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Thread: How to find a network problem?

  1. #1
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    How to find a network problem?

    Ok, this is might be a tough one. Got a desk at work that seems to have a disproportional amount of errors with our SOP system. All the errors seem to be loss of network status. Thus far, I've tried the following to fix it

    - Update drivers
    - Reinstall Software
    - Reinstall Windows
    - Swap PC over with working one
    - Swap ethernet cable over
    - Swap connection to another network point
    - Changed the user (yes really!!)

    None of these have solved the problem.

    I've found some software, Colasoft Capsa, that seems to do some form of packet inspection but a lot of the information is meaningless to me (such as hundreds of thousands of TCP checksum errors) but to be honest, I don't know what I'm looking for.

    All I'm left with at the moment is
    a) an issue with the power supply in this desk
    b) the mouse is causing all the problems (it's an old MS Intellimouse)
    c) It's a fluke conicidence

    Any suggestions would be appreciated either in what I can monitor to catch the crash in the act, or other ideas on what I can change.

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    Senior Member burble's Avatar
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    Re: How to find a network problem?

    Is it a total loss of network connectivity? What results do you get it you chuck a continual ping to a couple of hosts?

    Has this position always been problematic? Is the network cabling running alongside any power cables? It's possible that the insulation in the cable has degraded to the point where it is suffering from interference.

    Are you using a managed switch? Can you get any statistics about the switch port in use? CRC errors, collisions and so on are bad and an excessive amount can cause problems.

    Does the problem only manifest itself as problems with the SOP system? Does the user have any other issues, network related or otherwise?

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    Re: How to find a network problem?

    Well, it's not a total loss of network connectivity. It's a single database application that exhibits crashes that the vendor subscribes to network connectivity issues (table not found etc.)

    Given that the crashes are disproportionate to this one desk, leads me to suspect there's something fundamentally wrong with the network setup, but I'm at a loss as to how and find it.

    I'm reaching the point where I'm gonna blame the electrial wiring (we have a stupid amount of stray current, you can get an electric shock off the plaster walls near the light switch)

    Out of interest, how do I find the information in the switch, I don't think there's any applications installed that provide the information.

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    Network|Geek kidzer's Avatar
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    Re: How to find a network problem?

    Quote Originally Posted by Lucio View Post
    I'm reaching the point where I'm gonna blame the electrial wiring (we have a stupid amount of stray current, you can get an electric shock off the plaster walls near the light switch)


    That'll generate interference for sure, but regardless - that seems a bit (well, very) unsafe!
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    Senior Member burble's Avatar
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    Re: How to find a network problem?

    You're getting errors saying that the table isn't found? Is that error logged by the server and the client? Does the error log actually show the table name that has been requested?

    It does sound like you've got issues there with the cabling - that shouldn't be happening!

    If the switch supports it you should just be able to telnet (or ssh) into it and get the stats from there. If you can get into the management interface, 'show interface' or 'show log' are worth trying although the exact commands will vary depending on what switch you have.

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    Re: How to find a network problem?

    Quote Originally Posted by burble View Post
    You're getting errors saying that the table isn't found? Is that error logged by the server and the client? Does the error log actually show the table name that has been requested?

    It does sound like you've got issues there with the cabling - that shouldn't be happening!
    *nods* it's showing the cware.dbf table isn't accessable. This is basically the main stock information table that needs to be altered after each transaction.

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    Senior Member burble's Avatar
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    Re: How to find a network problem?

    Is that error logged on the server too? What I'm getting at is that I find it unlikely a network problem could cause this problem without there being a total loss of connectivity.

    To me, this stinks of a software vendor passing the buck.

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    Re: How to find a network problem?

    Quote Originally Posted by Lucio View Post
    *nods* it's showing the cware.dbf table isn't accessable. This is basically the main stock information table that needs to be altered after each transaction.
    one last thing - are these flat file db's on a file share ?

    have you remebered to disable on access AV scanning for that share ?
    my Virtualisation Blog http://jfvi.co.uk Virtualisation Podcast http://vsoup.net

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    Re: How to find a network problem?

    Quote Originally Posted by burble View Post
    Is that error logged on the server too? What I'm getting at is that I find it unlikely a network problem could cause this problem without there being a total loss of connectivity.

    To me, this stinks of a software vendor passing the buck.
    Errors don't get logged on the server, it's not that helpful of a system, and yes it does stink of the vendor passing the buck, I'm kinda used to that from them now but it's frustrating. You should see their SQL product implimentation....

    Quote Originally Posted by Moby-Dick View Post
    one last thing - are these flat file db's on a file share ?

    have you remebered to disable on access AV scanning for that share ?
    Yup, disabling virus scans on anything the program uses is the first installation step after running the setup program. I've got an exclusion list so long that we might as well not be running virus scanners!

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    Re: How to find a network problem?

    Quote Originally Posted by Lucio View Post
    Errors don't get logged on the server, it's not that helpful of a system, and yes it does stink of the vendor passing the buck, I'm kinda used to that from them now but it's frustrating. You should see their SQL product implimentation....
    Is it that the server doesn't log errors full stop or that it isn't logging this one?

    What database engine does it use?

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    Re: How to find a network problem?

    Quote Originally Posted by burble View Post
    Is it that the server doesn't log errors full stop or that it isn't logging this one?

    What database engine does it use?
    Visual FoxPro, version 6 (though when we get the next update, it'll move to version 9)

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    Re: How to find a network problem?

    Ah, one I know nothing about. I was wondering if I could give any pointers of things to look at in the DB, but can't.

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    Re: How to find a network problem?

    Lucio,

    I'd start by downloading SolarWinds IP monitoring free trial software. I've found it very useful to debug these types of problems. It does help if any of your IP switches support syslog and snmp debugging.

    This should help you see if your network is suffering any collision/retransmission or other errors that could cause the issue. I'd also suggest downloading wireshark (new name for ethereal) for tracing of the two machines, put 1 copy on the server and 1 copy on the client and trace while trying to establish the problem.

    It would help to have a good trace from a known good machine.

    If you need help going through the traces let me know you can just send them to me and i'll have a look.

    TiG
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    Re: How to find a network problem?

    Have you tried changing the port on the switch that the client is plugged into?

    Also is it possible to use another wall port, or run another cable temporarily?

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    Re: How to find a network problem?

    Quote Originally Posted by TiG View Post
    Lucio,

    I'd start by downloading SolarWinds IP monitoring free trial software. I've found it very useful to debug these types of problems. It does help if any of your IP switches support syslog and snmp debugging.

    This should help you see if your network is suffering any collision/retransmission or other errors that could cause the issue. I'd also suggest downloading wireshark (new name for ethereal) for tracing of the two machines, put 1 copy on the server and 1 copy on the client and trace while trying to establish the problem.

    It would help to have a good trace from a known good machine.

    If you need help going through the traces let me know you can just send them to me and i'll have a look.

    TiG
    One issue I have found with a similiar tool is hundreds of thousands of TCP/IP check sum errors, now these are occuring all over the place and appear to be part of the SOP's system judging by the plain text description of the contents (this was via Colasoft Capsis program). Sent a couple of screenshots off to the vendor in the vain hopes someone there is actually a network engineer....

    I'll try the software you mentioned, as for logging onto the switch, it occurs to me I don't know what IP address it has. TRied the likely suspects (Default gateway, DHCP server, DNS server etc) but all come back could not open Port 23 @ ip address.

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    Re: How to find a network problem?

    Sounds like flaky cabling to me. It's unlikely to be IP related, unless you're getting a duplicate on the network. That could throw up occasional TCP errors, otherwise I would expect it to either work or not.

    Have you tried running a temp cable? Alternativly, what happens if you swap out PCs for a little while, that would allow you to separate it being either the PC (network card maybe) or the cabling/switch.

    If you are able to isolate it down to the cabling/switch. If it's a managed switch, you should check for things like duplex settings - that's could give you intermittant errors. You might also want to get hold of a flukke cable tester. That can work out where the problem is within a cable.

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