Freezed router was: Loosing delivery address ? several times

[Karl-Egon]

Hi!



I'm using SG over years now. I have more than one accounts. But only at my first account (with the most of my SG addresses) is
loosing the real delivery address from time to time ( in the distance of several weeks).
It goes so along of month (maybe years?)

The worst problem is, I get no notice about that ? till I log in and want to check my account. THEN I get a notice:
---
Sie m?ssen Ihre echte E-Mail-Adresse speichern und best?tigen,
um Nachrichten weitergeleitet zu bekommen.
Bis dies geschehen ist, werden alle Nachrichten verworfen.
---
In the statistics, I can see, that many deliveries had passed ? but they did not reach me, because my address were lost!

Now I'm expecting very urgent responses and have to accept, that some are lost, and I can not realize which, least of all the content, or not even from which senders.

How can we fix that problem?



Regards,

Karl-Egon

Edit: correction of spelling mistakes and adjustment of the header

[SysKoll]

Hum, that's weird...

PM me (syskoll or info) your spamgourmet account name.

Just to be sure, why don't you change your sg account password?

[SysKoll]

A user and I had a discussion in PM. The discussion subject was about a router systematically freezing and crashing after a few minutes. The user is running Windows XP SP2 with IE 6 and several add-ons, on several machines connected to a home router.

The user was wondering if browsing spamgourmet can crash his router. I have some advice, and I think it's useful for many people, so I am posting the advice and troubleshooting procedure here.

I don't think that sg (or any site) can crash a router. It sounds more like a firmware problem, or a symptom of the router running out of memory or ports.

Firmware problems mean replacing the router with a different model. That's expensive, so first, test if the problem is an out-of-memory crash.

To determine if the router is crashing because of it runs out of memory, do this test:

* Shut off (power down) all computers connected to the router.
* Boot one computer on a Linux bootable CD (e.g., Ubuntu, www.ubuntu.com). Linux won't install on your drive and the CD comes clean, devoid of whacky programs that could harm a router.
* Once Linux is running, open a browser and go to one of the web sites that freeze your router.

If your router doesn't crash while you are running Linux, that means that something in your Windows machines (maybe a virus) is interfering with your router. Some viruses open a lot of different connections, and low-end routers can run out of port slots, which freezes and crashes them. Some P2P Windows programs also create a large number of connections.

Connections created by honest apps can be listed by the netstat command (yes, it has been ported to Windows). Connections created by a virus are generally stealthy: a competent virus replaces the network monitoring DLLs so that its connections cannot be listed.

Don't count on antivirus programs to find if a Windows machine is infected. AV applications are mostly worthless since most viruses now come with rootkits that prevent them from being detected. A rootkit detector might be necessary.

[Karl-Egon]

Now, finally, hello SysKoll, hello community,


I have the results of the following about the advices.

1. The loss of the delivery adress could be fixed by password change. Obviously it was spied out.

2. Now to the freezing router the following arose:

On a separate computer I have put on an ubuntu partition (Firefox is compulsory here).
And on the XP-computer regularly used for the internet I installed, in addition, Firefox.

The affected internet pages are renowned, serious sides like
spamgourmet.com
pcwelt.de
n-tv.de
etc.
The router is a Netgear TA612V, however, maybe he is not the cause, only it comes to the fore with this router.

? On all XP computers gets the router freezed by use of the Internet Explorer and the Avant browser basing on it.
? On the XP computers and also on the ubuntu computer the router freezes consistently also by use of Firefox.

Only by use of the add ons "No Script" and "Ad Block Plus" and after configuration in general blocking known AD server (above all also Google-Ads and Google-Analytics!) the problem does not appear any more. Namely continuously!

Nevertheless it is unclear if, WHICH scripts are here the malefactors.
Also Spamgourmet was an affected side and according to "No Script" only the script of Spamgourmet.com comes up on this side. No foreign scripts are found.
Can there be hidden foreign scripts?
Now, if sometimes again somebody has the problem, he may read this:

Firefox WITH configured No Script and Ad Block Plus, THIS helped, in the end.


Thank you for the attention,

greetings and best wisches for the new year,
Karl-Egon

PS: The Rootkit problems are known to me, I am using an anti virus software which also reaches against rootkits more than 90% in tests and, in addition, in suspicious factors the Rootkit Revealer.

[SysKoll]

Karl-Egon,

I am not sure I understand your results. Let me summarize: yuo boot a machine under Ubuntu, browser our site with Firefox, and the router freezes. Is that correct?

Can I ask you how you can be sure that the router is frozen, as opposed to, say, your connection being very slow? (I am sure you checked, I just want to document this).

[Karl-Egon]

Hi SysKoll,

I am not sure I understand your results.

yes, you did.

Let me summarize: yuo boot a machine under Ubuntu, browser our site with Firefox, and the router freezes. Is that correct?

Yes, I would describe it that way.

The router has LEDs, that are flashing in the rhythm of flowing data, okay?
There is one for the Internet up link and one for the LAN down link and two for the VoIP channels.

In normal case the LEDs are flickering, and if they are continuously lightning, there is no flux. Don't you think so?
Furthermore I have a proxy, which shows me, what file is actually loaded from Internet, respectively, which request is send, till it is answered. That proxy shows, that the flux is stopped. And it continues, when it is released.
If it is necessary, I could make a Wireshark capture available ... ? should I ? *g*

If scripts (I think some special scripts) are unblocked, at some regular sites (not only spamgourmet) this flux jerks to a stop (and I can reach no further web address) and after a regular timeout, the router reboots automatically (a well-known process, all LEDs are off, the yellow hook lights up, the Internet LED is flashing yellow, then green, then the other LEDs are coming up).
I can reduce the time of waiting, if I pull the power plug, wait a second and push it in. Then, the router boots promptly.

The sites are completely respectable sites like n-tv (news), PC-Welt (PC magazine), TV-info (TV program) and some else.

It happens irrespective of the operating system or the browser. Only the blocking of unwanted contents (scripts or advertising graphics) helps. REALLY!!
And all the blocking methods, that I found for Internet Explorer, did not work. Only "No Script" and "Ad Block Plus" in combination and they are only available for Firefox.

You may see no coherence, but I can reproduce it with Ubuntu, and Windows XP Pro, with Internet Explorer 6 and 7, and with Firefox 2.0.0.11.
The fault appears not immediately at the start pages, but if I change that sites a few times. I.e.,
? if I am editing some addresses in spamgourmet.com (set the number of passing mails or so);
? if I am showing the detail information of some broadcasts in tvinfo.de;
? if I am studying articles at pcwelt.de or n-tv.de; ...

I am nosy for myself about the function of that phenomenon.
But anyway, I am not trusting to Google ... *g*

And for your notice: I have a very continuously working 16 Mbit downstream cable connection. The ISP can not be the reason, I think.



Many regards,

Karl-Egon

[SysKoll]

Karl-Egon,

Since the crash does not happen when your browser does not load the javascript on HTML pages, this must mean that the router is somehow choking on the Javascript.

According to Netgear's specs (http://www.netgear.com/Products/Routers ... ifications),
the router has some kind of content filtering function. Is this function turned on? If so, turn it off an try again.

If that fails, I recommand getting another VOIP gateway, preferably not a Netgear.

Also avoid the DLINK DVG-5102S, its QoS function doesn't seem to work. Whenever I talk on the VoIP phone while downloading something, my DVG-5102S does not reserve bandwith for the voice link and I get a very hashed conversation.

[Karl-Egon]

Hi Syskoll,


that seems to be the right hint.
The router can block services and sites by url keywords.
I block no services and have this blocking list of keywords always active:

zanox.com
googlesyndication.com
2mdn.net
doubleclick.net
layer-ads.de
falkag.net
uimserv.net
advertising.com
pagead
akamai.net
webmasterplan.com
mirando.de
yieldmanager.com
adserver.itsfogo.com
expedia.de
ilove.de
ad.doubleclick.net
ligatus.de
creativeproxy
/banner/banner.htm
adition.net
mediaplex.com
/creativeproxy.web.de
planet49.com
banner/banner.htm
tradedoubler.com
adverserve.net
google-analytics.com
oas.wwwheise.de
newtention.net
adsimsar.net
banner/banner
2o7.net

Now I tried spamgourmet, n-tv and pc-welt with deactivated blocking and the router did not freeze (although using Avant Browser based on Internet Explorer upon Windows XP).

But: I do not really want to abandon the blocking.

Now, we can consider WHICH keyword is responsible for the freezing. I'm not keen on trying out every combination of the round about 40 keywords ...

In normal case, the blocking should replace the filtered content with a blocking graphic. That works usually, but not always ...
This filtering sadly blocks only sites and graphics, but no scripts!
But if you are right, it chokes on them ... that's badly!

In other respects, I was not using the two VoIP ports in the last years. Only the soft phone function on another computer (laptop). The ports are configured, ?but there is nothing plugged in.

I'm not versed about the DLINK router. But the Netgear has an option to enable QoS and adjust the bandwidth for 128~102400 kbps. Maybe it is quite hidden in the D-Link setup?



Regards,

Karl-Egon

[SysKoll]

Now I tried spamgourmet, n-tv and pc-welt with deactivated blocking and the router did not freeze (although using Avant Browser based on Internet Explorer upon Windows XP).

But: I do not really want to abandon the blocking.

I am glad that I was able to help.

If you want to keep using content blocking, my advice is to use Firefox and the Adblock Plus plugin. It gives you a list of the blocked elements on the page. That way, you can disable content blocking on the router and avoid freezes, while still blocking the content you don't want to see.

[Karl-Egon]

Hi Syskoll,



I'm very thankfully, you took my trouble.
Your essential helpful advice was the first, to use Firefox on Linux. That brought me on the way.
But it is not a really complete solution ? only a way out.

Why does the router freeze, blocking sites with the listed keywords in their url, while entering other ? unblocked and respectable ? sites?
In example: what has spamgourmet to do with THAT blocked contents?
And why does it not freeze, if I'm using Firefox with Adblock Plus and No Script for the same operation?

Yes, my regular way to avoid the routers freezings will be, using Firefox with Adblock Plus and No Script.
But sorry: I need to use the Internet Explorer and the Avant Browser for special reasons too.
And other people, who read this, maybe do not want to change from Internet Explorer to Firefox.
Adblock Plus blocks only details of websites (also links), not complete addresses due to keywords like a proxy (btw: my proxy is not reliable enough).
No Scripts blocks only scripts (not only javascript and also link scripts).
AND! Adblock Plus and No Script (and my proxy) are working only local ? the router safes the hole LAN!

So, who is using the Netgear content blocking in this way and the Internet Explorer or browsers, based of it, will constantly have this problem. The problem exists further on!

And now, for technical interested guys, the question is, WHY does the router freeze?
What is the correlation between blocking other addresses and freezing for a Netgear router?

For handle, I can live with that solution of three browsers.
Now I am very pleased, I got to know Firefox and Ubuntu. My former experiences with Firefox on Windows and with Linux were not so lucky.
Your advice came in the right time:
Firefox got to be fit for being my main browser now. And Linux is grown to Ubuntu, an interesting alternative system for me ? parallel to Windows.

Anyway: thank you, Syskoll.



Best regards,

Karl-Egon