Hang related to Internet connection

Wed Jul 7 02:41:06 UTC 2004

Pete:

Thanks for your interest and suggestions.

I'm writing this with Ximian Evolution. I loaded it along with Konqueror
BEFORE logging on to the Internet and they work fine.I can even close
them and reopen them and they load fine. But if I shut down and come
back up, then dial in and try to load them, the old hang problem appears
-- except for Konquorer. So it seems to be a problem loading the
programs and not a really an issue of ppp itself.

Being still green at this, I had to look at man top to see what you were
referring to. I ran top and my cpu usage is minimal, ranging from under
1% to 1.8% when attempting to load Evolution.

If I must make a GUI directory while on the Internet, I must use
Konqueror since Mozilla won't load. Also -- and this seems bizarre -- if
I load Ximian and Konqueror before I try dialing in with kppp, the
modem's sound works. The sound for the modem hasn't worked before as far
as I remember.

Here's the result of ifconfig after ifconfig eth0 up while I'm online:
[root at localhost root]# ifconfig
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:06:1B:D4:DF:E5
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
          Interrupt:11 Base address:0x8000 Memory:c0205000-c0205038

ppp0      Link encap:Point-to-Point Protocol
          inet addr:63.191.200.43  P-t-P:63.191.222.9 
Mask:255.255.255.255
          UP POINTOPOINT RUNNING NOARP MULTICAST  MTU:1524  Metric:1
          RX packets:243 errors:1 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:243 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:3
          RX bytes:11373 (11.1 Kb)  TX bytes:13542 (13.2 Kb)

The results of route -n was the same as before.

OK, let me summarize:

Ppp must be loaded manually, so there's a loading issue.
Once kppp gets me online, only Konqueror will load correctly.
If I load Evolution FIRST, then dial in, it'll work fine.

Do you think that the need to load ppp manually is related to the
programs not loading once I'm online? I'm under the impression that the
kernel daemon is supposed to load ppp on demand  and that it handles
modules, not programs.

Doesn't the fact that the programs hang if loaded after an Internet
connection is made indicate that kppp or ppp or the modem driver is
somehow blocking or monopolizing a resource necessary for the other
programs? What makes Konqueror different? And why the gedit hang? Does
it have the ability to serve as an e-mail program?

I'm wide open to any further tests, suggestions, etc.

On Tue, 2004-07-06 at 19:02, Pete Nesbitt wrote:
> On July 5, 2004 09:40 pm, Elmer E. Dow wrote:
> > Greetings:
> >
> > Guessing that the ethernet card may have been causing problems, I've tried
> > issuing the commands
> >     # ifconfig
> >     # ifconfig eth0 down
> > but with no apparent affect.
> >
> > Here's the result of
> >     # ifconfig
> >     # route -n
> >
> > Kernel IP routing table
> > Destination         Gateway             Genmask             Flags   Metric
> > Ref  Use Iface
> > 63.191.222.9    0.0.0.0             255.255.255.255    UH         0      0
> > 0    ppp0
> > 0.0.0.0             63.191.222.9    0.0.0.0                    UG         0
> > 0      0    ppp0
> >
> > Strangely, some software loads fine while I'm online, while other software
> > hangs or doesn't load at all. I tried a few at random with the following
> > results.
> >
> > The following loaded successfully in normal amounts of time while I was
> > online and testing:
> > GIMP
> > Kasteroids (game)
> > Kjots (text editor)
> > Kate (text editor)
> > OpenOffice
> >
> > The following failed to launch at all:
> > Gedit (text editor)
> > Balsa (e-mail)
> >
> > I have previously launched Balsa successfully while online, but it took a
> > long time (more than 5 minutes) to finally load.
> >
> > Ximian Evolution launched a small opening screen, then took about 5 minutes
> > to launch a work window. Once launched, however, it downloaded e-mail OK.
> >
> > Mozilla mail asks for account password, but once that was entered it took 3
> > to 5 minutes to load and retrieve mail.
> >
> > The e-mail programs have the worst problem, but what's going on with gedit?
> > What does this program have in common with the e-mail programs?
> >
> > By the way, a reminder that I must load ppp with
> >     modprobe ppp_async
> > and unload with
> >     modprobe -r ppp_async
> >
> > I can live with that hassle if I must, but I certainly need to fix this
> > problem of the e-mail programs taking so long to load. At least I'm making
> > progress. I've had to load a driver to get the winmodem to work, then use
> > modprobe to launch ppp, and now this. Related problems? Could this problem
> > somehow be caused by a problem with the driver or ppp itself?
> >
> > Any further suggestions are welcome. This newbie is in way over his head.
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Elmer
> >
> 
> 
> Hi,
> I'm hoping someone with ppp experience may shed some light (if that has 
> anything to do with the issue). You should bring the eth0 up, then connect 
> via ppp, then post the results of 'route -n'
> >From what you posted, because eth0 is down, there may be a route issue that is 
> not displayed.
> 
> Have you looked at 'top' while these apps are choking? After the info about 
> which apps hang, I'm less convinced it's routing because text editors  
> shouldn't care about the network.
> 
> -- 
> Pete Nesbitt, rhce
> 