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[tuftedduck]

Good morning, I'm back with another problem and am hoping some kind soul can advise.

Running XP Sp2 and connecting to Virgin.net via Speedtouch 330 usb modem.

Frequently I cannot connect and get the following message :- "Error 0734, the PPP protocol was terminated"

I then click the "connect" button again and get through no problem.

Is this a prob., in my PC, at the exchange or with my ISP ?

Thank you in advance for any advice.

[scottiesmum]

Not sure if this will help you whilst you wait for someone more knowledgeable to come along ...  hope so   

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/318718

[tuftedduck]

Thank you, scottiesmum, will have a wee look there and see what's what.

[kitz]

Without going into depth ..

Termination of the PPP session is usually the down to the ISP.
Its not BT (ATM)... its not the exchange...  nor in view of the fact that you can reconnect again likely down to your own equip.


In view of the fact that VM have some problems right now with adsl provision and its obvious that their centrals are jammed to capacity, I should imagine they are perhaps trying a "lets try kicking some users off after x period of time" approach :/

Whoops after I hit send I immediately realised that its cant connect - not a disconnection message.
Same thing would apply - ISPs centrals are possibly too busy to accept a new PPP session.

Trying again means that you can sometimes hit another Central (or VM BAM) which is less full.

[mr_chris]

*edit* our posts crossed, but I'll post it anyway

Hiya

It's probably the ISP. Does it happen more at certain times of the day e.g. in the evening / at weekends etc?

The reason I'm asking is that it's probably just your ISP rejecting your connection because they're too busy to authenticate you at that time. A bit like the old dial-up days of getting an engaged tone when you tried to connect up at just after 6pm when the evening call rate came into effect!

I don't think it's anything to worry about, if it works other times. What you can do is change the properties of your connection so that it will automatically redial if the line is dropped... and will retry up to say 20 times with a gap of 5 seconds between each one. That way you can hit 'connect' once, and then even if it doesn't connect properly the first time it will keep retrying until it does.

[mr_chris]

Kitz... what's a VM BAM?

Virgin Media Broadband Aggregation Machine? lol

Or "Ve May Bully And Mame"

[kitz]

>> edit* our posts crossed, but I'll post it anyway

Just seen - also note that I immediately changed mine as I noticed as I hit send that it wasnt termination - but failure to connect.

VM have got some big problems with capacity on their Centrals (BAMs) right now.
Im pretty sure that the "Round Robin" effect isnt helping much - but will be why TD can eventually connect.

[kitz]

>> Kitz... what's a VM BAM?

Dunno exactly without doing a search... but its VM call what we know as centrals.   
Could even be connecting equipment like how in the past weve said "cant connect to Juniper 1"

[mr_chris]

Gotcha, thanks! I wondered if it was some weird and wonderful stuff... I shoulda thought it was Virgin, so it can't be anything too wonderful

Probably something simple like Broadband Access Multiplex

[tuftedduck]

Thanks, kitz and mr_chris for the replies.

There does not seem to be a regular pattern to this prob., although evenings and weekends the whole net sometimes seem to crawl to a halt, but I guess that is global and not particular to VM or me.

Not much, then, that I can do about it, grin and bear until FM are sorted out. I know there is a message in the "service announcements" page of their webbie about slow BB and other problems.
It's just me being paranoid again............anything adrift and it MUST be me or my poor wee PC.

Thanks for your advices.

[kitz]

Im pretty certain its not you TD

>> although evenings and weekends the whole net sometimes seem to crawl to a halt, but I guess that is global and not particular to VM or me.

Unfortunately - the grinding to a crawl is the problem being experienced by most VM adsl users right now.
It would appear that VM have taken on a whole load of new users without increasing their capacity on "their pipes"... so any bandwidth available is being spread pretty thin.

You can see their status on this page, which was last updated about a week ago. Theres many on VM that are reporting very slow speeds.  If anything I should now reclassify their http as red.

[mr_chris]

You're welcome.

Whilst looking around the net to find out more about what a BAM was, I've actually found a little utility called BazzasGoodBAMFinder!

Download it at http://bazza.dyndns.org/files/BazzasGoodBAMFinder.zip

It is a VBS script that will basically connect to the net, ping the BAM ("Broadband Access Module", apparently) that you're connected to, then store the results. If the ping level is above a pre-defined value (that you set by altering a value in the script), it will disconnect and reconnect, hopefully to a different BAM (there's no way of knowing which one you'll get). It will then ping this one and reconnect again if it doesn't come in below the threshold. It will keep doing this up to a maximum number of times that you specify by altering another value in the script.

Detailed info about how to tweak the script

Hope that's helpful for you. By the way it'll only work with a Netgear DG834G/GT or a USB modem.

[guest]

Error 734. Dear god that brings back memories of BT Openworld. Its an authentication failure on the ISPs side. I wonder if the same root cause is the problem. Way way way back (2001) this happened regularly and the reason was that BT Openworld had more customers than sessions.

I supect VM are making the same tradeoff - kitz?

Hah - I've just remembered "gateway hopping" on BT Openworld. That worked then the gits locked it down

[kitz]

>> I supect VM are making the same tradeoff - kitz?

mhmm -

Theres quite a few users of several other ISPs that have experienced this too over the years whilst waiting for the exceedingly long lead in time for a new Central. Ive done my share of gateway hopping in the past, and on occasions even zen and enta customers have had to gateway hop.

However the extent of the problems right now at VM I dont think will be easily fixed by one new pipe.
It would appear that there is perhaps both a session and bandwidth issue :/

[tuftedduck]

Good grief, rizla, it was to get away from that problem some years ago that I jumped ship from BT and swam over to Virgin.Media, Virgin.net then................and Virgin were fine for a long time, but now they are appaling.

I get very angry when speaking to the guys on their "helpline" who's first port of call is always that there is something wrong in everybody's backyard except their own.
Last week the had me convinced that this was all a problem in the phone exchange. I asked BT to have a look which they did. Nothing wrong here, they said, handing me a bill for £99 for an engineer   call out.
Try to get that back from Virgin !!

Anyway, made up my mind to change ships again, to whom I know not as yet, but as I rely on the net, instant messaging and the web-cam to keep in touch with the kids, grand kids and the wee great grand kiddie, I really need to feel that I can switch on and be with the family without all this hassle.

Thank you for your advices and comments.