Losing internet connectivity under Ubuntu 9.04

[Pesto]

I installed Ubuntu several months ago, and this is the first real problem I've had with it. I'll be surfing the net in firefox, and pages will simply stop loading. I will request the google or yahoo homepage, and the browser will sit there until the it times out and it says the page can't be found. After firefox stopped loading pages, I tried to ping google and ping sat there giving no output. When I reboot everything works again.

It seems to happen most when I'm browsing OkCupid, so I may be able to reproduce it given some effort.

Anyone have any tips on diagnosing this? Is there a log somewhere I can look at to see what's going on with my network connection? Is there any network monitoring software I could use?

[Internetmeme]

Have you asked on Ubuntu's fora? They are very knowledgable.

Also, do you have an Atheros wireless card? I remember that there were several problems with those and Ubuntu.

[Pesto]

I'm using good old fashioned ethernet.

I happened again this morning, and I tried simply unplugging the ethernet cable and plugging it back in. Ubuntu didn't like that very much.

I'll go ask on the Ubuntu forums, too. FWIW, people here seem pretty knowledgeable, too.

['; DROP DATABASE;--]

Are you sure this is a Ubuntu problem and not a network problem? Do other online services also cut out? Can you fire up some other device such as a Wii and see if it's able to connect?

[v1nsai]

Are you sure this is a Ubuntu problem and not a network problem? Do other online services also cut out? Can you fire up some other device such as a Wii and see if it's able to connect?

That's what I was about to say, are you connecting through a router? Can you confirm that no other devices on your network are having problems? This will narrow it down to a Ubuntu problem, and if it is that then I definitely recommend you get to their forums, that's where all the knowledge is.

[RoadieRich]

I'm having the same problem: and it isn't just wifi, it occurs with a usb mobile broadband modem as well. It's fixed by (in wifi anyway), by reconnecting to the AP, with the dongle, I have to re-plug, then try a number of times to reconnect, occasionally re-plugging again if it doesn't list the connection in the list - although that's possibly a problem with the (unsupported ZTE modem I've got.

I'm on ubuntu NR - although I don't have the version to hand at the moment. (I've given up trying to use the internet on it, and am having to use XP )

[Pesto]

Are you sure this is a Ubuntu problem and not a network problem? Do other online services also cut out? Can you fire up some other device such as a Wii and see if it's able to connect?

That's what I was about to say, are you connecting through a router? Can you confirm that no other devices on your network are having problems? This will narrow it down to a Ubuntu problem, and if it is that then I definitely recommend you get to their forums, that's where all the knowledge is.

My roommates have never mentioned losing connectivity like this, and they use both ethernet and wireless. They've mentioned slow connections every once in a while, but not what I'm experiencing.

If this is a network problem, I could see where the connection is being lost briefly, but their computers are able to pick it back up. Mine can't, so even in that case it's an Ubuntu problem.

[kandyass]

If you encounter this problem agian try running these commands:

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sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart

restarts your networking
run this command when you have connectivity:

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ifconfig -a

then later when you are having the problem run it again and it might give you a clue where the problem lies.

If you have multiple people using a wireless router you might look into setting up address reservation if you find that the router's DHCP is barfing. Had that problem once myself.

[Pesto]

Cool. I'll have to keep copies of those commands offline somewhere.

FYI, there are multiple people accessing the hub wirelessly, but I'm not. I've connect directly using an ethernet cable. I don't think my other roommates using wireless would impact my connection, would it?

[Pesto]

It happened again. Lost all internet connectivity. One of my roommates is home, and he was having no issues with the internet. We're both connected to the hub with ethernet cables.

If you encounter this problem agian try running these commands:

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sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart

restarts your networking

Tried this, didn't work.

run this command when you have connectivity:

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ifconfig -a

then later when you are having the problem run it again and it might give you a clue where the problem lies.

For posterity, here's the output of ifconfig as of right now, right after a reboot.

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eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:11:2f:ca:5f:9c 
          inet addr:192.168.1.104  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::211:2fff:feca:5f9c/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:1733 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:1526 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:1913149 (1.9 MB)  TX bytes:272671 (272.6 KB)
          Interrupt:23 Base address:0x6000

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback 
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:4 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:4 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:240 (240.0 B)  TX bytes:240 (240.0 B)

I'll post more when the problem happens again.

[RoadieRich]

If you encounter this problem agian try running these commands:

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sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart

restarts your networking

Tried this, didn't work.

Didn't work as in did nothing, or error'd?

[Pesto]

Didn't work, as in did nothing. I'll post output next time.