Sparqnet blocking my email server!

Life Technology
1

Hi Everyone,

Hope someone might have an idea or two for me.

I’ve been using Sparqnet for my ISP for several months now with no
problems at all until last week. One day I woke up to find that not
only did I not have POP3 access to my primary email server, but no
Webmail access either.

Immediately contacted my email provider as I thought it was a problem
on their end. About an hour later they replied to me to say it was
working fine for them, but they’d continue to investigate the problem.

Since then, I have tested my Webmail access on various friends
computers and a couple of 'net cafes. There’s been no problem at all
getting to the site. In addition, I’ve asked some friends and colleagues
in other countries to see if they can access my Webmail login page.
No problems at all for anyone.

I haven’t tried my POP3 email on any other computer, but there is no
problem to access my Webmail login screen using any of the following
ISP’s here in Taiwan:

giga.net.tw
seed.net.tw
hinet.net

The only ISP I cannot retrieve, send or even view my email with seems
to be sparqnet.net

Of course, they claim they have done nothing, and there is nothing that
they can do to alleviate the problem.

I have no other others problems with sparqnet service other than the
issue with my emails. All other websites work fine, and I can access
my secondary POP3 account without any problems.

Anyone have any advise?

2

OK, you say that only on Sparq you can’t get Webmail and POP3… Does any of your friends where you confirmed access also use Sparq? Or could it also be said that only from your computer you can’t get access? If that is the case, try to get Knoppix. Download the image, burn it on a CD (ask a friend), then boot your computer from it.

Knoppix is a Linux that boots right off a CD, without installation. It’s good for getting used to Linux, for trying it out, but also for all kinds of computer/network repair/analyse/maintenance and the like. What Knoppix can do for you is to make sure if your network connection is buggy or your computer. If Knoppix can help you connect to your Webmail, then you should have a look at your OS…

3

Only one of my friends uses Sparq and she could not access the Webmail
page either. The 'net cafes use Seednet; another friend uses Giganet;
and the others all use Hinet. No problems whatsoever to gain access
using any of the other providers.

I might give Knoppix a try, but I highly doubt there’s any discepency with
the OS or network connection. I’ve continued to have no problem using
Sparqnet for other internet tasks. Only my Webmail and POP3 service
which continually do not work through Sparq and only Sparq.

4

Make sure you haven’t inadvertently set their webpage as a blocked page in your browser. I set Yahoo! mail to that setting to prevent people logging into their Yahoo mail on this PC. (risk of viruses)

Kenneth

5

Have you tried to ping that server through Sparq? Maybe it has (for whatever reason) been completely blocked. Are there perhaps other services running on the same server that you still can connect to?

6

Have you signed up for some two-year contract with SparqNet? If not, you could just drop them and use one of their competitors. However, make sure it isn’t your computer that’s screwed up - it would be embarassing if it was.

The suggestion to use Knoppix to test your system is a good one. Actually, I have it installed on my hard drive as well - currently, my favorite Linux distro. You can buy Knoppix CDs for around NT$70 (if I remember correctly) at Tianlong Bookstore, 107 Chongqing S Rd, Section 1, Taipei. Great bookstore for geeks anyway, even if you weren’t looking for Knoppix.

regards,
Robert

7

webmail is the same as surfing a website. there is nothing about it that would flag it as webmail and there’s really no way to block it unless you just start blocking domains. are you getting errors going to any other websites?

first of all, ping the server and see if the name resolves. what might be happening is a dns error whereby the computer can’t figure out the name of the domain you’re going to.

when you ping using the name, it will try to translate it to an ip address first. if it can’t resolve the name, that means the dns servers are not working correctly and you should try to use different dns servers.

another thing you can try is to have someone you know who can access it ping it as well. then have them tell you what the ip address is and see if you can input that into your browser directly.

8

Thanks for the replies everyone.

In regards to the last few posts:

Only signed a one year contract with Sparq. However, the management
of the apartment building apparently has some sort of ‘exclusive’
contract with them. They’re telling me no other ISP would be allowed
to service the building.

Have checked to see if I might have blocked the page from the browser.
I haven’t. That wouldn’t explain why POP3 isn’t working either though, correct?

Tried to ping my webmail page from Sparq, and received the message:
[color=blue]Pinging ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ [xxx.xxx.xx.xxx] with 32 bytes of data:
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.

Ping statistics for xxx.xxx.xx.xxx
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4 (100% loss)[/color]

Pinged one of the other services that I use for POP3 and Webmail
and got the following results:
[color=blue]Pinging myrealbox.com [192.108.102.201] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 192.108.102.201: bytes=32 time=290ms TTL=112
Reply from 192.108.102.201: bytes=32 time=357ms TTL=112
Reply from 192.108.102.201: bytes=32 time=340ms TTL=112
Reply from 192.108.102.201: bytes=32 time=256ms TTL=112

Ping statistics for 192.108.102.201:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 256ms, Maximum = 357ms, Average = 310ms[/color]

My friend using Giganet, pinged to my Webmail and received the following:
[color=blue]Pinging ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ [xxx.xxx.xx.xxx] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from xxx.xxx.xx.xxx: bytes=32 time=59ms TTL=246
Reply from xxx.xxx.xx.xxx: bytes=32 time=97ms TTL=246
Reply from xxx.xxx.xx.xxx: bytes=32 time=73ms TTL=246
Reply from xxx.xxx.xx.xxx: bytes=32 time=127ms TTL=246

Ping statistics for xxx.xxx.xx.xxx:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 59ms, Maximum = 127ms, Average = 89ms[/color]

Sparqnet had been performing fine for nearly a year for both my POP3
and Webmail. After April 7th, I’ve gotten nothing. Guess my only
alternative now is to go ahead and get that Centrino notebook I’ve been
looking at and hangout at the coffee bar and McD’s a bit more.

I’ll also checkout Knoppix, but still don’t think it’s going to tell me anything
I don’t already know. It seems pretty obvious that the problem lies solely
with something that Sparqnet has done.

Thanks again people!

9

[quote=“dragon88”]I’ll also checkout Knoppix, but still don’t think it’s going to tell me anything
I don’t already know. It seems pretty obvious that the problem lies solely
with something that Sparqnet has done.[/quote]

You are probably right. One last question: Do you have a personal firewall running? If so, could you perhaps accidentally created a rule denying access to those IPs?

And a last comment: There is a (however very, very low) possibility that those IPs are denied by Windows (some worms play that game with AV vendor websites), so you might perhaps do a last check with Knoppix.

Ehm, just thought of something else… Sparq has three DNS listed:
211.78.130.2
211.78.130.1
61.56.211.185

Nslookup is not the most reliable program, but I guess you don’t have dig on Windows. Please open a command prompt (hope you are running at least 2000 or XP) and type

nslookup
>server 211.78.130.2
>your.webmail.domain

You should see an IP given for that domainname. Try the same with the POP3 address and try also the two other DNS IPs. You can also try setting a DNS (one of those three, if it did resolve the IP for your webmail server) yourself in your network connection properties. (You know how to do that?)

If those three DNS do not resolve your webmail’s IP, then you should contact Sparq and tell them about their DNS problems.

10

well, since the name is resolving to an ip, it doesn’t look to be a dns problem.

my next suggestion is to download a program like ping plotter(just google it) and tracing the route to that server. the program will show every server you are passing on the way to your destination and pinpoint which one is slowing you down or losing your packets.

i had issues before in taiwan where the backbone to the us would just be really slow. taiwan sites would be fine, but as soon as i tried to reach the us, one of the hops would lose my packets. i’ve never had that happen with just one particular site, though.

your pop is looking normal so i’m not sure why that’s not connecting for you. what error do you see when you try to connect with your mail program?

11

I ran the nslookup program, and got the following response:

DNS request timed out.
timeout was 2 seconds.
*** Request to ns.sparqnet.net timed-out.

The Ping Plotter program shows 15 hops. The first 8 all show
40% packet loss; the next 6 show 20% packet loss; and the
final shows 40% packet loss again. The last entry states:
“Destination Address Unreachable - 100% paket loss” I cannot
clearly tell from the program which server is causing me the most
problems.

I’ll try Ping Plotter tomorrow from one of the 'net cafes and compare
the information. Perhaps I could email or fax the information to Sparq.

The error that I receive when I use my email program is “error reading
from network”.

12

Your packet loss is high - try www.dslreports.com and run some of their tests.

13

:s Okay, now I am REALLY flustered.

Don’t know why I didn’t think of this before, but earlier today I decided to
see if one of my neighbors could access my Webmail page with their
computer. Using Sparqnet, the login page came up almost immediately! :frowning:

Then, I asked a colleague to come by with his Powerbook. Tried to
access the same login page, that I had done so with no problem from the
neighbors computer just 2 hours earlier. Sure enough, NO connection!

Went back to the neighbors apartment, Powerbook in hand and tried it
again - Webmail login page before my eyes!!!

What’s going on?!? It should be impossible right? I have no problem
accessing ANY other website, or my secondary pop3 account from my
apartment. ONLY my primary email account (pop3 and webmail).

Is it possible there is a block on only the connection coming to my
apartment???

:help:

14

I would guess a bad connection somewhere in the final wires to your apartment - If it is ADSL, sometimes it sort of works with one wire open circuit. Do you have a telephone on the same circuit and does it work? Not a definative test as there are actually 3 wires to my current apartment here in Shanghai - one for telephone and one for ADSL and one shared. In my previous Shanghai apartment there were just 2 wires. Once the phone would not work but ADSL worked at about 80% of normal throughput. A technician came and fixed something in the box outside in 5 minutes.

Unless you have a fixed IP address it is unlikely that you could be selectively blocked.

15

The ADSL line is dedicated. I actually have 4 lines coming into the
apartment - 1 ADSL, 2 tel, and 1 for fax. I can understand a bad
connection on the wires, but I’d think that would mean all my internet
activity would be suspect - not just the one solitary website?

Had good feedback from the tests I ran from dslreports - with 0%
packet loss on every hop, and an average d/l speed of 429.7 Kbps.

16

[quote=“dragon88”]The ADSL line is dedicated. I actually have 4 lines coming into the
apartment - 1 ADSL, 2 tel, and 1 for fax. I can understand a bad
connection on the wires, but I’d think that would mean all my internet
activity would be suspect - not just the one solitary website?

Had good feedback from the tests I ran from dslreports - with 0%
packet loss on every hop, and an average d/l speed of 429.7 Kbps.[/quote]

A very interesting riddle. OK, here’s my best guess…

First of all, you said your landlord has a deal with SparqNet that they service the entire building, and you said that you have four lines coming into your house. Is there actually an ADSL modem sitting there on your desk, or is just an ethernet line itself coming in that is directly connected to your computer? Because if it’s the latter, I would guess that SparqNet has a router hidden someplace in the building and everybody is connected to it. Usually ADSL isn’t set up that way, but that’s the way cable modems work (I know nothing about SparqNet - is it really ADSL, or cable?).

If you are on cable, you are almost certainly connected to a router, and a misconfigured router could be blocking you (and only you - the neighbors wouldn’t be affected). That’s the only possibility that makes sense to me - the other ideas about loose wires and bad connections don’t seem possible. A misconfigured router, on the other hand, could be blocking just one address, which happens to be the address for SparqNet’s mail server.

Hope that makes sense. I’m not sure how you can test it though. Also not sure how to prove to SparqNet that it’s THEIR problem and THEY should fix it - they’ll probably say that your computer has a virus.

good luck,
Robert

17

It’s really ADSL and not cable, and it’s just a direct line coming out of the
telcojack to the computer.

The idea about a misconfigured router seems logical. Only problem with
that is, the last time I had access, it was about 11:30pm on April 6th.
Around 5am on April 7th, I had nothing. I guess anything is possible, but
I wouldn’t think Sparqnet would have someone here between 11:30pm
and 5am to reconfigure a router which, up until then, had been working
perfectly.

Also, I’m not using Sparqnet’s email at all. I’m using a personalized email
service that I pay an annual fee for.

Earlier this evening, I did speak to the Sparqnet technician who installed
the line. He must think I’m a total flake. I’m beginning to wonder now
too. He’s saying the whole scenario that I’ve described is absolutely
impossible. Nonetheless, it’s been happening for nearly 2 weeks now.
I’m trying to convince him to stop by the next time he’s in the area, but
not sure how persuasive I can be. If nothing else, I could always give
the Lone Gunmen a call, they could figure it out!

18

Do you actually have ADSL, or some sort of building network - ie do you have an adsl “modem” or just plug your network cable from your computer into the wall (or such like). The suggestion that your building has an exclusive deal with sparqnet would indicate the latter. If that is the case the problem could lie in the central equipment in your building.

19

[quote=“dragon88”]It’s really ADSL and not cable, and it’s just a direct line coming out of the
telcojack to the computer.

The idea about a misconfigured router seems logical. Only problem with
that is, the last time I had access, it was about 11:30pm on April 6th.
Around 5am on April 7th, I had nothing. I guess anything is possible, but
I wouldn’t think Sparqnet would have someone here between 11:30pm
and 5am to reconfigure a router which, up until then, had been working
perfectly.

Also, I’m not using Sparqnet’s email at all. I’m using a personalized email
service that I pay an annual fee for.
![/quote]

If there’s no modem sitting there in your apartment, then yes, you are on some kind of centralized network that is controlled by a router. The fact that you can get access at a neighbor’s apartment would indicate that the router is indeed configured to block a certain address.

As for how this could happen in the middle of the night when SparqNet technicians are on duty, routers can (and in fact, usually are) configured remotely. The person doing it would never have to visit your building. Indeed, that person would not necessarily even have to be in Taiwan.

The possibility of a hack attack exists, though seems unlikely because routers are built to withstand such attacks. Then again, nothing is bulletproof, especially when you’ve got disgruntled employees who know the passwords.

P.S. dl7und, if you’re reading this, could you contact me off-list. Seems that you don’t have an email address listed here on the forum, so I can’t contact you other than to do it here in public. My email is y2kbug at ms25.hinet dot net.

regards,
Robert

20

You are in a truly weird situation, and it almost certainly involves Sparqnet. You need to talk to them directly, hopefully with the aid of someone who can fluently speak both Chinese and Computer. Their initial reaction will be to push you off, so you will need to explain to them very clearly that THEY REALLY HAVE A PROBLEM.

Yes, they can change their routing remotely, and in fact there was recently an attack published that allows the complete control of some Cisco routers. So possibly it was a hacker, since nobody in Taiwan ever seems to patch. But it’s more likely a routing screwup on Sparqnet’s behalf.