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Network Downtime

After a day out on Saturday we got back early so that Karen could do some last-minute bidding on eBay, only to find that "t'internet's broken". Her words, not mine.

After two or three goes at restarting the router (Netgear DG834) I gave up and she went round to the neighbours' to use their connection.

Yesterday I tried a few more tricks, such as using the restore factory settings button, but had no more luck. This morning I spent half an hour solving the problem.

It was strange, as you could ping the router but not connect to it's web-admin panel. Other strange things started happening - Photoshop refused to start, logging on to Windows took forever. Then I noticed that I couldn't connect to websites on local network servers and the Notes client couldn't connect to any servers. Using a HTTP scanner, the status code for any requests for websites was:

ERROR_HTTP_INVALID_SERVER_RESPONSE

After a few minutes of racking my brain I decided the only thing that could be causing the problem is my switch (Netgear FS108) and so I restarted that. Hey presto, everything's back to normal.

I know what you're thinking - why do I care? Well, you probably don't. But, sooner or later, somebody will search for a combination of the words in this post and hopefully find their answer. I tried a search this morning and didn't find anything. This is me adding my bit back to the internet.

Lots of what I talk about on here might appear off-topic. Buying servers for example. What's that got to do with Domino development?! Well, my approach has always been to talk about what interests me and the many facets of the job. I assume there are some of you who are in the same boat and so will find some of it useful. Apologies to those of you who couldn't care less.

It's three years to the day since I started blogging. It can take that long to work out what it is that makes a topic worth blogging about. In general it's the information that others can use which has the most value.

Comments

    • avatar
    • Tom
    • Mon 18 Oct 2004 06:45

    Jake, exactly because you're taking this broad approach, rather than talking about Domino development only, makes your site special as is. Well done.

  1. In this day and age it is important to have an over all understanding of the ENTIRE application. Gone are the days where you just developed code and let other folks handle intregration into the "WEB". These days the more you know about how the application working with the routers, switches, ODBC drivers, JAVA connectore, etc., etc., the more valuable you are, and the more work you will find.

    In this case, I can tell you that it is not uncommon common for our web application(s) to require and ENTIRE reboot of architure to get things rollong again. Some time the load balancers hang, other time the switches go out to lunch and never return, the mainframe connection pools overload, and the list goes on.

    At home sometimes I have to shut everthing off and start everything up in sequences. The way, I do not have a handle on yet, but learning more everyday. At this point I have a good handle on the symptons and how to correct.

    One thing for sure, home networking is not easy.

    Good job Jake

    • avatar
    • tom
    • Mon 18 Oct 2004 11:39

    Congrats on 3 years! You must be the Granddaddy of the Domino bloggers, aye?

    • avatar
    • Jake
    • Mon 18 Oct 2004 12:05

    Grandaddy? Suppose so. There's a guy who was using Domino as his blog platform before I did, but wasn't talking about Domino per se. So, yeah, I guess I was the first "Domino blogger". All the others are mere pretenders ;-)

  2. It has been my experience that people who claim that they couldn't care less simply aren't trying hard enough. The same goes for those who say that they "can't complain". C'mon, people -- put some effort into it.

  3. Jake -

    Wow, 3 years. Happy blogiversary.

    I remember reading your site way back when... Of course, that was when you had to blog uphill, both ways, in the snow, being chased by packs of wild dogs. Times are easier now.

    - Julian

    • avatar
    • Jono
    • Tue 19 Oct 2004 03:22

    Inspirational.

    Here's to the the next 3 years!

    J.

    • avatar
    • Josef
    • Tue 19 Oct 2004 06:26

    Hi there,

    as for the network switch - does it have any of those fancy functions like webfiltering and popup-blocking? If so I would disable them firstplace.

    BTW: Congrats on you 3 blogging years!

    • avatar
    • me
    • Thu 23 Feb 2006 03:05 PM

    i indeed googled ERROR_HTTP_INVALID_SERVER_RESPONSE and found your site.

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Written by Jake Howlett on Mon 18 Oct 2004

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CodeStore is all about web development. Concentrating on Lotus Domino, ASP.NET, Flex, SharePoint and all things internet.

Your host is Jake Howlett who runs his own web development company called Rockall Design and is always on the lookout for new and interesting work to do.

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