Serious Problem...Please Help

buc99

buc99

Don't Tread on Me!
I decided to turn my imac into a web server, mailserver, ftp server, etc...
To do this I decided to wipe the drive and re-install OSX. I made this decision because of the cluttered mess on my imac would have taken forever to clean up and organize. So I backed everything up on CD's that was important and re-formatted the drive to start with a fresh OS. Everything runs fine and the system has been updated to OSX 10.1.2. However, the persistent "cable drop" problem has reared it's ugly head and I can't get rid of it. I have the imac connected to my isp through a cable modem. I have a wireless network running through an airport card and a software base station. They all connect just fine and run for at least, 1 day. Every morning I have to restart the imac because I lost my network connection. This happens whether I have been given a new dynamic IP or if my IP does not change. According to the cable company (Knology sucks a@!) they get a good connection to my cable modem. It does not matter whether or not my computer has a good connection to the cable modem. Since they have no connection problems to my cable modem, and my computer runs an OS other than Windbloze (because that is the ONLY OS they know how to support), they tell me I'm on my own. They gaurantee at least one good connection, but obviously that good connection is only with their crappy cable modems and not with the actual computer in the house. I wish I could get DSL, but that is still years away in this area because the monopoly phone system (Bellsouth) is taking thir sweet time updating the phone lines in this area. I have now gotten to the point where I am fed up with cable. Is there a way to reset the connection between the imac and the cable modem without having to shutdown my computer every morning? By the way, I have the network card first in the active network ports setup followed only by the airport card.

Someone please help.

Thanks,:)
SA
 
Does your iMac go to sleep during the night? If so this would most likely be the problem. Whenever my iMac goes to sleep it loses the connection with my cable modem and I have to restart. If you just need to reset the the cable modem, you may want to just get an electrical outlet timer. Just set it to turn off what ever is pluged in (the cable modem) and then turn is back on in ten seconds or so. this will reset the cable modem. The timers are pretty cheap and can be found at your local K-mart, Wal-mart, or hardware store:D Hope this helps:cool:
 
i use dsl but i have found that just turning the modem off and letting it wait for 30-60 secs works fine. shutting the whole setup off is unnecessary most of the time. i shut my router off at the same time so perhaps you would need to shut down airport(?) to accomplish the equivilent. somebody else will have fill in details of how airport might effect this situation.

also to avoid sleep, just go to system prefs/energy saver and set sleep for 'never'.
 
In case I wasn't clear, the timer should just be for the cable modem. This way only the modem gets shut off and restarted. On the sleep front, I have sleep put to never, but the machine is usually put to sleep by another member of my family:rolleyes: . Airport should not be affected or cause any problems.:cool:
 
About those outlet timers:

We had one for our printer server, and believe it or not, unplugging the wall-wart from the outlet isn't enough to reset it - the caps in the powersupply hold enouggh current to keep some level of activity alive within it.

Just thought I would throw that in.

anyway, does your cable modem have a reset button? Its usually in the back, and needs a pin to press it. What that does is reboot the cable modem and make it forget how many MAC addresses it has assigned an ip to.

BTW: I now allways tell my cable company I'm using windows NT - there's no use telling them I have Solaris, Mac OS X, Mac OS 9, Linux....
 
I don't think the problem is with the cable modem. I think the problem is that OSX is not renewing the IP. I do not have it set to go to sleep either. When I go to check the connection, the network preferences show all of the correct IPs and the cable company tested the connection to the cable modem and said there is no problem. What I am thinking is that there is a connection problem between the iMac and the cable modem where the OSX is not renewing the IP. Is there not a way to shutdown the internet connection from the command line and then reset it? Maybe a script could be written to do this as a cron job?

Thanks,:)
SA
 
Just to add to the list of woes ...I have had problems connecting under Mac OSX too.

I have an ADSL modem which connects every time in OS9 ...

However in OSX it will only connect during the first two minutes after the Mac has started. After that time I get a 'connection failed' message.

MY ISP says there's nothing in their database to explain this and the moden makers, Alcatel, don't reply to my requsts for advice.

I don't get the same problem when connecting with my internal 56k modem (G4 733)

Another OSX mystery ....
 
got the same problems here... machine is on 24/7 & never goes to sleep or anything - i'm hosting websites + php + mysql stuff.

i agree that it sounds like it is not the USB modem dropping the line, more like MacOSX's networking screwing up! -- i think all i need to do is to reset the networking in the OS, & reconnect - i like the idea of using cron to do this via the command line -- i think this would work....

... i'll post something in one of the techie unix guru forums - you never know!

ps: i do have another solution that i am investigating -- Smoothwall. This is a pc that runs a cut down version of linux & acts as a firewall & gateway - i have used it in the past to share a dial-up 56k connection between a number of machines (both windoze & mac) & it worked fine... the only problem i have with it is that it is another bit of kit that i have to find space for!!
 
Do you lose all your net connectivity or just your web services are failing? Are you trying to make your web server available to the internet or just your internal network?

In other words, in the morning, can you open a web browser on the iMac and view some one else's web site (macosx.com for example)? If so then you are not losing the network connection, just your web services are not responding. Likely this is because, while the mac may have a renewed IP, the web services (web, ftp. mailserver...) have cached or stored the old one.

It sounds like the cable company gives you a temporary IP. Which means you are using "DHCP" in your network settings. If you are using "Manually", then this is your problem--as it does not allow the mac to update the address. Of course those web services may not work without the IP address being set manually here. Also, if set to manually, while the cable modem may not have indicated that your IP changed, when the term expires someone else may have been granted your ip. This would cause crap for you (and them :( ), until you restart. You must use DHCP with your cable modem inorder for it to renew your network connection properly.

There are several dynamic dns providers who will update your system location and allow you to give out a site address. I have never used one, so I don't know if it will help you or not but here is link to one client for macs [ http://www.sentman.com/dyndns/ ].

Other wise, if you are set to "DHCP", and you really haven't lost all of your network connection, then starting and stopping (restarting) each web service (web, ftp, mailserver) should allow them to aquire the new IP. It is possible that the mac's DHCP is screwed up, but not that likely. At any rate you should be able to set a cron to restart those services daily.

DSL is the same as cable in this regard (they even use pppoe in some cases, which is not always connected), unless you get the business class (with a permanent IP) which is more costly. But a permanent IP is really necessary if you want to run a web server long term. And most cable companies don't offer that at all, so DSL is better in that case.

Hope this helped, happy webbing!
 
Thanks for the input. The problem has been solved since I updated to 10.1.3. The "cable drop" problem was a persistent issue with 10.1.2 and earlier. The problem had to do with Apple's DHCP and the cable industry using a PC DHCP standard. (Something like that ...) Anyways, the problem was impossible to trace and since the Cable company only supported "Windbloze", they were not much help if they could get a signal to the cable modem. What was happening was that the lease renewal every morning was not making it past the Cable modem. So while the cable modem had the new IP lease, the only IP address that would show up in the Network preferences were the Cable modem's IP and not the leased IP address. Yes DHCP was turned on. Like I said this issue has been haunting myself and many other users since "PB" came out. It has now been rectified it seems. I've been runninf 10.1.4 for awhile now without incident. I also did not have a singal incident with 10.1.3. So whatever Apple did, they managed to fix the problem.

Thanks.
SA:)
 
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