need tech savvy, bad

judypilot

Cleared for Takeoff
Joined
Feb 23, 2005
Messages
1,010
Location
Viola, ID
Display Name

Display name:
Judy Parrish
As well as being a member of this illustrious group, I am a member of the Cessna Pilots Association.

I recently got a satellite internet system (this is not a non sequitur--just hang with me for a bit). After the usual shakedown, it's working extremely well except when I try to access the CPA web forums.

About 15% of the time, everything is fine. But the other 85%, I only get so far and then can go no further before I get the following messages:

On Safari: Safari can’t open the page “name of whatever page I was trying to get to within www.cessna.org because the server unexpectedly dropped the connection, which sometimes occurs when the server is busy. You might be able to open the page later.

On Firefox: Connection Interrupted
The connection to the server was reset while the page was loading.
The network link was interrupted while negotiating a connection. Please try again.

I usually get as far as the list of forums (i.e., I get logged in just fine). Sometimes the page looks weird, and if that happens, I know I won't get any further. Sometimes it looks normal, and then 15% of the time I get in and 85% of the time I get the message.

I have tried EVERYTHING I can think of. Emptied cache, got rid of cookies, got rid of bookmarks. I actually didn't have Firefox before, so I downloaded it and installed it "clean" (i.e., instructed it not to import anything). Always the same story.

The weird thing is it works fine 15% of the time and I can make posts as normal. Then, all of a sudden, I'll try to post something and will get that message.

CPA has monitored their servers and they see no anomalies and they haven't gotten any complaints from any other members.

I would post this on the CPA forum except I don't know if I'd ever see it, and there is a lot of collective wisdom here.

Full disclosure, I have Mac OSX 10.5.6 with Safari 3.1.2. My version of Firefox is the absolute latest, since I downloaded it just a couple of days ago, and I have the same problem on my brandnew iPhone.

I'm completely mystified. Believe me, I've tried all the obvious stuff, although I haven't messed with the router or modem for my satellite system, since that's beyond my experience.

Please do NOT tell me to get DSL, wireless, or any other kind of high speed connection because there aren't any available where I live. Just getting the satellite connection took more than a year. I do not want to go down that road.

I have accessed numerous web sites, and the CPA site is the only one I've had problems with.

Many thanks,
Judy
 
Last edited:
As well as being a member of this illustrious group, I am a member of the Cessna Pilots Association.

I recently got a satellite internet system (this is not a non sequitur--just hang with me for a bit). After the usual shakedown, it's working extremely well except when I try to access the CPA web forums.

About 15% of the time, everything is fine. But the other 85%, I only get so far and then can go no further before I get the following messages:

On Safari: Safari can’t open the page “name of whatever page I was trying to get to within www.cessna.org because the server unexpectedly dropped the connection, which sometimes occurs when the server is busy. You might be able to open the page later.

On Firefox: Connection Interrupted
The connection to the server was reset while the page was loading.
The network link was interrupted while negotiating a connection. Please try again.

I usually get as far as the list of forums (i.e., I get logged in just fine). Sometimes the page looks weird, and if that happens, I know I won't get any further. Sometimes it looks normal, and then 15% of the time I get in and 85% of the time I get the message.

I have tried EVERYTHING I can think of. Emptied cache, got rid of cookies, got rid of bookmarks. I actually didn't have Firefox before, so I downloaded it and installed it "clean" (i.e., instructed it not to import anything). Always the same story.

The weird thing is it works fine 15% of the time and I can make posts as normal. Then, all of a sudden, I'll try to post something and will get that message.

CPA has monitored their servers and they see no anomalies and they haven't gotten any complaints from any other members.

I would post this on the CPA forum except I don't know if I'd ever see it, and there is a lot of collective wisdom here.

Full disclosure, I have Mac OSX 10.5.6 with Safari 3.1.2. My version of Firefox is the absolute latest, since I downloaded it just a couple of days ago, and I have the same problem on my brandnew iPhone.

I'm completely mystified. Believe me, I've tried all the obvious stuff, although I haven't messed with the router or modem for my satellite system, since that's beyond my experience.

Please do NOT tell me to get DSL, wireless, or any other kind of high speed connection because there aren't any available where I live. Just getting the satellite connection took more than a year. I do not want to go down that road.

I have accessed numerous web sites, and the CPA site is the only one I've had problems with.

Many thanks,
Judy

A satellite link has considerably more latency due to the lengthy path out into space and back. IIRC there are some adjustments you can make to your web browser to mitigate this but I don't recall what they are. Perhaps a Google search will turn up something useful.
 
It truly sounds like your ISP (even though it is a sat.) has problems in your area. Don't believe anything customer service tells you. Get to the next level and make them get you an answer. You were smart to try different browsers, you have done all you can. Get someone from the company that can really sort out the problem. I had something similar and it took over 6 months to figure out the wire from the outside to the inside of the house had been chewed on by some critter. All the time customer service told us "they could not see a problem". So at the very least have someone come out and check the installation again.
 
Also, is it WildBlue or HughesNet?
 
It's Starband. Please, do NOT make me go through all this as to why I ended up with them. It was my only option. Please trust me on this.

Judy
 
Last edited:
It truly sounds like your ISP (even though it is a sat.) has problems in your area. Don't believe anything customer service tells you. Get to the next level and make them get you an answer. You were smart to try different browsers, you have done all you can. Get someone from the company that can really sort out the problem. I had something similar and it took over 6 months to figure out the wire from the outside to the inside of the house had been chewed on by some critter. All the time customer service told us "they could not see a problem". So at the very least have someone come out and check the installation again.

The ISP hasn't told me anything yet. When I was talking about checking the server, I was talking about CPA. I thought it HAD to be their server, because this is the ONLY website I'm having trouble with.

If it's chewed wire or something like that, why would it make problems for only one website and only intermittently? This explanation doesn't resonate with me.

I'll try the ISP; they might have some setting that CPA's website is triggering, although again, why it would be only intermittent is beyond me.

Judy
 
Thanks, Mike. Interestingly, I just had the same thing happen when I tried to log in here just now. However, I immediately hit refresh and got in. That doesn't happen with the other site. But now I am sure it's not CPA. Must be the ISP, and for some reason, Starband must have some issues pilots. :yikes: (I wonder why. :wink2:) This is the only other site I've had this happen with.

Judy
 
Last edited:
Thanks, Mike. Interestingly, I just had the same thing happen when I tried to log in here just now. However, I immediately hit refresh and got in. That doesn't happen with the other site. But now I am sure it's not CPA. Must be the ISP, and for some reason, Starband must have some issues pilots. :yikes: (I wonder why. :wink2:) This is the only other site I've had this happen with.

It's those darn pilots flying their airplanes between you and the satellite! :rofl:

Judy, here's the first thing I'd try, given what you've described. Open System Preferences (it's under the Apple menu in the upper-left corner of the screen). Click Network. Whatever interface you're using, IE AirPort, will be selected. Click the "Advanced" button. At the far right, click the "Ethernet" tab. Switch the "Configure" menu to "Manually" which will enable the MTU menu. Choose "Custom" on that one. The standard setting is 1500, which can cause problems with satellite from what I've heard.

I've also heard that the solution is sometimes not intuitive... So you'll need to experiment with MTU numbers both higher and lower than 1500. (I would try 1000, 500, 250 and also raise it to 2000, 2500, 3000 etc.) Click "OK" to get out of the Advanced pane, and "Apply" to get the settings to change. You'll probably have to play around with it a bit to see what settings work best for you.

Hope this helps!
 
You don't need the CPA site anyway. They don't even know where to put the wings on an airplane.
 
Are you sure the satellite is aligned properly and getting a strong signal? This is absolutely the *FIRST* thing you need to be looking at. You need to start here and work your way down the troubleshooting checklist.
 
Jesse,

Did you get my messages? Big apologies to you therein.

I'm sure the satellite dish is fine. I helped the installer get it aligned, so I was monitoring the entire process. This was only about 3 weeks ago.

Judy
 
Thanks everyone! I'll try that stuff tomorrow.

Judy
 
Well, I did all that and nothing helped. Called Starband and they said about all they could do was turn off some function that caches pages. He said it might slow things down a bit, but I haven't noticed and it does seem to have helped.

Judy
 
Back
Top