A warning to ADSL users

[Redspan]

After several days and many hours of investigation and troubleshooting I have just managed to upload a basic site from V6. I uploaded over a modem connected to a different analog line to that over which my ADSL line runs.

I have v4, v5, and v6 on my PC and ALL of them hung soon after the upload stage of the refresh had begun i.e. after the first few files had been uploaded when attempting a refresh over the ADSL link. Why would all three versions hang at roughly the same stage? What is wrong with the ADSL connections? Exhaustive testing has found no errors or packet loss on the network.

I have suggested that Actinic look into this problem and find an answer. With more and more people using ADSL in small offices and at home it is bound to come up more often. As it is I will have to switch to an analog modem every time I want to do a refresh of the site. This problem has been documented in a trouble ticket with Actinic but I am posting it here for the benefit of other users.

[garyhay]

I have used V5 and V6 with ADSL no problem. Try checking you firewall settings

[Redspan]

I'm not saying it never works - it used to for me too - I am simply saying that it can clearly does fail.

This problem has had the attention of all parties concerned - the hosting company, Actinic, and the ISP. So far no one has come up with a satisfactory explanantion.

[Mike Hughes]

I've used actinic over ADSL for more than 18 months without a problem.

Given that this appears to be unique to you and your PC/ADSL setup, it might be worth thinking of what in particular you might have changed since the last time it worked.

Mike

[Redspan]

That's just is - nothing has been changed. I have been using ADSL for 8 months with no problems but now the only way I can update my site using Actinic is over a modem. I can still FTP and everything else over ADSL using other applications.

Naturally, checking what might have changed at my end was one of the first things I did.

[Darren B]

hi

i am just waiting for my ADSL connection to go live, in 4 days, this could be interesting as prior to booking it i checked with BT, Actinic & Internetters and everyone told me there are no problems.

Could it be you speed I have heard that some 1Mb connections do cause errors. I am going for the BT 500k connection, not the fastest on the market but a damn faster than my modem.

I will keep you posted whether it passes or fails

Cheers for the information
Darren

[garyhay]

Can you FTP to the site with the ADSL connection?

Who is your ISP and do you have fixed IP?

This could be a long shot but I do know that installing RealOne Player (only god knows, why anyone would (BBC Take Note)) can cause your ADSL to fail "Kind of"

It can cause a TCP/IP error code: 31.

The only issue I have had with ADSL were fixed after rolling back to before I installed RealOne Player. System Restore

[Redspan]

Yes I can FTP over ADSL using AceFTP (although Dreamweaver often times out too).

My ISP is Aviators.net (houxhou.com). I have a static IP address and router running PAT.

I'll try what you suggested.

[Mike Hughes]

The other thing you might want to think about is your firewall (or NAT in your router).

FTP can sometimes confuse firewalls because the there are two connections, a control connection established to the server, and a data connection that is usually established from the server back to the client. This is what can cause a problem as the router/firewall needs to accept the incoming TCP connection for the data channel.

Usually, modern kit can sort this out by itself, but I've had the occasional strange result from Zonealarm when using FTP and you could potentially get a similar problem with NAT. (the reason I'm thinking down this road is that obviously your modem is not going through your router).

You can change the direction of the data connection by using 'passive mode' for FTP rather than active mode. AceFTP appears to use passive mode by default (at least mine does).

You can try using passive mode in Actinic by ticking the 'use passive mode' box in the 'advanced/network setup' section.

Mike

[Redspan]

Thanks for the suggestion Mike but Actinic pointed that out some time ago. Besides, it was already selected.

[Mike Hughes]

Hmm, that's got me stumped.

I have to say that I still think there are really only two probable options.

1) A problem somewhere in the security options for the router or PC firewall if you have one. This seems the most likely based on the type of functionality they provide and the fact that the problem only occurs with connections through the router.

2) An interaction problem between Actinic and your PCs network drivers. Though this seems unlikely as there are many other people using the same setup without problems (and the fact that the dial-up adapter software seems to be working OK).

I'm really sorry I can't be more help. I find my ADSL connection a godsend and don't know how I'd cope if it stopped working.

Let me know when you find out what the problem is.

Mike

[david_howkins]

A tale with a happy ending

I've just joined this forum, and felt I had to add my own little tale for the benefit of others.

Been happily using V4 for about 18 months, switched from modem to Freeserve (BT) ADSL about 6 months ago. Again no problem.

Then last week, a disaster struck - had horrible problems with Windows XP - a registry corruption - meant I had to do a clean install of XP.

No problems though as all Actinic data was safe.

My new XP install required me to do a fresh install of Actinic Catalog as of course the new registry was clean to.

So made a safe copy of the actinic folder, did a new actinic install and copied my old actinic folder back and applied patches.

Then - couldn't publish - actinic hung after a few files worth of upload, ended up trying he network test, which still hung on tesing write permissions. I went round in circles, going through the re install again, emailing my isp to see if they had changed anything.

Then low and behold, in the knowledgebase (and in these forums) found the 'PassiveFTP' registry fix, which I applied and hey presto! It all worked.

I am running ZoneAlarm too.

Odd thing about all this is, before I had my xp problems, I never had to set this registry entry up, so why now?

D

[garyhay]

Hmm

This rings bells with me. I had a corrupt registry and reinstalled XP.

My ADSL setting was retained and I had to get a registry hack from BT before it would work again.

Ended up using format with mbr

Guess thats what make the difference between XP Certified and Not?