Repeated disconnection, RAS Error

[Terry Pinnell]

First, my apologies for the gross cross-posting, but I'm unsure where
to focus this long-standing query. Also for its length - but I wanted
to provide all possibly relevant data. Please advise if there's some
other info that would help to diagnose.

-------

For a couple of months I've been getting disconnecte maybe on average
a couple of times a day while using my dial-up connection on this XP
based PC. Not a life/death issue, but annoying. It's a Demon/BT
Surftime contact, 24/7. But Demon claim it's nothing to do with them,
and after various checks on line and exchange setup BT effectively say
the same.

The closest I've got to isolating it is that I sometimes see an error
message pop-up, just before or while it's automatically re-dialling
(usually successfully BTW), which says:

"Opening port...
Error 678: The remote computer did not respond."

That led me to Administrative Tools>Event Viewer. Coinciding with the
disconnections I found lots of entries containing information like
this:
Source: RemoteAccess
Category: None
Event: 20159
User: N/A
Computer: TERRY
Description: The connection to Demon Surftime made by user xxxx using
device COM4 was disconnected.
(xxxx is my username)

From Googling and earlier newsgroup posts, it seems plain that this is
to do with RAS, which takes it technically out of my grasp. However I
did take a look in Administrative Tools>Services and, FWIW, changed
these few possibly relevant services from Manual to Automatic:
Remote Access Auto Connection Manager
Remote Access Connection Manager
Remote Procedure Call (RPC)
Remote Procedure Call (RPC) Locator

That was more an act of desperation than logically-based, but I assume
it can't do any harm. BTW, I was also surprised to find no fewer than
43 services which were 'Disabled'. I'll post separately about that, as
it worries me that maybe there are some of those that should *not* be
disabled.

Can anyone offer any insight please?

--
Terry, West Sussex, UK

[Robert Aldwinckle]

[posted from msnews ie6.browser; I don't know what perform-maintain is;
I suspect that perform_maintain was intended]

> getting disconnecte maybe on average a couple of times a day
> while using my dial-up connection

My guess would be that you have a hardware problem.

Try activating your modem log and see if there are error messages
in there which indicate if the link failed before the connection was dropped.
You can judge by timestamp but unfortunately the granularity of the modem
log is only in seconds so you may have to get several samples before it is
clear which one came first.

Go to a newsgroup which specializes in your modem for more hints
about getting diagnostics from it. E.g. some modems keep stats and
last termination diagnostics which could also give you some clues.

In my case the last time I had a symptom like this the line eventually
failed completely after weeks of intermittent failures. A telephone
technician sent out to diagnose the outage discovered that a squirrel
had set up a nest in the junction box and evidently been nipping
on the wires!


Good luck

Robert Aldwinckle
---


"Terry Pinnell" > wrote in message
...
> First, my apologies for the gross cross-posting, but I'm unsure where
> to focus this long-standing query. Also for its length - but I wanted
> to provide all possibly relevant data. Please advise if there's some
> other info that would help to diagnose.
>
> -------
>
> For a couple of months I've been getting disconnecte maybe on average
> a couple of times a day while using my dial-up connection on this XP
> based PC. Not a life/death issue, but annoying. It's a Demon/BT
> Surftime contact, 24/7. But Demon claim it's nothing to do with them,
> and after various checks on line and exchange setup BT effectively say
> the same.
>
> The closest I've got to isolating it is that I sometimes see an error
> message pop-up, just before or while it's automatically re-dialling
> (usually successfully BTW), which says:
>
> "Opening port...
> Error 678: The remote computer did not respond."
>
> That led me to Administrative Tools>Event Viewer. Coinciding with the
> disconnections I found lots of entries containing information like
> this:
> Source: RemoteAccess
> Category: None
> Event: 20159
> User: N/A
> Computer: TERRY
> Description: The connection to Demon Surftime made by user xxxx using
> device COM4 was disconnected.
> (xxxx is my username)
>
> From Googling and earlier newsgroup posts, it seems plain that this is
> to do with RAS, which takes it technically out of my grasp. However I
> did take a look in Administrative Tools>Services and, FWIW, changed
> these few possibly relevant services from Manual to Automatic:
> Remote Access Auto Connection Manager
> Remote Access Connection Manager
> Remote Procedure Call (RPC)
> Remote Procedure Call (RPC) Locator
>
> That was more an act of desperation than logically-based, but I assume
> it can't do any harm. BTW, I was also surprised to find no fewer than
> 43 services which were 'Disabled'. I'll post separately about that, as
> it worries me that maybe there are some of those that should *not* be
> disabled.
>
> Can anyone offer any insight please?
>
> --
> Terry, West Sussex, UK
>

[Terry Pinnell]

"Robert Aldwinckle" > wrote:

>[posted from msnews ie6.browser; I don't know what perform-maintain is;
>I suspect that perform_maintain was intended]
>
>> getting disconnecte maybe on average a couple of times a day
>> while using my dial-up connection
>
>My guess would be that you have a hardware problem.
>
>Try activating your modem log and see if there are error messages
>in there which indicate if the link failed before the connection was dropped.
>You can judge by timestamp but unfortunately the granularity of the modem
>log is only in seconds so you may have to get several samples before it is
>clear which one came first.
>
>Go to a newsgroup which specializes in your modem for more hints
>about getting diagnostics from it. E.g. some modems keep stats and
>last termination diagnostics which could also give you some clues.
>
>In my case the last time I had a symptom like this the line eventually
>failed completely after weeks of intermittent failures. A telephone
>technician sent out to diagnose the outage discovered that a squirrel
>had set up a nest in the junction box and evidently been nipping
>on the wires!
>
>
>Good luck
>
>Robert Aldwinckle

Thanks Robert, I'll follow up those suggestions re the modem. But the
squirrel in my case would have to be a bit of a tunneler, as I reckon
my phone lines are all underground! (The exchange did swap the
location of my 'line card', whatever that is, with no change.)

--
Terry, West Sussex, UK

[Robert Aldwinckle]

> my phone lines are all underground!

A common cause of problems with datalines used to be
water leaking into the conduits and causing short circuits.
Such problems were seasonal, occurring most often in the spring.


---


"Terry Pinnell" > wrote in message ...
> "Robert Aldwinckle" > wrote:
>
> >[posted from msnews ie6.browser; I don't know what perform-maintain is;
> >I suspect that perform_maintain was intended]
> >
> >> getting disconnecte maybe on average a couple of times a day
> >> while using my dial-up connection
> >
> >My guess would be that you have a hardware problem.
> >
> >Try activating your modem log and see if there are error messages
> >in there which indicate if the link failed before the connection was dropped.
> >You can judge by timestamp but unfortunately the granularity of the modem
> >log is only in seconds so you may have to get several samples before it is
> >clear which one came first.
> >
> >Go to a newsgroup which specializes in your modem for more hints
> >about getting diagnostics from it. E.g. some modems keep stats and
> >last termination diagnostics which could also give you some clues.
> >
> >In my case the last time I had a symptom like this the line eventually
> >failed completely after weeks of intermittent failures. A telephone
> >technician sent out to diagnose the outage discovered that a squirrel
> >had set up a nest in the junction box and evidently been nipping
> >on the wires!
> >
> >
> >Good luck
> >
> >Robert Aldwinckle
>
> Thanks Robert, I'll follow up those suggestions re the modem. But the
> squirrel in my case would have to be a bit of a tunneler, as I reckon
> my phone lines are all underground! (The exchange did swap the
> location of my 'line card', whatever that is, with no change.)
>
> --
> Terry, West Sussex, UK
>