Rising FW and Net Connection Issue

Im having some troubles with my net connection.

Lets start with hardware. Its a 2Wire wireless router from ATT. I have my laptop hardwired via ethernet, my wifes laptop is wireless.

Im having trouble pinpointing the issue. Weather or not its my firewall thats software side or if its the wireless router.

I have noticed the issue on my laptop, but not on my wifes. However I never use her laptop for net browsing. I only maintain the security software and do periodical scans.

Now on to what the issue is. Im on Win 7 x64 Pro using the latest Firefox every now and then Ill be browsing just fine and then Ill open a few more tabs. Those tabs will display the loading animation, but never gets anywhere and then any Firefox window after that has the same effect. The only way I can get anywhere is to shut down all the FF windows and start fresh.

I dont think its the firewall. FF is allowed as well as all the usual programs that require net access. I havent yet experienced the issue with the firewall off however Ive only began to test that.

Any ideas on how to go about testing or what other causes could be?

 

check eventviewer for errors or warnings. also generate a System Health Report as it might offer more clues

 

Where would it be in the event viewer?

I generated a health report. Ill upload it to my Mediafire account. Would you mind taking a look through it? The Saitek thing I saw in it is fine. Its for my X52/ST290 Pro Flight stick.

Health Report Download:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/3n3eggnz25j/AsusM50SV-A1 Health Report.html

 

see for eventviewer
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/What-information-appears-in-event-logs-Event-Viewer

trying to find what caused the service to stop, 1st entry from the report posted. Are you running antivirus?

 

Yes. Ignore the issues with the antivirus and firewall. Im using Rising FW and Avira Premium for my AV. Ive also got MBAM and A2 as on demand scanners.

I managed to get the service uninstalled. Ill see what happens upon a reinstall.

 

Service didnt affect anything. Its now happening on another connection in another house about 20 minutes away on a different ISP. Im going to chalk it up to the operating system or the browser now. It may very well be FF acting up on me. Any ideas on where to look for this issue now?

 

Any ideas on how to troubleshoot FF effectively from here?

 

Which version are you running? Free or the pay version. I had so many issues with RFW where it would block all access to other PCs on the network. No matter what I did it would block them! Once it was removed everything was normal again.

 

It was the free version. I got rid of it last night. I havent had time today to test anything else out. Ill give it a few hours and see what happens.

Its a shame too. Its a feature packed straight up firewall without HIPs and its very light.

 

It's only FF browser blocked and not IE? If so it's a FF issue. Next time it happens, open a command line and type/enter: "ipconfig" (no quotes) and do you see a valid ip address? Also from command line type/enter "ping xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx" where x's are your router's LAN-side ip address (usually 192.168.1or0.1). Do you see replys? You could even try pinging a website address such as www.google.com. This latter check will test the WAN-side connection. it does, however, seem to be a FF or Win 7 issue.

One thing that's happening to me on Win 7 (also 64 bit) is I lose my network connection for any browser or email after I re-boot the router (something I do on occasion when I make a change to its settings). It never fails. The way I fix it is to run a ipconfig /renew. This never occurred to me with other O/S'.

*EDIT*

sorry, another I forgot to mention, not sure how good the fw's logging is, but you may also want to check there for possible clues.

 

My router is set to block requests to pings regardless of where they come from. Its stealthed to all port scans and pings.

Regardless it does have a legitimate IP address assigned by my ISP through PPPoE.

 

Even when pings are sent from your machine?? They should not be blocked on the router's WAN-side (your pc -> router connection) interface.

No doubting that here. I think the problem, if not FF or Win 7, is possibly on your router's connection (WAN-side) to your pc.

 

How do I ping routers WAN side to test that?

 

Well I looked up the IP via cmd. Turns out I pinged the wrong IP. I did ping it and everything came back fine.

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p187/whitedragon5515/Untitled1-4.png
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p187/whitedragon5515/Untitled-16.png

 

That is good as long as the ping is still successful when FF loses connection.

 

I uninstalled FF. Im currently testing the issue with another browser. So basically I have to wait until it happens again and then do a ping test again?

 

Yes..

 

Until then is there any other software I can use to monitor the IP change locally?

How long do you think is a fair time frame to see if it happens in another browser?

 

There are some utilities available but it's easier just to use the "ipconfig" at the cmd line if and when the problem happens. Honestly, though, I don't think it's a router issue. It's just something that can be checked quickly and easily enough to facillitate the process of narrowing the problem down. If you see an ip address that starts as: 169.256...then that would indicate a problem, as this would be an autoconfiguration ip address and not a valid one starting with the usual 192.168... for typical home routers.

Well, maybe take the average time for the FF issue and double that. I do encourage you to also check the fw logs for possible "Block" entries if the problem resurfaces.

 

I think switching browsers fixed the issue.

Its unfortunate that Chrome doesnt have the add-on support that FF does. Im going to try getting rid of the left over FF traces and reinstall and see if it helps out.

Im using Win 7 Firewall Control with the Windows 7 Firewall.

 

It seemed a browser issue was at play here. Also, I think you'll really like the fw control in Win 7. You won't get get any unexpected surprises with it as so often happens in many software fw's. If something doesn't work it will almost exclusively be the result of a rules issue, rather than some bug or other unpredictable behaviour. You might also perceive faster browsing speeds with Win fw, too. Best of luck!

 

Im actually having an issue currently with the Win 7 firewall and my bittorrent client, uTorrent.

uTorrent reports that its not connectible due to a router or NAT error. Although I am still getting traffic through from AIX (BF2 Mod). The speedguide to test if the port is forwarded properly reports that the port does not appear to be open. I have allowed uTorrent both in inbound and outbound traffic and I have allowed it on Private and Public connections and still no change in status. Any clues on this?

 

Did you fix your issues?

 

Yup. It had to do with FF. And with the uTorrent issue it was all based on active profiles and the rules made for each profile.