Tough one.

[Vansplatter]

Ok here is the scoop. I have a cable internet conenction that is working good except all of the sudden most of my apps that use the connection cant seem to find it. This includes GameSpy, MSN Messenger, the mulitplayer portion of Quake 3 and a couple more. There are apps that work ok like outlook and IE. I have run spybot (although now I cant update because it is one of the apps that cant find my conenction)I have up to date AV, I am behind a NAT and all virus scan say I am clean. I have no other issues.

What would keep then from finding my connection?

I have been through my services, clean booted, feeling lost now. Any one have any ideas on what to check?


Thanks in advance,
-Van

 

[FROGGYJ]

Just curious...if you are behind NAT then some or all applications (depending on your device)will have to have whatever port they use directed to your pc on the lan. Is the NAT device new? or was this already in place and working before? What has changed since you had this problem, any software installs? drivers? anything at all? See if you can throw in a little more info and then we can start chewing away at it.

FROGGYJ
A+,N+,CST,CNCT,MCP

http://www.BackupYourPC.com

 

[Vansplatter]

The NAT has always been there. The only thing that I have done was try to install Far-Cry (a game). I did upgrade my DirectX and video drivers but other than that nothing has changed.

While I know that drivers can cause some strange behavior I just dont see the correlation between what has changed and the problem described above. Not saying it isnt the cause I also cant say that the problem started after that or not just that those are the only changes in quite some time. That and DAT updates. <--- probably the problem!

I will take a closer look at the NAT when I get back home today maybe something got reset or changed somehow. Let me know if you want/need more info, I will post up.

Thanks
-Van

 

[smah]

What do you see in IE, Tools, Internet Options, Connections tab?

Although, I would expect something wrong here to also affect your web browsing, it's worth a look.

 

[philote]

Under Start->Settings->Network Connections, do you have more than one adapter listed? I'm thinking that maybe you for some reason have multiple network connections and the wrong one is set to default. Though I'm not sure if that would explain why IE works while everything else doesn't.

 

[Vansplatter]

Smah-
There is nothing there. Ipconfig looks good as well, right gateway, can release/renew at will. All is well with browsing.

philote-
good call. I checked it last night and only had the one ethernet connection. I disable the IEEE (firewire) just in case. Did not help.

I thinki may be approaching the problem the wrong way (wouldnt be the first time. Instead of looking at my connectin I might need to look at my OS. The two programs that work are really integrated with the OS (OE and IE). Maybe the problem is that some .dll that is needed by the other programs is corrupt. I will run sfc\ scannow when I get home.

 

[philote]

Also, make sure that ICF isn't turned on for your network connection. If it was somehow enabled, it could be blocking ports.

Also to see if it is an OS issue rather than a port issue, get another web browser and see if it works. (I recommend Mozilla's Firefox at

http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox

)

 

[Vansplatter]

Thanks to all for thier help.

I found my problem and as usually is the case it was a case of stupid user syndrom. I had disabled my ZoneAlarm from starting when the PC starts. I did this from msconfig-startup. I guess this just hides it from view and does not actually prevent it from starting.

I went to ZA through start-program-ZA and started it. I got my icon on the taskbar that let me know it was started. I then clicked it and told it to exit. After that everythintg worked.

Makes me wonder what startup actually does under msconfig.


Sorry for the lameness


Later
-Van