Adsl wont work but still seems connected.

Question

Hi, I am not sure if people have encountered with the kind of problem before, I tried everywhere to search for this issue but not a single article was helpful. I am using Arch i686 with mate desktop, I have configured an adsl connection on that using "pppoe-setup". I am encountering a unique problem on my machine, When I connect to the Internet using pppoe-start the network seems to connect fine and it runs fine too, I use torrent client (Transmission GUI) to download torrents so I keep my machine running for days.
                     But the problem seems to be odd, when I sit on my machine after say a period of 10-12 hours or so my network seems to be up and running fine even my torrent client seems to be running good sending and receiving packets out and in respectively but, If I open any of the browsers install on my machine for eg. Opera and Firefox they won't connect at all as if I have no network for that matter my other applications won't connect either like smplayer ...  When after that I disconnect my network by command pppoe-stop and then again reconnect it using pppoe-start the network connects and runs fine on everything. This sort of problem got to my attention after I upgraded my machine some days back...
If anyone can tell me whats wrong with my machine thanks.
Last edited by sagar_k (2013-12-06 07:30:24)

Answer 1

Hello,
Since your other torrent client still send and receive packets, that means your network is functional.
My guess would be your DNS resolver, or your service provider's DNS server is down.
In a nutshell, DNS translates names(e.g. www.google.com) to the actual IP address(e.g. 74.125.128.99).
If DNS server is down, your computer can still communicate using IP address, but not via domain names,
which is why your browser wouldn't work if you enter a website.
When you encounter the problem again, try
$ ping -n 4 www.google.com
and
$ ping -n 4 8.8.8.8
As a reference, if the command is successful, it should show something similar to below
$ ping -n 4 www.google.com
Pinging www.google.com [74.125.128.103] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 74.125.128.103: bytes=32 time=29ms TTL=49
Reply from 74.125.128.103: bytes=32 time=24ms TTL=49
Reply from 74.125.128.103: bytes=32 time=22ms TTL=49
Reply from 74.125.128.103: bytes=32 time=33ms TTL=49
Ping statistics for 74.125.128.103:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 22ms, Maximum = 33ms, Average = 27ms
You should have at least one reply to call the ping successful.
If the first command works, then it would be your browser's problem.
If the first command fails, but the second one works, then it's DNS server/resolver problem.