"you appear to be offline"

What is the purpose of this message from the system tray?

I've seen it appear while in the middle of an 8Mb/s transfer (so clearly I'm not offline), and I've seen it not appear when my router needs rebooting and nothing can connect to the internet at all.

It seems to have no grasp of reality whatsoever.

Undersized hippopotamus wrote:
What is the purpose of this message from the system tray?

I've seen it appear while in the middle of an 8Mb/s transfer (so clearly
I'm not offline), and I've seen it not appear when my router needs
rebooting and nothing can connect to the internet at all.

It seems to have no grasp of reality whatsoever.

Network connection status has an "active" probing method
and a "passive" probing method. The active probing method talks
to a microsoft server, does a basic DNS lookup, then issues
an http:// request and receives a very short text file with
a couple words in it as a response. The node consulted, probably
isn't the one mentioned in the article. (Win10 might use a
different node.)

The passive probing method monitors normal traffic, for a normal
response. This article doesn't really solve your problem.

https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/...n-status-icon/

This one shows some registry entries.

https://social.technet.microsoft.com...rverpowershell

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\NlaSvc\Para meters\Internet
"PassivePollPeriod" dword 00000005

The other way to clamp down on it, is the Notification control. There
is an entry called "Network", and you could switch off Notification
there if you want, as a last ditch effort at control. You could
leave the icon, as the icon could switch states if you were
really offline, and it wasn't a burp or hiccup.

https://social.technet.microsoft.com...getfile/187817

*******

There's a little bit of info on passive polling here.

https://support.umbrella.com/hc/en-u...llow-Triangle-

"Appendix A: Passive Polling

Windows also uses a technique called 'Passive Polling' to monitor
for traffic received from the internet. If the "No Internet Access"
warning is displayed incorrectly it is likely your environment
is affected by an issue with Passive Polling.

Passive Polling works by analyzing the TTL (Time To Live)
in the IP header of TCP/UDP packets. The TTL is analyzed to
determine how many "hops" the packet has taken to reach the computer.

When a received packet has crossed more than the default of 8 hops
the system is deemed to have Internet Connectivity.

In some circumstances the Passive Polling technique may be inconsistent,
for example:

Running Windows in a desktop virtual machine such as Parallels Desktop
or VMware Fusion/Workstation.

When other networking software such as firewalls, proxy servers,
or certain VPN clients reset the TTL.

In an environment where there is a low number of packets received
from the internet. For example, when Internet Access is strictly
locked down.

When multiple network interfaces are connected, passive polling may fail
on one or more of these.
"

Further down, we can see how these might help:

Reduce the Passive Hop count threshold to 1 (this is the minimum):

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\NlaSvc\Para meters\Internet\
"MinimumInternetHopCount" DWORD 1

That would take the place of the default hop count of 8 for detecting
Internet-bound packets. It would mean that virtually any traffic
on the affected port, would "satisfy" the passive probing technique.
However, a total lack of traffic on the port in question, would
still result in the passive method detecting a failure. It doesn't
really handle "zero" traffic all that well.

Changing the passive polling period isn't really a solution,
unless some value is "infinity" :-) They bumped it up by a factor
of 6 in the example.

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\NlaSvc\Para meters\Internet
"PassivePollPeriod" dword 30

Whereas that notification control dialog, we could leave the icon
alone, and continue to have a networking icon in the tray area,
and just switch off Notifications. The icon status should differentiate
between solid failures, versus the (wrong) transient notifications
you get via the notification mechanism.

Take careful notes, for when Microsoft "fixes" this again.
In their own special "rinse and repeat" way. You might have
to undo your changes later.

Paul (who is still waiting for MSFT to fix his broken Win10 webcam,
which worked just fine thanks, in 10240)

On Sun, 28 Oct 2018 22:06:47 -0000, Paul wrote:

Undersized hippopotamus wrote:
What is the purpose of this message from the system tray?

I've seen it appear while in the middle of an 8Mb/s transfer (so clearly
I'm not offline), and I've seen it not appear when my router needs
rebooting and nothing can connect to the internet at all.

It seems to have no grasp of reality whatsoever.

Network connection status has an "active" probing method
and a "passive" probing method. The active probing method talks
to a microsoft server, does a basic DNS lookup, then issues
an http:// request and receives a very short text file with
a couple words in it as a response. The node consulted, probably
isn't the one mentioned in the article. (Win10 might use a
different node.)

The passive probing method monitors normal traffic, for a normal
response. This article doesn't really solve your problem.

https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/...n-status-icon/

This one shows some registry entries.

https://social.technet.microsoft.com...rverpowershell

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\NlaSvc\Para meters\Internet
"PassivePollPeriod" dword 00000005

The other way to clamp down on it, is the Notification control. There
is an entry called "Network", and you could switch off Notification
there if you want, as a last ditch effort at control. You could
leave the icon, as the icon could switch states if you were
really offline, and it wasn't a burp or hiccup.

https://social.technet.microsoft.com...getfile/187817

*******

There's a little bit of info on passive polling here.

https://support.umbrella.com/hc/en-u...llow-Triangle-

"Appendix A: Passive Polling

Windows also uses a technique called 'Passive Polling' to monitor
for traffic received from the internet. If the "No Internet Access"
warning is displayed incorrectly it is likely your environment
is affected by an issue with Passive Polling.

Passive Polling works by analyzing the TTL (Time To Live)
in the IP header of TCP/UDP packets. The TTL is analyzed to
determine how many "hops" the packet has taken to reach the computer.

When a received packet has crossed more than the default of 8 hops
the system is deemed to have Internet Connectivity.

In some circumstances the Passive Polling technique may be inconsistent,
for example:

Running Windows in a desktop virtual machine such as Parallels Desktop
or VMware Fusion/Workstation.

When other networking software such as firewalls, proxy servers,
or certain VPN clients reset the TTL.

In an environment where there is a low number of packets received
from the internet. For example, when Internet Access is strictly
locked down.

When multiple network interfaces are connected, passive polling may fail
on one or more of these.
"

Further down, we can see how these might help:

Reduce the Passive Hop count threshold to 1 (this is the minimum):

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\NlaSvc\Para meters\Internet\
"MinimumInternetHopCount" DWORD 1

That would take the place of the default hop count of 8 for detecting
Internet-bound packets. It would mean that virtually any traffic
on the affected port, would "satisfy" the passive probing technique.
However, a total lack of traffic on the port in question, would
still result in the passive method detecting a failure. It doesn't
really handle "zero" traffic all that well.

Changing the passive polling period isn't really a solution,
unless some value is "infinity" :-) They bumped it up by a factor
of 6 in the example.

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\NlaSvc\Para meters\Internet
"PassivePollPeriod" dword 30

Whereas that notification control dialog, we could leave the icon
alone, and continue to have a networking icon in the tray area,
and just switch off Notifications. The icon status should differentiate
between solid failures, versus the (wrong) transient notifications
you get via the notification mechanism.

Take careful notes, for when Microsoft "fixes" this again.
In their own special "rinse and repeat" way. You might have
to undo your changes later.

Paul (who is still waiting for MSFT to fix his broken Win10 webcam,
which worked just fine thanks, in 10240)

I've only had this happen on a slow machine. Perhaps something is taking longer than Windows expects?

But I don't understand why it didn't warn me when there was no connectivity at all. My router had crashed, there was no way to connect to the internet whatsoever.

Undersized hippopotamus wrote:
On Sun, 28 Oct 2018 22:06:47 -0000, Paul wrote:

Undersized hippopotamus wrote:
What is the purpose of this message from the system tray?

I've seen it appear while in the middle of an 8Mb/s transfer (so clearly
I'm not offline), and I've seen it not appear when my router needs
rebooting and nothing can connect to the internet at all.

It seems to have no grasp of reality whatsoever.

Network connection status has an "active" probing method
and a "passive" probing method. The active probing method talks
to a microsoft server, does a basic DNS lookup, then issues
an http:// request and receives a very short text file with
a couple words in it as a response. The node consulted, probably
isn't the one mentioned in the article. (Win10 might use a
different node.)

The passive probing method monitors normal traffic, for a normal
response. This article doesn't really solve your problem.

https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/...n-status-icon/


This one shows some registry entries.

https://social.technet.microsoft.com...rverpowershell


HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\NlaSvc\Para meters\Internet
"PassivePollPeriod" dword 00000005

The other way to clamp down on it, is the Notification control. There
is an entry called "Network", and you could switch off Notification
there if you want, as a last ditch effort at control. You could
leave the icon, as the icon could switch states if you were
really offline, and it wasn't a burp or hiccup.

https://social.technet.microsoft.com...getfile/187817

*******

There's a little bit of info on passive polling here.

https://support.umbrella.com/hc/en-u...llow-Triangle-


"Appendix A: Passive Polling

Windows also uses a technique called 'Passive Polling' to monitor
for traffic received from the internet. If the "No Internet Access"
warning is displayed incorrectly it is likely your environment
is affected by an issue with Passive Polling.

Passive Polling works by analyzing the TTL (Time To Live)
in the IP header of TCP/UDP packets. The TTL is analyzed to
determine how many "hops" the packet has taken to reach the
computer.

When a received packet has crossed more than the default of 8 hops
the system is deemed to have Internet Connectivity.

In some circumstances the Passive Polling technique may be
inconsistent,
for example:

Running Windows in a desktop virtual machine such as Parallels
Desktop
or VMware Fusion/Workstation.

When other networking software such as firewalls, proxy servers,
or certain VPN clients reset the TTL.

In an environment where there is a low number of packets received
from the internet. For example, when Internet Access is strictly
locked down.

When multiple network interfaces are connected, passive
polling may fail
on one or more of these.
"

Further down, we can see how these might help:

Reduce the Passive Hop count threshold to 1 (this is the minimum):

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\NlaSvc\Para meters\Internet\
"MinimumInternetHopCount" DWORD 1

That would take the place of the default hop count of 8 for detecting
Internet-bound packets. It would mean that virtually any traffic
on the affected port, would "satisfy" the passive probing technique.
However, a total lack of traffic on the port in question, would
still result in the passive method detecting a failure. It doesn't
really handle "zero" traffic all that well.

Changing the passive polling period isn't really a solution,
unless some value is "infinity" :-) They bumped it up by a factor
of 6 in the example.

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\NlaSvc\Para meters\Internet
"PassivePollPeriod" dword 30

Whereas that notification control dialog, we could leave the icon
alone, and continue to have a networking icon in the tray area,
and just switch off Notifications. The icon status should differentiate
between solid failures, versus the (wrong) transient notifications
you get via the notification mechanism.

Take careful notes, for when Microsoft "fixes" this again.
In their own special "rinse and repeat" way. You might have
to undo your changes later.

Paul (who is still waiting for MSFT to fix his broken Win10 webcam,
which worked just fine thanks, in 10240)

I've only had this happen on a slow machine. Perhaps something is
taking longer than Windows expects?

But I don't understand why it didn't warn me when there was no
connectivity at all. My router had crashed, there was no way to connect
to the internet whatsoever.

Only passive networking was happening at the time. Perhaps the
background network activity (ARP or whatever) from your PC, was
sufficient to keep the passive monitoring happy or something.

With your router crashed, there might still have been packets
using the switch side of the router, and comms there are
"mostly mechanical", and code doesn't have to run on the router.

With the cable unplugged on the other hand, you could lose
"heartbeat", and the PHY could raise an exception. I don't
remember the details of how heartbeat works any more, but
something regularly buzzes between the computer and the
router to prove the wire is there.

Going from Ethernet Port to Wifi on a router, probably
requires that the router code run properly. Ethernet Port
to Ethernet Port on the four LAN connectors, is a "free lunch".
Going between dissimilar LAN items takes some processor.

Paul

On Mon, 29 Oct 2018 00:47:00 -0000, Paul wrote:

Undersized hippopotamus wrote:
On Sun, 28 Oct 2018 22:06:47 -0000, Paul wrote:

Undersized hippopotamus wrote:
What is the purpose of this message from the system tray?

I've seen it appear while in the middle of an 8Mb/s transfer (so clearly
I'm not offline), and I've seen it not appear when my router needs
rebooting and nothing can connect to the internet at all.

It seems to have no grasp of reality whatsoever.

Network connection status has an "active" probing method
and a "passive" probing method. The active probing method talks
to a microsoft server, does a basic DNS lookup, then issues
an http:// request and receives a very short text file with
a couple words in it as a response. The node consulted, probably
isn't the one mentioned in the article. (Win10 might use a
different node.)

The passive probing method monitors normal traffic, for a normal
response. This article doesn't really solve your problem.

https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/...n-status-icon/


This one shows some registry entries.

https://social.technet.microsoft.com...rverpowershell


HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\NlaSvc\Para meters\Internet
"PassivePollPeriod" dword 00000005

The other way to clamp down on it, is the Notification control. There
is an entry called "Network", and you could switch off Notification
there if you want, as a last ditch effort at control. You could
leave the icon, as the icon could switch states if you were
really offline, and it wasn't a burp or hiccup.

https://social.technet.microsoft.com...getfile/187817

*******

There's a little bit of info on passive polling here.

https://support.umbrella.com/hc/en-u...llow-Triangle-


"Appendix A: Passive Polling

Windows also uses a technique called 'Passive Polling' to monitor
for traffic received from the internet. If the "No Internet Access"
warning is displayed incorrectly it is likely your environment
is affected by an issue with Passive Polling.

Passive Polling works by analyzing the TTL (Time To Live)
in the IP header of TCP/UDP packets. The TTL is analyzed to
determine how many "hops" the packet has taken to reach the
computer.

When a received packet has crossed more than the default of 8 hops
the system is deemed to have Internet Connectivity.

In some circumstances the Passive Polling technique may be
inconsistent,
for example:

Running Windows in a desktop virtual machine such as Parallels
Desktop
or VMware Fusion/Workstation.

When other networking software such as firewalls, proxy servers,
or certain VPN clients reset the TTL.

In an environment where there is a low number of packets received
from the internet. For example, when Internet Access is strictly
locked down.

When multiple network interfaces are connected, passive
polling may fail
on one or more of these.
"

Further down, we can see how these might help:

Reduce the Passive Hop count threshold to 1 (this is the minimum):

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\NlaSvc\Para meters\Internet\
"MinimumInternetHopCount" DWORD 1

That would take the place of the default hop count of 8 for detecting
Internet-bound packets. It would mean that virtually any traffic
on the affected port, would "satisfy" the passive probing technique.
However, a total lack of traffic on the port in question, would
still result in the passive method detecting a failure. It doesn't
really handle "zero" traffic all that well.

Changing the passive polling period isn't really a solution,
unless some value is "infinity" :-) They bumped it up by a factor
of 6 in the example.

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\NlaSvc\Para meters\Internet
"PassivePollPeriod" dword 30

Whereas that notification control dialog, we could leave the icon
alone, and continue to have a networking icon in the tray area,
and just switch off Notifications. The icon status should differentiate
between solid failures, versus the (wrong) transient notifications
you get via the notification mechanism.

Take careful notes, for when Microsoft "fixes" this again.
In their own special "rinse and repeat" way. You might have
to undo your changes later.

Paul (who is still waiting for MSFT to fix his broken Win10 webcam,
which worked just fine thanks, in 10240)

I've only had this happen on a slow machine. Perhaps something is
taking longer than Windows expects?

But I don't understand why it didn't warn me when there was no
connectivity at all. My router had crashed, there was no way to connect
to the internet whatsoever.

Only passive networking was happening at the time. Perhaps the
background network activity (ARP or whatever) from your PC, was
sufficient to keep the passive monitoring happy or something.

With your router crashed, there might still have been packets
using the switch side of the router, and comms there are
"mostly mechanical", and code doesn't have to run on the router.

With the cable unplugged on the other hand, you could lose
"heartbeat", and the PHY could raise an exception. I don't
remember the details of how heartbeat works any more, but
something regularly buzzes between the computer and the
router to prove the wire is there.

Going from Ethernet Port to Wifi on a router, probably
requires that the router code run properly. Ethernet Port
to Ethernet Port on the four LAN connectors, is a "free lunch".
Going between dissimilar LAN items takes some processor.

To confuse matters further, the way fibre broadband works in the UK, we seem to have TWO routers. The "fibre" (which is actually just the standard copper wire that was my voice line from my house to the fibre cabinet 300 yards away) enters the telephony company's router (it's in my house, but it was supplied for me and is my property). That's then connected by an Ethernet cable to my ISP's router (again, provided free and belongs to me), which provides wireless and several more ethernet ports to the computers. Not sure why they seperate the two boxes. Maybe it's easier to work out whether the phone company or the ISP needs to fix a problem, and easier to upgrade one and not the other when they change the fibre system or you buy a faster speed. I don't know which had crashed, I just power-cycled both.

In article ,
says...
Not sure why they seperate the two boxes.

One is the modem and the other the router/switch.

Nowadays, they are combined in one box,such as the BT smart hub.

On 10/28/18 12:42, Undersized hippopotamus wrote:
What is the purpose of this message from the system tray?

I've seen it appear while in the middle of an 8Mb/s transfer (so clearly
I'm not offline), and I've seen it not appear when my router needs
rebooting and nothing can connect to the internet at all.

It seems to have no grasp of reality whatsoever.

It's probably integrated with micro-****'s SLURPware, trying to track
you online...


--
(aka 'Bombastic Bob' in case you wondered)

'Feeling with my fingers, and thinking with my brain' - me

'your story is so touching, but it sounds just like a lie'
"Straighten up and fly right"

On Mon, 29 Oct 2018 08:09:00 -0000, Big Bad Bob wrote:

On 10/28/18 12:42, Undersized hippopotamus wrote:
What is the purpose of this message from the system tray?

I've seen it appear while in the middle of an 8Mb/s transfer (so clearly
I'm not offline), and I've seen it not appear when my router needs
rebooting and nothing can connect to the internet at all.

It seems to have no grasp of reality whatsoever.

It's probably integrated with micro-****'s SLURPware, trying to track
you online...

It seems the only way to get privacy nowadays is to buy a rocket and go live on Mars.