What could possibly cause MySpace to kill my internet connection?

December 16, 2007 8:30 PM

What could possibly MySpace to kill my internet connection?

Hi all,

Before anything, I fully understand the unfortunate and stupid nature of this problem because it deals with MySpace but I've had this problem for two years and NO ONE seems to know whats wrong with it.

Secondly, I would love to hear anything other than 'lolz, its cos MySpace sucks!' -- Yes, I'm with you on the MySpace hate, but here is my issue.

I have my music on MySpace and I receive between 15-20 new messages/comments per day from fans around the world who take the time to listen to my music so I want to be respectful and respond to all of them. The issue is that whenever I view more than 2-3 profiles/accounts, my internet connection completely dies (I'm unfortunately with bastards from Comcast because Verzion FiOS is not available in my area). Whats really weird about this issue is that only my web browsing works, but mIRC and AIM work just fine.

What could be the cause of this extremely stupid and unbelievably annoying problem? Could some software be causing this problem? I use Firefox and have tested this out on Opera, Flock and IE and the same thing happens. If I simply click on more than 2-3 accounts, internet web browsing connection dies and I am forced to unplug my router (Netgear FVS 114) from the wall, wait 5 minutes and plug it back in again.

I've called Comcast and of course, they never know anything so I wasted time talking to them.

If anyone has any solutions I really would love to hear it, I seriously feel bad not being able to interact with my fans who take time to check out my work and I can't even respond to them without wanting to punch a hole in the wall because of this annoying problem.

I thank you all very much in advance.

posted by cheero to computers & internet (21 comments total)

Doh.

MISTAKE.

Whats really weird about this issue is that only my web browsing works, but mIRC and AIM work just fine.

What I meant to say is that WEB BROWSING dies, but AIM and mIRC work just fine.

Sorry.
posted by cheero at 8:32 PM on December 16, 2007

Are you on a wireless network?
posted by zixyer at 8:54 PM on December 16, 2007

Nope, not on wireless.
posted by cheero at 8:59 PM on December 16, 2007

After it happens, if you restart your computer rather than the router, can you browse the web again?
posted by tracert at 9:03 PM on December 16, 2007

@ Tracert

Correct. Its usually much faster to just unplug the router, but both ways work.
posted by cheero at 9:05 PM on December 16, 2007

Malor is gonna slam me for this because he has no faith in your ability to learn to use it, but if I were in your shoes, I'd install Wireshark and find out what was actually happening to my network traffic. Do your HTTP requests stop going out? That would indicate a malware or misconfiguration issue on your end. Do they go out, but never get responses? That would make it Comcast's problem.

Something else you might care to try is installing the NoScript extension into Firefox, just in case there's a toxic script being pulled in from somewhere associated with MySpace profile pages.
posted by flabdablet at 9:11 PM on December 16, 2007

I've been doing some deep searches currently and it turns out that Netgear routers don't like MySpace for some reason.

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=589273
posted by cheero at 9:14 PM on December 16, 2007

I assume that if you browse with Firefox, and it dies, that IE does not work at that point either? In other words, you're pretty sure it's somewhere in the TCP/IP stack?

I somehow doubt it's the router itself, but you never know. Have you checked with a friend's laptop connected through your router?

What if you run AdBlock on Firefox? What if you run a local DNS cache? Have you checked for BHOs using Ad-Aware?

Basically, you need to keep attacking this to isolate what exactly it is that's dying, and what exactly might be causing it.
posted by dhartung at 9:18 PM on December 16, 2007

More complaints about the same issue with Netgear on http://forum1.netgear.com/showthread.php?t=9935

Apparently Netgear is doing nothing to offer a solution for this problem. I will never again support anything from them. This is such a stupid problem to have, its blowing my mind.
posted by cheero at 9:21 PM on December 16, 2007

If you cause the issue to happen, then launch a cmd prompt (click on run, then type "cmd") and do the following:

"ipconfig /flushdns"
then,
"ping google.ca"

does it work? You should see something like "Pinging google.ca [so.me.num.bers] with 32 bytes of data:" then some stuff. This will tell us if you still have DNS service or not after whatever it is happens.
posted by tracert at 9:21 PM on December 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

I run Adblock, ran mulitple scans for malware/adware. Everything is clean. As I have just found out, the issue is solely with Netgear. I've browsed through their forums and found multiple users who have the same exact issue but Netgear has not offered any fixes or solutions.
posted by cheero at 9:22 PM on December 16, 2007

I was going to say I have the same problem. I used to have a Netgear router, but it still happens to me now with a Linksys router. The plot thickens?
posted by stopgap at 9:43 PM on December 16, 2007

MySpace profiles tend to have a bazillion scripts loading at once. Maybe script overload?
posted by divabat at 9:55 PM on December 16, 2007

Do you have a Hosts file for ad and spam blocking? Because I can't access Myspace when Hostsman is running, but if I disable it, I can.
posted by headspace at 10:06 PM on December 16, 2007

As I have just found out, the issue is solely with Netgear.

I haven't seen any evidence of this. Just because other folks on the internet have come to the same conclusion you have doesn't mean it's the correct one. It could be any number of things along the chain of ISP>modem>router>computer. Don't close off other possibilities until you are certain or you may overlook the true cause of your troubles.
posted by wemayfreeze at 10:15 PM on December 16, 2007

Check this page.

The suggestion is to change the MTU (Maximum Transmission Unit) on your router or your computer. I don't know much about MTU but it has been a problem with people visiting Metafilter, too. Try it out!

Aight, I know that this may seem to run counter to the advice in my previous comment, but the truth still stands. Sheesh.
posted by wemayfreeze at 10:25 PM on December 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

This is purely a wild guess, but are you allocating enough space for the cache in Firefox? Tools>Options>Advanced>Network tab. I have mine set at 100MB, but maybe give it 250 or something.
posted by Skygazer at 11:21 PM on December 16, 2007

You might want to try OpenDNS.com. It seemed to resolve some issues with my connection. Not MySpace related, but with other sites. You use their DNS numbers on your router. My cable modem provider constantly kicked me to their search page for some sites, and once it started it went on for a long time. Since I changed the DNS to the OpenDNS numbers, not a problem.
posted by The Deej at 11:28 PM on December 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

I have this exact same problem. The only thing that solves it is going into rounter config and doing a quick release/renew. Sometimes I don't even need to release, just renew. I hate it. It's only myspace that does it.
posted by knowles at 12:23 AM on December 17, 2007

This sort of thing happened to me before (using the Netgear WGR614v4 at the time) on several sites, including Myspace and Hotmail. It foxed both me and my ISP until I finally figured out that the MTU in my router settings should've been at (and I think these numbers are correct, but it was about one very, very long year ago) 1500 instead of 1458. After I changed that, everything went back to being absolutely perfect.

YMMV, IANAL, BBQOMFGTCBU etc etc
posted by Magnakai at 5:51 AM on December 17, 2007

I don't know much about MTU but it has been a problem with people visiting Metafilter, too.

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!! This has been a problem with me and Metafilter (don't use MySpace) on my home computer for about six months now, and I had no idea even how to begin to describe the problem, much less solve it.

/*end derail
posted by pdb at 8:07 AM on December 17, 2007