Vista - Local Access Only on UPC

RolandIRL

Just got UPC in the house but one of us can't connect to the internet, it's working no problem for me on windows 7. She's using Vista and it's giving Local Access Only.

Am about to update her wifi adapters, but from a bit of googling, it seems this is a common problem with Vista. Is there anything else i can do to fix it if this fails?

thanks

Fysh

Are you using the router's built in DHCP service or are you assigning static IP addresses?

RolandIRL

I just set it up as the UPC manual said to. I think IP addresses are assigned automatically. Had a bit of progress, disabled the security key, and she could connect.
It's WPA-Personal (TPIK+AES) that's the reason she can't connect. I take it i'll need to change the security type on the modem (Cisco EPC2425) to get her to connect. networking was never my strong suit

Fysh

According to the manual here it does WPA2 as well - I'd switch to that and check if using AES instead of TKIP sorts you. Check for driver updates for her wireless card if it persists - reducing WLAN security to accommodate a WLAN card with bad drivers/OS/software support is best avoided where possible.

RolandIRL

WPA2 and AES isn't working for her either. Connecting but "local access only" again. Updated the wireless card drivers but did nothing for it either.

If i brought in MAC address filtering along with WEP, would it still be secure (relatively speaking)?

Fysh

Roland Deschain wrote: »

WPA2 and AES isn't working for her either. Connecting but "local access only" again. Updated the wireless card drivers but did nothing for it either.

If i brought in MAC address filtering along with WEP, would it still be secure (relatively speaking)?

WEP will be the weak spot by a country mile there, I've read reports of it being crackable within minutes - so combining that with the ability to spoof the MAC address of packets (easily done with something like Wireshark, as far as I'm aware) you wouldn't have much in the way of security tbh.

RolandIRL

Crap
is there anything else i can try to do to get her on the internet?

I just tried plugging her laptop via ethernet into the modem but she still can't get online (cable works grand for me). I'll get onto UPC tomorrow and see if they can get her going at all.

Fysh

If connecting via ethernet doesn't work either, it ought not be a WLAN issue. A bit of Googling suggests it's not an uncommon issue with these routers, so UPC are probably your best bet for a quick fix.

RolandIRL

Will give them a call later. Cheers for all your help Fysh

RolandIRL

okay, rang UPC, and they said that they can see the laptop connected to the modem, but the tech guy said that it's likely not being assigned an IP address to go on the internet. Gonna a poke around her computer for any programs that might affect the network.

moleary20

not quite the same problem, but my laptop with vista home premium won't connect to the wifi in my workplace, is there anything i can do to fix this problem? in plain english please im not quite savvy with the tech lingo yet!

RolandIRL

Is it normal for my computer to be assigned a 192.168.x.y IP address from the router? That's what i get from ipconfig in the command prompt, but when i check it via whatsmyip.org, it's different. Could this be what's causing the problem for the vista machine that it thinks it has local access only? Can i change this in the router homepage?

moleary20 wrote: »

not quite the same problem, but my laptop with vista home premium won't connect to the wifi in my workplace, is there anything i can do to fix this problem? in plain english please im not quite savvy with the tech lingo yet!

try asking the tech guy in work about it

gerardduff

WhatsmyIP.org returns an address in the 89.101.*.* range. This is the address on the 'world' side of your router. It is the address of a server/computer which is owned by UPC and it is how you get internet content (pages etc.) on your computer.

On the other side of your router, the 'local' side, you should have an address in the 192.168.1.* range....this is an address which is doled out by the router by its DHCP service.

To connect to it your computer has to be able to 'see' the router. That means, your computer needs to have wireless capability, or you need an ethernet cable attached to the router and your computer.

After that you need to set your network preferences such that, your computer will connect to the router automatically via DHCP. DHCP is the software/service you will use to connect to the internet, it is almost automatic.

You should have some documentation for UPC with instructions for Windows OS...if not I have attached the manual to this reply.

Fysh

Roland Deschain wrote: »

Is it normal for my computer to be assigned a 192.168.x.y IP address from the router? That's what i get from ipconfig in the command prompt, but when i check it via whatsmyip.org, it's different. Could this be what's causing the problem for the vista machine that it thinks it has local access only? Can i change this in the router homepage?


try asking the tech guy in work about it

That's normal alright - your router is basically operating a small private network in your house (over both wireless and wired connections) and assigning any clients an address via DHCP. The default range of addresses is normally in the 192.168 range, and you can tinker with the subnet settings in some router configurations if you want to.

The external IP address provided to your router by your ISP is the one that everyone else in the world sees, because your router is also functioning as a gateway for every device on your private network - hence any computer you use in the house will appear to have the same address as far as the outside world is concerned.

From what you've posted your problem seems to be that Vista is not recognizing the router as a working gateway. One thing you could try is to assign a static IP in the router configuration for the affected laptop, and manually configure the wireless connection in Vista. (I've had to do this before with routers whose DHCP service was flaky).

Capt'n Midnight

There are different models of UPC router
you can't do much with the Cisco's but I'm lead to believe you can change some settings on the Scientific Atlantic's


try with the computer plugged directly into the router, if still a problem then it ain't wireless,


in a command prompt

To ask for an IP address use these commands - you may have to wait a few seconds for the changes

ipconfig /release
ipconfig /renew
ipconfig /all

depending on the windows OS you can clear down all your settings with ( would you stick your hand in a fire if I told you to ? )

netsh interface ip reset randomlogfile.txt



MAC address filtering won't stop anyone dedicated
as the MAC addesses in use are visible and to change the MAC address in windows it's something like this

reg.exe add HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E972-E325-11CE-Blah-blahblah}\00xx\NetworkAddress DEADCAFEBABE

Capt'n Midnight

Fysh wrote: »

One thing you could try is to assign a static IP in the router configuration for the affected laptop, and manually configure the wireless connection in Vista. (I've had to do this before with routers whose DHCP service was flaky).

use ipconfig /all on the other machine to get most of the settings you need

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : chello.ie
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Pobably says Wireless
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . :
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.3.28
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : 27 September 2011 22:55:03
Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : 28 September 2011 22:55:03
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.3.1
DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.3.1
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 89.101.160.4
89.101.160.5





If Ping 8.8.8.8 works
but nslookup www.upc.ie doesn't then you may have a DNS problem
8.8.8.8 is a google dns server, handy for testing since easy to remember

Another option on older machines is if there is an option for WINS then use the IP address of the gateway for it (if it works then this falls into "go figure" )

RolandIRL

I've tried everything ye've said but no luck. This machine just doesn't like connecting to the router. She's said that it can connect grand to the wireless at her house (eircom, i think).
Used ipconfig on her computer, ip address is in the 192.168 range. I can see her listed on the list of computers connected on router homepage but she still can't use the internet. I've given up on it at this stage. She's going to go into Computer Services in the college tomorrow and see if they have any luck connecting to the college wifi (she hasn't tried on that yet).

Weird thing though. When i go into Start -> Network on my win7 machine, i can see it listed like "housemate-PC" but obviously i can't connect to it. It's like a after image on my computer or the router

Capt'n Midnight

Roland Deschain wrote: »

Weird thing though. When i go into Start -> Network on my win7 machine, i can see it listed like "housemate-PC" but obviously i can't connect to it. It's like a after image on my computer or the router

some network timeouts take over 45 minutes before the master browser purges the list of known machines,

RolandIRL

ah that explains it so. Cheers for all your help, guys. Really appreciate it

RolandIRL

Update: okay, she went into Laptec and they did some funky jazz to it. Wireless now works with WEP encryption and via ethernet cable. It's just WPA-PSK and WPA2-PSK that's the trouble with it. Tried it AES and TPIK separately but no luck with either.

suggestions?

frido

Apparently Widows Visa has the DHCP BROADCAST flag enabled which can cause problems if the router doesn't support this.

There's an automatic fix and a do it yourself fix option available at
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928233

(found via http://www.thebitguru.com/articles/20-Fixing%20the%20local%20only%20internet%20access%20issue%20in%20Windows%20Vista )

F.

carveone

Just a small update on this. I get the impression that many Vista machines just don't like WPA/WPA2 networks. The network stack does, but the driver doesn't.

Which is why when you have problems, UPC keep saying "Use WEP".

A fast way to check if that is actually the problem is to disable encryption altogether on the router - highly unrecommended for any period of time. If it works, then that's the issue. If you can connect directly via a cable, then that would confirm that the problem is not with basic networking (at least the TCP stack).

I believe Vista laptops with Atheros drivers are the worst because updating the driver "automatically" through Device Manager (ie: Network Connections, Right click the adapter, Properties, Configure, Driver, Update Driver (gasp wheeze), Search Automatically) does not seem to give you a later driver than 2007.

You can get later drivers from an "unofficial" Atheros website at atheros.cz. Most of them like the 5005g are dated 2010 or later. Download the zip file and expand it and then, as above, but click Browse instead of Search Automatically and point it to the place you expanded the zip file...

Hope this helps someone...

carveone

Roland Deschain wrote: »

I've tried everything ye've said but no luck. This machine just doesn't like connecting to the router. She's said that it can connect grand to the wireless at her house (eircom, i think).

And likely still WEP. The aggravating thing is that certain packets like the DHCP request seem to send/receive just fine. So the broadcast packet you send to get a DHCP address is received and replies to. You get all the DHCP info and then it just sits there when it tries to actually send traffic. Which sends you down other paths thinking the wireless driver is fine.

RolandIRL

frido wrote: »

Apparently Widows Visa has the DHCP BROADCAST flag enabled which can cause problems if the router doesn't support this.

There's an automatic fix and a do it yourself fix option available at
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928233

(found via http://www.thebitguru.com/articles/20-Fixing%20the%20local%20only%20internet%20access%20issue%20in%20Windows%20Vista )

F.

Unfortunately didn't work thanks though

carveone wrote: »

Just a small update on this. I get the impression that many Vista machines just don't like WPA/WPA2 networks. The network stack does, but the driver doesn't.
<main body of post>

Hope this helps someone...

carveone wrote: »

And likely still WEP. The aggravating thing is that certain packets like the DHCP request seem to send/receive just fine. So the broadcast packet you send to get a DHCP address is received and replies to. You get all the DHCP info and then it just sits there when it tries to actually send traffic. Which sends you down other paths thinking the wireless driver is fine.

Tried updating the drivers before (see earlier in thread) but i think it was a self-contained exe file that i installed it with, and not through the device manager. found the atheros.cz site and got the driver from there.

I was looking through her other network connections, and i see one or two WPA/2 encryption networks there, which she's said she has no problem connecting to, so i don't know what's the difference with the internet in this house.

carveone

Roland Deschain wrote: »

Tried updating the drivers before (see earlier in thread) but i think it was a self-contained exe file that i installed it with, and not through the device manager. found the atheros.cz site and got the driver from there.

Sorry, yes - I was looking at another thread at the same time and forgot you said you'd updated the drivers. There's a guy in the house here who had the same issue (crufty Toshiba/Vista/Atheros 5005g) and when my brother finally persuaded him to use drivers from Atheros.cz rather than "Search Automatically", it worked straight away. Mind you I had to figure out which Atheros card it was first though - Device Manager tells you. And the latest driver on the atheros.cz file was a corrupted zip file which didn't help :rolleyes:

I was looking through her other network connections, and i see one or two WPA/2 encryption networks there, which she's said she has no problem connecting to, so i don't know what's the difference with the internet in this house.

That's bizarre really. As far as I know, Local Only means that Vista has an IP address but isn't able to talk to anyone - it's sending packets but not receiving any from anyone, including the router. pinging 192.168.1.1 probably does nothing.

At this stage the only things I can think of is that your TCP Wireless Network settings are a bit mangled - you've a specific IP address and netmask set instead of Automatically setting the ip through DHCP.

So possibly the router is now confused as to which ethernet address it's talking to - happens if you switch network card and use the same IP address. The router thinks two people are using the same IP address and ignores you. I think you can check the "arp table" (the table of ethernet address against ip address) in Basic Settings - Fixed CPE IP Assignment. Yeah, I don't know why it's in there.

I have long lease times on my DHCP settings to stop the router resetting every hour and maybe the router remembers the arp table for that time as well (hope that makes sense). Dunno if power cycling the router would clear those tables.

Anything else? I know Windows 7 gets a bit narky if one of the wireless connections it "remembers" - ie: in its list of preferred or automatic connections - changes encryption type. It sulks and you have to delete all the cached connections. My brother changed the SSID on the router - just added a B on the end - to make it stop sulking!

Um... Last thing I can think of it that American laptops don't like channel numbers above 11. I have my mother's wireless set to channel 1 so my sister's Kindle will connect to it. If it's set to 12 you just get odd errors.

2 stroke

I've just sorted a vista laptop with this issue. The problem had arisen during international travel, and when it didn't fix easy I presumed hardware damage.
The other night I was scanning an xp laptop that had no internet access using avg on a flash drive. Avg managed to update itself via internet. Then I used it to configure my network settings. Result problem fixed.
So I searched out the vista machine, and yes, avg on the flash drive could update itself through the internet. Unfortunatly it couldn't reconfigure the network settings. However this worked.



Start, All Programs\Accessories and right click on Command Prompt, select "Run as Administrator" to open a command prompt.

In the command prompt window that opens, type type the following commands:

Reset WINSOCK entries to installation defaults: netsh winsock reset catalog
Reset IPv4 TCP/IP stack to installation defaults. netsh int ipv4 reset reset.log
Reset IPv6 TCP/IP stack to installation defaults. netsh int ipv6 reset reset.log
Reboot the machine.

RolandIRL

Woops, forgot to check back on this (sorry for the thread resurrection btw). Afraid I won't be able to test it on the afflicted laptop. Thanks for the fix though