TCP/IP curiously.... broken

[The Computer Valet]

Hey folks,

I ran across a Sony VAIO laptop today in a very odd situation.

Essentially the end use complained that the laptop couldn't broswe over the wireless network.

After some amount of testing, I determined that TCP/IP was simply in an odd state.

What happened was this:

The WAP was set up to give an address over DHCP, but whenever the wireless card would request an address at boot up, the only one received was a APIPA address (169.x.x.x). (For those who aren't sure, this is basically a stock address that is assigned to an adapter when a DHCP server is unavailable.)

Here's the kicker:

When I tried to renew the adapter manually via IPCONFIG /RENEW, the received the following error:

An error occurred while renewing interface local area connection: an operation was attempted on something that is not a socket.

Wow. Ok, so the adapter is messed up, right? Nope. It turns out that _all_ adapters behave this way. (There is a wired NIC and 1394 network card in this computer as well.)

So, I asked the end user: "Have you changed anything recently." And they tell me they had installed ONTRACK's System Suite 4.0, but that it had made the system unstable so they uninstalled it.

I then find this MSKB article, which says that when McAfee's Personal Firewall is uninstalled via Add/Remove Programs, TCP/IP functionality is broken.

On a whim, I reinstall OT's System Suite and activate the firewall. Suddenly, TCP/IP works. The adapters are pulling IP addresses. I uninstall OT and it's all broken again.

I follow the notes in this MSKB article which explains how to reset TCP/IP via Netsh. I generate a log that proves to me that TCP/IP has been "reset," but this produces no joy. Works with OT's firewall, doesn't without.

For the moment, I've left the user's PC working with OT installed. I have put in a request to Ontrack to research this.

Anyone have any thoughts?

Cheers,

Mike Whalen

[imaeditedbysowulo]

Have you tried removing the TCP/IP protocol and reinstalling it?

[InTheWayBoy]

I had a problem similar to this...was with ZoneAlarm...the user just deleted the directory instead of uninstalling it, which left all the policies intact yet no way of editing them...I ended up reinstalling it manually (What a nightmare!) and then uninstalling it properly to get it to work. You might want to see if you can disable the firewall and then uninstall it, or uninstall TCP/IP, uninstall the firewall, then reinstall TCP/IP...

[-Senectus-]

Sounds like your using win2k or XP..
If its win2k then try a service pack (yeah I know that you hate it when people suggest that as a fix all), I have found that its fixed a lot of tcp stack breaks that I've seen.
Now its up to you weather or not you use sp3 but personally.. I would.

[condor]

if installing the service pack doesn't help here's another idea:

Install OT 4 again

use regedit to export the keys that contain the TCP/IP parameters and Interfaces (from your post I think your advanced enough to know which one are those)

uninstall OT4

merge the backed up registry files ..




Another idea

put your O/S CD ROM and from start -> RUN

use

sfc /scannow

Note that this will ask for the CD-ROM on the original location so if you changed drive letters (more partitions ?) you will need to assign the original dirve letter (D:\ ?) to the CD-ROM before running sfc.

hope it helps

[The Computer Valet]

Ye gads.

In all the information I forgot to give out the O.S.!

Windows XP Home

So, yeah, "uninstalling" is not an option and, as I mentioned, I tried the new way via Netsh.

I think that next time I go in I will try the SFC route first then the registry key export.

I've also read about PGP Freeware breaking not TCP/IP but IPSEC. The fix for that is:

sc config ipsec start= system

I appreciate all the responses.

This is something unique, methinks. Right now I have a pretty hard failure in that if I uninstall OT, TCP/IP breaks. If I leave it in, it works. But even with that I can't say that OT is inherently messed. I think they would have heard a LOT more about now.

My gut tells me that a component of the Suite is conflicting with Startup process. Perhaps its the WAN monitor for the wireless card. Then again it could be software for the VAIO. When the entire Suite is installed, the computer will only boot up cleanly about half the time. Othertimes something hangs after logon that makes the system _very_ sluggish. When I installed the Firewall and AV parts only, the sluggishness went away.

Ah well. Postulatin' and postulatin'

m

[jevan]

I ran into the exact same problem with my son's HP XP desktop connected via a Belkin wireless. Same error message and all in ipconfig. In my son's case this situation appeared when his computer had become infected with autodialers and Trojans (or reports of a Trojan from Norton). He's not sure if it was the possible Trojan or the attempt to remove it that caused the problem, but we remain stuck here... apparently this condition has multiple causes.

[DocPC]

Welcome to Windrivers!





And a nearly 2 year old thread.....