: 254644k/262080k available (1783k kernel code, 7052k reserved, 549k data, 280k init, 0k highmem)
Dentry-cache hash table entries: 32768 (order: 6, 262144 bytes)
Inode-cache hash table entries: 16384 (order: 5, 131072 bytes)
Mount-cache hash table entries: 4096 (order: 3, 32768 bytes)
Buffer-cache hash table entries: 16384 (order: 4, 65536 bytes)
Page-cache hash table entries: 65536 (order: 6, 262144 bytes)
CPU: Before vendor init, caps: 0383fbff c1c3fbff 00000000, vendor = 2
CPU: L1 I Cache: 64K (64 bytes/line), D cache 64K (64 bytes/line)
CPU: L2 Cache: 256K (64 bytes/line)
CPU: After vendor init, caps: 0383fbff c1c3fbff 00000000 00000000
Intel machine check architecture supported.
Intel machine check reporting enabled on CPU#0.
CPU:     After generic, caps: 0383fbff c1c3fbff 00000000 00000000
CPU:             Common caps: 0383fbff c1c3fbff 00000000 00000000
CPU: AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2000+ stepping 02
Enabling fast FPU save and restore... done.
Enabling unmasked SIMD FPU exception support... done.
Checking 'hlt' instruction... OK.
Checking for popad bug... OK.
POSIX conformance testing by UNIFIX
enabled ExtINT on CPU#0
ESR value before enabling vector: 00000000
ESR value after enabling vector: 00000000
Using local APIC timer interrupts.
calibrating APIC timer ...
..... CPU clock speed is 1660.9204 MHz.
..... host bus clock speed is 265.7472 MHz.
cpu: 0, clocks: 2657472, slice: 1328736
CPU0<T0:2657472,T1:1328736,D:0,S:1328736,C:2657472>
mtrr: v1.40 (20010327) Richard Gooch (rgooch@atnf.csiro.au)
mtrr: detected mtrr type: Intel
PCI: PCI BIOS revision 2.10 entry at 0xfb470, last bus=1
PCI: Using configuration type 1
PCI: Probing PCI hardware
Unknown bridge resource 0: assuming transparent
PCI: Using IRQ router default [1106/3099] at 00:00.0
Linux NET4.0 for Linux 2.4
Based upon Swansea University Computer Society NET3.039
Initializing RT netlink socket
Starting kswapd
VFS: Diskquotas version dquot_6.4.0 initialized
Journalled Block Device driver loaded
vga16fb: initializing
vga16fb: mapped to 0xc00a0000
Console: switching to colour frame buffer device 80x30
fb0: VGA16 VGA frame buffer device
Detected PS/2 Mouse Port.
pty: 256 Unix98 ptys configured
Serial driver version 5.05c (2001-07-08) with MANY_PORTS SHARE_IRQ SERIAL_PCI enabled
ttyS00 at 0x03f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
ttyS01 at 0x02f8 (irq = 3) is a 16550A
Real Time Clock Driver v1.10e
block: 128 slots per queue, batch=32
RAMDISK driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 4096K size 1024 blocksize
Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver Revision: 6.31
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
VP_IDE: IDE controller on PCI bus 00 dev 89
PCI: No IRQ known for interrupt pin A of device 00:11.1. Please try using pci=biosirq.
VP_IDE: chipset revision 6
VP_IDE: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
VP_IDE: Unknown VIA SouthBridge, contact Vojtech Pavlik <vojtech@suse.cz>
hda: WDC WD1200BB-00CAA1, ATA DISK drive
hdb: ST340810A, ATA DISK drive
hdd: CD-W512EB, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14
ide0: probed IRQ 14 failed, using default.
ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15
ide1: probed IRQ 15 failed, using default.
hda: 234441648 sectors (120034 MB) w/2048KiB Cache, CHS=14593/255/63
hdb: 78165360 sectors (40021 MB) w/2048KiB Cache, CHS=5169/240/63
hdd: ATAPI 32X CD-ROM CD-R/RW drive, 2976kB Cache
Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.12
ide-floppy driver 0.97.sv
Partition check:
 hda: hda1 < hda5 > hda2
 hdb: hdb1 hdb2 < >
floppy0: no floppy controllers found
Loading I2O Core - (c) Copyright 1999 Red Hat Software
I2O configuration manager v 0.04.
  (C) Copyright 1999 Red Hat Software
loop: loaded (max 8 devices)
Compaq CISS Driver (v 2.4.5)
fealnx.c:v2.51 Nov-17-2001
eth0: 100/10M Ethernet PCI Adapter at 0xd000, 00:02:44:2c:e4:4c, IRQ 10.
HDLC support module revision 1.02 for Linux 2.4
Cronyx Ltd, Synchronous PPP and CISCO HDLC (c) 1994
Linux port (c) 1998 Building Number Three Ltd & Jan "Yenya" Kasprzak.
ide-floppy driver 0.97.sv
Promise Fasttrak(tm) Softwareraid driver 0.03beta: No raid array found
Highpoint HPT370 Softwareraid driver for linux version 0.01
No raid array found
SCSI subsystem driver Revision: 1.00
Red Hat/Adaptec aacraid driver, Apr 14 2002
DC390: 0 adapters found
3ware Storage Controller device driver for Linux v1.02.00.016.
3w-xxxx: No cards with valid units found.
request_module[scsi_hostadapter]: Root fs not mounted
request_module[scsi_hostadapter]: Root fs not mounted
i2o_scsi.c: Version 0.0.1
  chain_pool: 0 bytes @ cff562c0
  (512 byte buffers X 4 can_queue X 0 i2o controllers)
NET4: Linux TCP/IP 1.0 for NET4.0
IP Protocols: ICMP, UDP, TCP, IGMP
IP: routing cache hash table of 2048 buckets, 16Kbytes
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 16384 bind 16384)
NET4: Unix domain sockets 1.0/SMP for Linux NET4.0.
kjournald starting.  Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
VFS: Mounted root (ext3 filesystem) readonly.
Freeing unused kernel memory: 280k freed
spurious 8259A interrupt: IRQ7.
Adding Swap: 995956k swap-space (priority -1)
EXT3 FS 2.4-0.9.17, 10 Jan 2002 on ide0(3,2), internal journal
usb.c: registered new driver usbdevfs
usb.c: registered new driver hub
usb-uhci.c: $Revision: 1.275 $ time 10:29:43 Apr 14 2002
usb-uhci.c: High bandwidth mode enabled
usb-uhci.c: USB UHCI at I/O 0xe000, IRQ 12
usb-uhci.c: Detected 2 ports
usb.c: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 1
hub.c: USB hub found
hub.c: 2 ports detected
usb-uhci.c: USB UHCI at I/O 0xe400, IRQ 12
usb-uhci.c: Detected 2 ports
hub.c: USB new device connect on bus1/2, assigned device number 2
usb.c: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 2
hub.c: USB hub found
hub.c: 2 ports detected
hub.c: USB hub found
hub.c: 2 ports detected
usb-uhci.c: v1.275:USB Universal Host Controller Interface driver
usb.c: registered new driver keyboard
usbkbd.c: :USB HID Boot Protocol keyboard driver
Linux agpgart interface v0.99 (c) Jeff Hartmann
agpgart: Maximum main memory to use for agp memory: 203M
agpgart: Detected Via Apollo Pro KT266 chipset
agpgart: AGP aperture is 32M @ 0xe0000000
mice: PS/2 mouse device common for all mice
apm: BIOS version 1.2 Flags 0x07 (Driver version 1.16)
IA-32 Microcode Update Driver: v1.09 <tigran@veritas.com>
GRE over IPv4 tunneling driver
IPv4 over IPv4 tunneling driver
NET4: Linux IPX 0.47 for NET4.0
IPX Portions Copyright (c) 1995 Caldera, Inc.
IPX Portions Copyright (c) 2000, 2001 Conectiva, Inc.
ip_conntrack (2047 buckets, 16376 max)
ip_tables: (C) 2000-2002 Netfilter core team
hub.c: USB new device connect on bus1/2/1, assigned device number 3
usb.c: USB device 3 (vend/prod 0x46d/0xc705) is not claimed by any active driver.
usb.c: registered new driver hiddev
usb.c: registered new driver hid
input0: USB HID v1.10 Mouse [Logitech Logitech] on usb1:3.0
usb-uhci.c: interrupt, status 3, frame# 1031
hiddev0: USB HID v1.10 Pointer [Logitech Logitech] on usb1:3.1
hid-core.c: v1.8 Andreas Gal, Vojtech Pavlik <vojtech@suse.cz>
hid-core.c: USB HID support drivers
usb.c: registered new driver usb_mouse
usbmouse.c: v1.6:USB HID Boot Protocol mouse driver
NTFS driver v1.1.22 [Flags: R/O MODULE]
parport0: PC-style at 0x378 [PCSPP,TRISTATE]
parport0: irq 7 detected
lp0: using parport0 (polling).
Linux PCMCIA Card Services 3.1.33
  kernel build: 2.4.18-bf2.4 unknown
  options:  [pci] [cardbus] [apm]
Intel ISA/PCI/CardBus PCIC probe:
  no bridges found.
ds: no socket drivers loaded!
VFS: Disk change detected on device ide1(22,64)
ISO 9660 Extensions: Microsoft Joliet Level 3
ISO 9660 Extensions: RRIP_1991A
VFS: Disk change detected on device ide1(22,64)
ISO 9660 Extensions: Microsoft Joliet Level 3
ISO 9660 Extensions: RRIP_1991A
VFS: Disk change detected on device ide1(22,64)
ISO 9660 Extensions: Microsoft Joliet Level 3
ISO 9660 Extensions: RRIP_1991A
VFS: Disk change detected on device ide1(22,64)
ISO 9660 Extensions: Microsoft Joliet Level 3
ISO 9660 Extensions: RRIP_1991A
VFS: Disk change detected on device ide1(22,64)
ISO 9660 Extensions: Microsoft Joliet Level 3
ISO 9660 Extensions: RRIP_1991A
VFS: Disk change detected on device ide1(22,64)
ISO 9660 Extensions: Microsoft Joliet Level 3
ISO 9660 Extensions: RRIP_1991A
VFS: Disk change detected on device ide1(22,64)
ISO 9660 Extensions: Microsoft Joliet Level 3
ISO 9660 Extensions: RRIP_1991A
VFS: Disk change detected on device ide1(22,64)
ISO 9660 Extensions: Microsoft Joliet Level 3
ISO 9660 Extensions: RRIP_1991A
VFS: Disk change detected on device ide1(22,64)
ISO 9660 Extensions: Microsoft Joliet Level 3
ISO 9660 Extensions: RRIP_1991A
VFS: Disk change detected on device ide1(22,64)
ISO 9660 Extensions: Microsoft Joliet Level 3
ISO 9660 Extensions: RRIP_1991A
VFS: Disk change detected on device ide1(22,64)
ISO 9660 Extensions: Microsoft Joliet Level 3
ISO 9660 Extensions: RRIP_1991A
NTFS: Warning! NTFS volume version is Win2k+: Mounting read-only
CSLIP: code copyright 1989 Regents of the University of California
PPP generic driver version 2.4.1
PPP BSD Compression module registered
PPP Deflate Compression module registered
VFS: Disk change detected on device ide1(22,64)
ISO 9660 Extensions: Microsoft Joliet Level 3
ISO 9660 Extensions: RRIP_1991A
PPP: VJ decompression error
PPP: VJ decompression error
PPP: VJ decompression error
PPP: VJ decompression error
PPP: VJ decompression error

I realy hope that anybody help me find solution...

DarkLight · 07-24-2004, 05:00 AM

I continue to think about problem and maybe it cause by too short timeout (few seconds for example), or specific deferents of my provider that do not cause problem under Windows, but under Linux does. Any ideas what specific deferents of my provider can cause regular stalling of connection or at least suggestion where I can edit timeouts...

mst700 · 07-24-2004, 05:08 AM

Have you looked to see if you have the cache for the web browser set?

DarkLight · 07-24-2004, 06:14 AM

Read my messages carefully! I already said that cache is off. But I wish have turn it on, because cache MUST work correctly (in Windows I have cache-proxy and everything work very fine without any problem). Unfortunately when I turn it on I cannot refresh broken pages so in Linux using of any cache is impossible... Also note that I experience problem not only in browser, I experience within ANY application! For example, because of that apt-get work very bad, connection regularly stall - then after some time apt-get said about timeout of connection and begin download next file (if any), leave previous incompletely downloaded. To continue downloading I must restart apt-get, fortunately it support "resume". But this is VERY annoying, connection stall sometimes every 30-80 KB! Sometimes even more than 1 MB downloaded without stalling, but after that connection stall anyway! When I have more than one connection, probability of stalling is much high. Because all of that I cannot work normally in Linux! When "resume" not supported (for example, when I download typical web-age in browser) I need download all again and I cannot use cache because as I already said it will save broken pages. For example I try about 5 times open http://www.drakia.com... Sometimes more objects downloaded successfully before stall, sometimes less, but every of this 5 tries to download main page (and most of other pages of this site) fail because it very huge... Also browsing without cache on dial-up is VERY slow, especially on such sites...

vectordrake · 07-24-2004, 08:32 AM

So you have the same drive on /dev/hdb as I did before the kids knocked my computer over...quiet. A gig of swap? No problems with disk caching, for sure.

What I gleaned from lsmod: you are running ip_tables. Have you tried to go online without the firewall enabled?

What I gleaned from dmesg: the last few lines--> PPP: VJ decompression error

This is a problem others have had. I didn't really have to deal with it on dialup, as I have always connected through a Windows machine so that the win-only call manager software would work. What I did find is that you either may not need the header decompression, so you can comment it out in your /etc/ppp/options file (or use the -vj) switch. You can also try to change the "vj-max-slots n" to a higher number for more slots. This may be what's dragging you down. I don't see anything about IPv6 or other protocols that may be screwing it up.

PS I found this info in the pppd man page. Kudos to its authors for a readable manual.

edited to add this question...

BTW, do you have in the /etc/ppp directory a log file of your connection? That may show us something useful. (it could be somewhere in /var/log as well - makes more sense to be there)

DarkLight · 07-25-2004, 02:57 PM

So you have the same drive on /dev/hdb as I did before the kids knocked my computer over...quiet. A gig of swap? No problems with disk caching, for sure.

Actually /dev/hdb is damaged HDD

. How my second HDD take damage is long story, but unfortunately such story will be off-topic...
Gig of swap very important because I work with "big" applications (matlab for example).

This is a problem others have had. I didn't really have to deal with it on dial-up, as I have always connected through a Windows machine so that the win-only call manager software would work. What I did find is that you either may not need the header decompression, so you can comment it out in your /etc/ppp/options file (or use the -vj) switch. You can also try to change the "vj-max-slots n" to a higher number for more slots. This may be what's dragging you down. I don't see anything about IPv6 or other protocols that may be screwing it up.

Yes! Now dmesg do not indicate errors and connection do not stall anymore! I also edit other options in /etc/ppp/options that I found useful for me but this is not very important - important is that all work fine now! As far as I understand cause of often staling is VJ decompression errors... With your help I eliminate errors and my connections work without problems...

Thank you for your help!

vectordrake · 07-25-2004, 07:01 PM

Glad to help you in your journey. Now you can help someone else, as this particular problem is not well documented and others may miss it on a google search. Your dmesg stopped at the right place. That error may have been missed if it was sandwiched in the middle somewhere

...and I learned a bit from this too