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4,024,433

ComputerBob's Guide To Internet Troubleshooting

Anyone who's spent much time on the Internet has experienced the problem at least once. I've probably experienced it hundreds of times over the years. You connect to you Internet service provider (ISP), but one or more of the following happens:

• You get an error message when you try to browse to ANY Web site
• Some Web sites show up but others give you an error message
• Web sites show up much slower than they normally do
• Web sites show up, but some of the sections on their pages are missing
• Web sites show up, but several of the images on their pages don't display

This article will help you troubleshoot the cause of those problems. It assumes that your PC itself is configured properly and working fine. In other words, if you were monkeying around with your PC's networking settings last night, and this morning, you're having trouble browsing the Internet, chances are that you caused the problem yourself by monkeying around. If that is the case, you would be wise to find someone who can set your PC's network settings back to normal, instead of trying to troubleshoot the Internet.

If your PC is fine and you're willing to do some testing, you can determine whether the problem is at your ISP, if it's at the Web site(s) that you're trying to reach, or if it's a problem with the Internet itself. Once you have that information, you can choose to notify the appropriate company and tell them what you've learned, to help them solve the problem, or you can just wait for them to fix it, confident that at least the problem is not in your computer. The other day, I couldn't reach my ComputerBob.com Web site for about 3 hours. Instead of getting frustrated about it, I did some testing and discovered that my site was still running, but there was a bad router (traffic control computer) between my computer and the computer in Colorado that stores the ComputerBob.com Web site. In other words, other people were still able to reach my site even though I couldn't reach it until someone fixed or replaced that bad router.

Here are the steps that you can use to troubleshoot your Internet problems. Do them in order, and exactly as they are described below.

1. Connect to the Internet.
2. Open an MS-DOS window.
   • In Windows 95/98, you do that by going to Start, then Programs, then MS-DOS Prompt. In other versions of Windows, the MS-DOS prompt feature may be located elsewhere or may even be hidden.
3. In the black MS-DOS window, type the following command, exactly as shown:
   • ping computerbob.com (instead of computerbob.com, you can substitute any domain name that you want to test)
4. Press the <Enter> key on your keyboard.
5. Within a few seconds, you should see that the ping command has run. Near the bottom of its report, you should also see the following line:
   • Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss)
6. The ping command does the electronic equivalent of saying "Knock! Knock! Are you there?" four times in a row (4 packets sent), with the Web site answering, "Yes, I'm here!" four times in a row (4 packets received). If you get anything less than 4 replies, then that tells you that there is a problem somewhere between your computer and the computer that stores the Web site that you pinged. Whatever the problem is, it is probably causing some of the information that is sent from the Web site to be lost on its way to you. That explains why the Web site is taking a long time to display, or it displays with one or more broken image icons. At least you know that the problem is not in your computer. Follow the steps below to figure out what's causing the problem.
7. If, when you do a "ping," it tells you that the domain name "computerbob.com" doesn't exist, then that tells you that either your ISP is having DNS problems (the DNS is the computer that tells your ISP where to go to get the Web sites that you want to see). If your ISP is a large national one, they're probably already working on the problem, but if your ISP is a small, local one, they may not have the facilities in place to automatically notify them when there's a problem, so you might want to call and tell them about the problem.
8. Run the ping command more than once if you want compare the ping reports that you get, or if you want to retest the site at a later time.
9. At this point, if you've learned everything that you wanted to know, you can close the MS-DOS window by clicking on the X in its upper-right corner. If you want to do more troubleshooting, then continue below.
10. In the black MS-DOS window, type the following command, exactly as shown:
    • tracert computerbob.com (instead of computerbob.com, you can substitute any domain name that you want to test)
11. Press the <Enter> key on your keyboard.
12. There are thousands of routers (traffic control computers) spread out all over the world. Every time you browse to a Web site, routers transfer the Web site, router-to-router-to-router, from the computer that stores it to your computer. The tracert (traceroute) command shows you a list with the name of every router between your computer and the computer that stores the Web site that you're testing. Traceroute also tells you how long it takes each router to do its job. Don't worry if it takes a few seconds for some of the routers to display their information -- some of them are configured to reply to traceroute requests as a low priority. What you're interested in is the time that traceroute reports that it takes for each router to respond. All the routers' response times should be in the same ballpark. If a routers' response time is more than about 500ms, then either that router is really busy or it may be having a problem. If any of the routers' response times show as an asterisk ( * ) instead of a time, that means that that router is losing information instead of transferring it, and it will have to be reconfigured, repaired, or replaced.
    • If a router is really bad, it will just keep repeating line after line, showing * as its response time, eventually filling up the entire MS-DOS window. If you see that happening, you can "break out" of the traceroute command by holding down the <Ctrl> key, pressing the C key once, and then releasing both keys.
    • If the bad router is one of the first couple of routers in the list, then you might want to contact your ISP, to see if it is their router, so they'll know that they need to fix it. Be sure to tell them everything that you see on the bad router's line of the traceroute report, so they'll know exactly which router is causing problems.
    • If the bad router is one of the last couple of routers, and you are testing your own Web site, you might want to contact your Web host, to see if it is their router, so they'll know that they need to fix it. Be sure to tell them everything that you see on the bad router's line of the traceroute report, so they'll know exactly which router is causing problems.
    • In a traceroute report, all of the routers between the first couple and last couple are regional or national routers owned by large telecommunication companies like AT+T, MCI, and Sprint. You probably don't have any way to contact those companies, so if they have a bad router, all you can do is wait until they reconfigure, repair, or replace it. The good news is that the big telecommunications companies constantly monitor their equipment, and usually reconfigure, repair, or replace bad equipment as soon as it goes bad, almost always within a couple of hours.
13. Run the traceroute command more than once if you want compare the traceroute reports that you get, or if you want to retest the site at a later time.
14. At this point, if you've learned everything that you wanted to know, you can close the MS-DOS window by clicking on the X in its upper-right corner. If you want to do more troubleshooting, then continue below.
15. Even though you may be having trouble reaching a Web site, people who live in other parts of the world go through different routers to get to the site than you do, so they may still be able to reach the site. One way to find out if other people can reach a Web site is to test the site from a computer that is in a different state or country.
16. Open your Web browser.
17. Go to http://www.traceroute.org/, a site that allows you to choose a server in a different state or country, and then run traceroutes from that servers to computerbob.com or any other site that you choose. That lets you see if people in other states or countries can reach the Web site that you are unable to reach.
    • If you can't reach a Web site from your location, but tracert.org shows you that servers in other states or countries can tracert that site, then the problem is probably that there is a bad router somwhere between your computer and the Web site that you're testing. Servers in other geographical areas can reach the site because they are going through different routers to get to the site than you are.
    • If you can't reach a web site from your location and servers in other states or countries can't tracert it, then there's probably either a problem at the unreachable Web site itself, or there's a problem with a router that is so close to the Web site that the neighboring routers can't find a way to route the information around the problem. You can choose to notify the Web site's company, or you can just wait and hope that they fix the problem soon.
18. Another Possibility: If you have such a bad connection that you can't perform the tests described here, or if you perform the tests described here, but you still have the same connection problems for more than one day, you should try uninstalling and then reinstalling your modem. One time, for more than 36 hours, I was unable to browse or check my email. When I called my ISP, they tried dialing in to themselves and they didn't have any problems at all. That told me that the problem was with my computer, not with my ISP. It turned out that when I had unistalled a piece of software the previous morning, at least one of the files that was deleted was a file that was also needed by my modem. By uninstalling and then reinstalling my modem, I replaced all of the files that my modem needed, and my Internet connection problems disappeared.

Well, that's about it. If you use the troubleshooting steps described here along with some logical thought processes, you'll be well on your way to knowing what's causing the problem when you have trouble browsing to a Web site. You'll be able to sound like you know what you're talking about when you talk to your ISP's tech support people, and you'll know for sure when the problem is or is not in your PC.

Or at least you'll have something to do while you're sitting there, hoping that the problem will go away.