Dialer/Internet slowdown & stall problem

Since upgrading to OS4.1u2 I've noticed problems with network slowdowns after 3-15 minutes of browsing/email usage. Page loading seems to stall with the modem lights flashing briefly every 30 seconds or so. The same thing occurs when D/L emails. YAM sits there waiting for a response and the modem lights flash briefly every 30 seconds or so. Once the problem starts, all Internet apps are affected and I have what appears to be "slow motion Internet". The problem doesn't exist when I first connect to the Internet; only after 3-15 minutes of constant browser/email usage. Once a page in OWB is stalled, OWB is unresponsive. Once email D/L is stalled, YAM is unresponsive. In fact all Internet apps are unresponsive and can take several minutes to react to a button click. Non Internet apps respond normally. Once this problem occurs, the dialer window takes several minutes to respond to a click on the Disconnect button. It just sits there and it doesn't matter if I have waited for all Internet apps to complete network transactions before selecting Disconnect.

After months of trying different serial and Internet settings, I gave up and switched back to the previous edition of Dialer. Everything appears to be working normally now so I have to conclude that the latest Dialer is buggy.

System Info:
Problem Dialer (slowdowns): version 53.2
Working Dialer: version 52.1
Hardware: SAM Flex (800mhz)
OS: OS 4.1u2

NOTE: As reported last year, there are SAM serial problems related to the fact that it uses a 4 wire serial port. That problem just seems to restrict serial port usage to 57,600 speed and XON/XOFF handshake (no hardware handchake). However, these restrictions don't appear related to the Dialer slow-down problem since the old Dialer works normally.

@xenic

I'm at work so shouldn't even be reading this, let alone replying, but...

I have not noticed any new problem with the dialer window itself (it still "disappears" at random times but that's not new and it happens less frequently than before), nor any changes with OS4.1u2 relative to older versions, however...

I have a noisy phone line, and on the Sam440ep I'm using a 28.8kbps modem and I have it configured for hardware flow control even though I know that doesn't work.

I've had a problem similar to what you describe for a long time. I've had this same problem even on Amithlon running Genesis, with a faster modem using (working?) hardware flow control.

My connection has problems when using Linux on my Amithlon box, too, but it doesn't go into "slow motion" mode it just doesn't complete xfers sometimes and I have to hit "refresh" to load a page.

What I have happening is that the Internet connection stalls, usually some minutes after making a connection. I have found that I can babysit it and keep it going to complete xfers.

On Amithlon/Genesis and OS4.1/Roadshow I babysit the connection by keeping AWeb loaded on a page that has small images like smileys in a forum (sometimes I use this site for this purpose). When the connection stalls, I reload a small image. The act of starting a new xfer causes the connection to wake up temporarily.

The longer I am connected, the more screwed up it becomes. I may have to reload a smiley three or four times in a row to wake the connection up, depending on what the other applications were trying to do at the time.

It gives me the impression that something in the stack gets out of sequence somehow. I think maybe it doesn't handle lost packets very well. But considering that I have problems with such very different configurations, the problem may actually be at my ISP.

I am planning to start spending the $43/month soon to get cable Internet, unless I can find a provider with DSL who will let me try it with my crappy phone connection (my current ISP won't even offer DSL to me).

Try babysitting your connection like I do to see if it helps anything.

@robo-ant
Quote:
No amount of babysitting fixes this particular problem. Once it starts, the delay just seems to get longer as I continue Internet activity. Right now I'm blaming the Dialer because reverting to the previous Dialer version seems to have cured the problem (mostly). I thought the dialer just established the connection and didn't really participate in the actual Internet transactions but maybe I'm wrong about that. It's just hard to see how Dialer could have this slowdown effect, so the actual problem may be the PPP serial device, SAM serial device or RoadShow itself. Once I've used the old Dialer for a while to see if the problem reoccurs, I may try switching to older versions of PPP or RoadShow. For now, switching to previous Dialer version seems to fix the problem.

@xenic

Quote:

I haven't observed anything like that, but I've got a different configuration and hardware from you. I have the old mini Sam440ep, a 28.8kbps modem actually configured for 28,800bps (no compression), and I'm not using XON/XOFF for flow control.

Versions:
Dialer 53.2
ppc440ep_serial.device 52.1
Roadshow 4.292


My current connection file looks like this (stuff blanked with xxx):

# PROGDIR:Connections/xxxxxxx.conn
# File generated by Dialer 53.2 (3.10.2009)
# On Saturday, 16-Jan-10 at 22:19:52
interface="PPP"
device="ppc440ep_serial.device"
speed=28800
init="AT&F1\r"
touchtone=no
volume=1
number="xxxxxxxxxx"
sendid=off
login="xxxxxxx"
password="xxxxxx"
provider="xxxxxx"



I've never looked into this, but maybe we can do something with RoadshowControl? This is what it tells me now:

bpf.bufsize = 4096
icmp.maskrepl = 0
icmp.processecho = 0
icmp.procesststamp = 0
ip.defttl = 64
ip.forwarding = 0
ip.sendredirects = 1
ip.subnetsarelocal = 0
tcp.do_rfc1323 = 1
tcp.do_timestamps = 0
tcp.do_win_scale = 0
tcp.mssdflt = 1460
tcp.recvspace = 65536
tcp.rttdflt = 3
tcp.sendspace = 32768
tcp.use_mssdflt_for_remote = 0
udp.cksum = 1
udp.recvspace = 41600
udp.sendspace = 9216

I might do some reading about rfc1323 for example, and see what happens when I turn that off.