[Users] Periodic "connection failed"

[Pierre Fortin]

On Sat, 31 Aug 2013 07:50:20 -0400 Haines Brown wrote:

>On Fri, Aug 30, 2013 at 05:38:22PM -0400, Pierre Fortin wrote:
> 
>> How about using wireshark to trace the network traffic?
>
>I had never heard of wireshark. I installed it, but the (hard-to-find)
>directions imply that the Capture Options dialog would automatically
>detect interfaces. In my case, the Interface field was blank. My wife's
>machine has a wifi connection to my router, and I suppose the router's
>DNS is the interface to which wireshark refers. I was not sure what
>words to type in and had no time to play with it.

wireshark actually has a fairly logical syntax with tons of options...
here are some examples...

Select the interface to watch, and in the Filter field, enter:
   host mail.omnis.com
to watch only traffic related to this problem.  To watch only POP, you
would use:
   host port 110

To watch DNS queries also, use (POP only):
   port (110 or 53)
or (any protocol to/from host and DNS):
   host mail.omnis.com or port 53

"host" filter accepts hostname or IPaddress inputs.

>In any case, the watchdns script reports the same stable IP address on
>both machines connected to the router. The only problem is that my wife's
>receive function succeeds only once in a while. If the problem were a
>random DNS, I should think watchdns would not yield the same IP on both
>machines except only once in a while.

watchdns forces an initial output by defaulting the initial address to
0.0.0.0, then reports the first address it sees. After that, it simply
watches for a change of address and reports if any.  

>Also, if the problem were between
>the router and the mail server, my own machine would have the same
>problem; if the problem lay with the router's DNS, then wouldn't it
>affect both her receipt and sending of mail?

Out of curiosity, what's in /etc/resolv.conf on each machine?


>Turned out that when I copied watchdns to my wife's machine executable
>mode was preserved, but when copied to my machine it was lost. Also I
>had to change the watchdns script because my machine does not have a
>/usr/share/sounds/pop.wav. 

Shouldn't have had to change the script; it checks for existence of
"play" and sound file first...(?)

>I am tempted simply to upgrade my wife's machine from Debian squeeze to
>wheezy and thus hopefully get a newer version of Claws. If nothing else
>I would at least start with a clean slate. 

True...  :)

>Haines
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