Transferring data from 192.168.1.1

[Bruce.]

Ok, I've been working on this for what seems to be a year or longer.
It's time to ask for help.

Firefox works perfectly well EXCEPT for the built-in pages of my ASUS
wireless router, gotten to by IP 192.168.1.1. Very intermittently the
loading of the web pages doesn't complete. All I'm doing is clicking on
buttons. Firefox seems to try to load the page, but stalls after
displaying a message in the lower left hand corner of the screen
"Transferring data from 192.168.1.1". It stalls there and doesn't paint
the new screen at all.

At that point I can press F5 (refresh) and the page will usually paint
completely, nearly instantly as if it was already downloaded but got
stuck getting to the screen. It does this about every 1 out of 3 button
clicks. The page load will never complete no matter how long I wait.
At that point I can't click on anything else. I must press F5 before I
can continue.

This is not page or button related. It happen on every router page,
every router button.

I've been doing a lot of router configuring lately and these hang are
grating on my nerves.

IE and Chrome also hang, with slightly different symptoms. Firefox is
the worst, and unfortunately also my favorite browser.

I have 2 PCs and a laptop and they all fail in exactly the same way.
The only exception is the Android version of Firefox. I've not seen
that one hang.

The ASUS router also uses the "store data for offline storage" (on the
Advanced -> Network options dialog, which I have cleared many times.

I've done just about everything I can think of trying to figure this
out. Started Firefox in Safe Mode. I've cleared the cache and cookies.
I did a Firefox reset to factory settings. I just created a new from
scratch profile (without restoring the old one). Nothing has helped.
If anything, it's getting worse.

I'm running Windows 7 with Firefox 31.0.

I've disabled all firewalls, both the Windows one and the one ESET anti
virus program provides. Virus scans are clean.

I discovered today that an old D-Link wireless router ALSO HANGS in the
exact same way, with about the same frequency. There's something about
these router web pages that Firefox doesn't seem to like.

I've compared notes with other ASUS router owners and they don't see
these "Transferring data from 192.168.1.1" hangs. I see zillions of
Google hits about this symptom but no solutions.

It's beginning to smell like a Windows bug to me but I have no idea how
to prove that.

Can anyone suggest anything else I can try to help pin down what's
causing this?

Bruce.

[Bruce.]

On 8/23/2014 7:15 PM, Charles Lindbergh wrote:> On Sat, 23 Aug 2014
18:49:49 -0400, "Bruce." <no...@example.net> wrote:
> Hi Bruce,
>
> Are you using wireless or hard wired connections to your router from
the PCs? By
> any chance do you also have an additional network switch in the mix?

I've tried both. Both Wifi and wired fail in the same way.

I'm using a switch on 1 of the PCs today but it hasn't changed the
failure symptom or occurrence rate.

> If you are using hardwired connections, are these home-made cat 5
cables? Do
> you have wall jacks?

Nope. All cat 5e or 6 and I probably bought them from Amazon or Newegg.
The 2 PCs and laptop are using different cables and/or Wifi depending
how it's configured at the moment.

About a year ago we moved to a new place that has no network wiring and
due to the wood walls would be extremely difficult to wire, so we mostly
depend on wireless, but I've been dragging my PC/laptop to the router to
test wired connections.

> What I am thinking is, it sounds as if you might have some mis-wired
cat5 / 6
> connections. Have you tried a brand new, commercially made Cat 5
cable between
> you computer and the router? I would also try disconnecting all
other ethernet
> cables from the router except for the cable from the gateway / modem.

Yes, multiple cables and wireless.

I just tried a single cable to from my PC to the ASUS router and it
failed within just a few clicks.

Normally I have no problems at all browsing the web. It's just these
routers that have that symptom.

> Also, it would be a very simple matter for you to download and burn a
bootCD
> such as Hiren's: http://www.hirensbootcd.org/download/
>
> You can boot any of your computers from this, use the Minixp mode,
and with the
> browser on the bootcd you can access your router and see if the same
problem
> exists.
>
> You can do the same thing with a Linux boot cd such as Linux Mint.

I know nothing about Linux so that might take me a bit to accomplish.
Interesting idea though. It would completely shoot all my current
thinking if it failed there too. I did try to get Firefox on an Android
tablet via wireless to fail and it worked just fine.

Thanks.

Bruce.

[Bruce.]

On 8/23/2014 8:04 PM, Charles Lindbergh wrote:
> With Hiren's you will not need to know anything about Linux.
Download, burn to
> disc, insert in the machine and boot to MiniXP mode.

Ok, I'll give that a try.

> Are all three of your machines using the same OS and security
software? If
> Windows 7 or 8, is your network configured as a Home, Work or Public
network? If
> Home or Public, try switching one of them to a Work network.

All Windows 7. All current on all updates. All configured as Home.

Security software is all different. Laptop is the basic Windows stuff.
The 2 PCs are ESET and Trend Micro.

I switched the directly wired connected PC to Work. Made no difference.
It stalled in 3 button presses.

> I have several Asus routers at home and in the business and have never
> experienced such an issue. In fact, it is my favorite brand of SOHO
router.

I am assuming it's not a problem with the routers. The only exception
to that might be the way the pages are written. Some uncommon HTML
feature or something.

Can you tell me what the Firefox message "Transferring data from
192.168.1.1" indicates is going on?

Bruce.

[WaltS48]

So many helpful suggestions. I'll start with the basics.

Does the same problem occur if you "Restart with Add-ons Disabled" ?

[Troubleshoot Firefox issues using Safe Mode | Firefox
Help](https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/troubleshoot-firefox-issues-using-safe-mode)


--
Sponsored by Firefox 32.0bx and Thunderbird 31.0

[WaltS48]

On 08/24/2014 11:42 AM, Charles Lindbergh wrote:

> In two of the OPs original paragraphs, above, he wrote:
>
> "IE and Chrome also hang, with slightly different symptoms. Firefox is the
> worst, and unfortunately also my favorite browser."
>

> AND

>
> "I've done just about everything I can think of trying to figure this
> out. Started Firefox in Safe Mode. I've cleared the cache and cookies.
> I did a Firefox reset to factory settings. I just created a new from
> scratch profile (without restoring the old one). Nothing has helped. If
> anything, it's getting worse."
>
>

> He has done a lot of the basic, initial troubleshooting which is both surprising
> and gratifying at the same time.
>


Ah missed that! Apologies. :)

At least he can get to his router. I just setup a wired connection on my
computer, because I can't access my router at all with the DSL connection.

Wired connection brings up the login screen with my username and
password which hasn't changed, but doesn't login.

I have not had to access it in years.

[Bruce.]

On 8/24/2014 9:52 AM, Charles Lindbergh wrote:> Did you install and are
you using the configuration software that came with the
> router?? If so, uninstall it from your computer (you don't need any
special
> software to manage your router) and access the router directly with your
> browser. In the address bar of Firefox, simply type 192.168.1.1

No, no software. Something like that may have come from D-Link but I
don't think anything came with the ASUS router. At least nothing that
I'm using. In either case I never use it and use the 192.168.1.1 router
pages directly for all configuration changes.

> You should see the management interface of the router, where you will
need to
> log in with the username and password.
>
> I would also try using Firefox safe mode to access the router if your
problems
> continue. See:http://mzl.la/1ojI7F7

It fails in Firefox Safe Mode too.

I managed to test that CD you asked me to burn. Booted from that I ran
both IE and Opra and neither one would fail to either router. But it's
XP so I'm not sure if that proved it can't be a Windows 7 problem. But
it does seem to add significant weight to it NOT being a router problem.
I was hoping Firefox would be on that CD too but I couldn't find it.

Just for grins I installed Opra on my Windows 7 PC. Opera fails too.
No "transferring ...." message, but it does intermittently hang at the
same point.

Bruce.

[Bruce.]

On 8/24/2014 11:34 AM, WaltS48 wrote:> So many helpful suggestions. I'll

start with the basics.
>
> Does the same problem occur if you "Restart with Add-ons Disabled" ?

Yes. The router pages stall in regular, add-ons disabled, and Firfox
Safe mode.

Bruce.

[WaltS48]

On 08/24/2014 12:24 PM, Charles Lindbergh wrote:

> Have you power cycled the router recently? Have you updated the router firmware
> (should be done from a hard-wired connection to the router)?


Hell no I haven't updated firmware. Verizon supplied the router and
probably doesn't have updated firmware.


>
> In the router management interface, you can save a copy of the router
> configuration to your computer, then, you can do a factory reset of the router
> (process varies by manufacturer) and then restore your configuration.


Can't get to the router management interface. See correct username and
correct password doesn't login above. Maybe they updated something
without my knowledge and I have to use my Verizon ID, not my username.


>
> Factory resets will frequently cure many issues with inexpensive SOHO routers.
>


I just use it daily. Turn everything off at night, power it all up in
the morning.

I am not messing with it as long as my Internet connection works.

I don't need Verizon to force FiOS on me, unless I can convince my
roommate to ditch the home phone, just use cell phones and she could
save money on rent. Hasn't worked so far.

Concentrate on Bruce's problem and thanks for the suggestions.

[Bruce.]

On 8/24/2014 12:24 PM, Charles Lindbergh wrote:> Have you power cycled

the router recently? Have you updated the router firmware
> (should be done from a hard-wired connection to the router)?

Yes. Both routers. In the case of the ASUS router I've been updating
the firmware just as soon as ASUS releases updates for the RT-N16.
Recently I've been loading multiple versions of the Merlin firmware as
those are released, all in the effort to fix this problem. I'm
currently on the latest released version of Merlin. Just for grins I
tried going back to the ASUS code. No change, so I'm back on Merlin again.

> In the router management interface, you can save a copy of the router
> configuration to your computer, then, you can do a factory reset of
the router
> (process varies by manufacturer) and then restore your configuration.

I have done a couple of factory resets (using the router GUI) and it
didn't help. It's generally recommended when you upgrade/downgrade the
firmware, especially if switching from/to ASUS/Merlin so I've done it a
couple of times recently.

I was also afraid restoring the settings from a file might bring back
the problem so I tried manually reconfiguring it after the factory
reset. No change.

In the case of the D-Link router, it's been sitting in a drawer for a
year and a half. It had serious stability problems and eventually gave
up on it and switched to the ASUS RT-N16. Except for this problem, the
RT-N16 has been VERY reliable.

Given that Firefox, Chrome, and now Opera all fail, I've been trying a
couple of Windows things.

http://en.kioskea.net/faq/848-windows-xp-repairing-the-network-connection

I tried these:

netsh int ip reset c:\ network-connection.log
netsh winsock reset catalog

No change.

Bruce.

[James Moe]

On 08/23/2014 03:49 PM, Bruce. wrote:
> Firefox works perfectly well EXCEPT for the built-in pages of my ASUS
> wireless router, gotten to by IP 192.168.1.1. Very intermittently the
> loading of the web pages doesn't complete. All I'm doing is clicking on
> buttons. Firefox seems to try to load the page, but stalls after
> displaying a message in the lower left hand corner of the screen
> "Transferring data from 192.168.1.1". It stalls there and doesn't paint
> the new screen at all.
>

I have seen this issue regularly with Firefox, especially if there are
a number of URLs to load. It starts loading a page and stalls/hangs on
one of the URLs, generally a random choice. Reloading the page gets it
past the deadlock.
FF has a 600 second timeout for connections, far longer than my
patience. I have tried making the timeout shorter but that has problems
where loading a page actually takes a long time.
Although it would seem the most recent version of FF, v31, is not so
prone to this problem.
I can only guess that there is something about the way the router
handles the protocol that makes FF think the router has not responded
when it has.
For situation like this, I use Chrome or Opera.

--
James Moe
jmm-list at sohnen-moe dot com

[Bruce.]

On 8/24/2014 1:09 PM, James Moe wrote:
> I have seen this issue
> regularly with Firefox, especially if there are
> a number of URLs to load. It starts loading a page and stalls/hangs on
> one of the URLs, generally a random choice. Reloading the page gets it
> past the deadlock.
> FF has a 600 second timeout for connections, far longer than my
> patience. I have tried making the timeout shorter but that has problems
> where loading a page actually takes a long time.
> Although it would seem the most recent version of FF, v31, is not so
> prone to this problem.
> I can only guess that there is something about the way the router
> handles the protocol that makes FF think the router has not responded
> when it has.
> For situation like this, I use Chrome or Opera.

Unfortunately for me Chrome and Opera do it too. they don't display the
"transferring .. ." message, but they stall at the same place.

Bruce.

[Bruce.]

On 8/24/2014 1:03 PM, Charles Lindbergh wrote:> Can you completely
disable your security software (firewalls, antivirus,
> antimalware, etc)? After doing so, you might want to reboot and try
again. You
> also might want to uninstall the dlink router software from whatever
computer
> you are using.

So far I haven't been brave enough to uninstall ESET completely as I'm
worried about screwing up my paid subscription.

But ESET does let you disable it. The taskbar tray icon has 2 disable
functions for the protection engine and the firewall. It won't let you
permanently disable them but does allow you to disable them for whatever
number of minutes you specify. I have done the 2 disable functions and
it had no effect.

And Trend Micro on my wife's PC has the same problem.

Bruce.

[Bruce.]

On 8/24/2014 2:39 PM, Charles Lindbergh wrote:> No, I don't want you to
uninstall the security software, simply disable it.
> Also, many people forget that Windows 7 has a feature called Windows
Defender,
> this should be disabled when you have other security software installed.
>
> Here is how to disable Defender, you also might check and make sure
the native
> Windows 7 firewall is disabled as well. See below:
>
> Disable Defender:
>
> http://bit.ly/1t4CiTy
>
>
> Disable Windows Firewall:
>
> http://bit.ly/1t4CouB

I verified that both Windows Defender and the Windows Firewall are disabled.

That idea about Safe Mode with Networking was a damn interesting idea.
I'd completely forgotten about that option.

And the results are very interesting. Firefox works great in that mode.
No hangs or stalls at all. I clicked on about 50 things which is way
more than it usually takes. Hmmmmmmmmmm.

I checked the Device Manager in Safe Mode and it looks like most, if not
all, device drivers are loaded even in Safe Mode, but the non-required
services are stopped. I suppose my next step is to start stopping
services until the symptom, hopefully, goes away. That may take a while
as it usually takes up to a dozen router clicks before I can be sure
something has changed.

Thanks for your help!

Bruce.

[Ant]

On 8/24/2014 11:24 AM PT, Bruce. typed:

> Unfortunately for me Chrome and Opera do it too. they don't display the
> "transferring .. ." message, but they stall at the same place.

Do you have another computer or device with a web browser to try? Narrow
it down.
--
"An ant is a wise creature for itself, but it is a shrewd thing in an
orchard or garden." --Francis Bacon
/\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://antfarm.ma.cx (Personal Web Site)
/ /\ /\ \ Ant's Quality Foraged Links: http://aqfl.net
| |o o| |
\ _ / If crediting, then use Ant nickname and AQFL URL/link.
( ) If e-mailing, then axe ANT from its address if needed.
A song (i/wa)s playing on this computer: Madonna - Like a Prayer

[Bruce.]

On 8/24/2014 3:07 PM, Charles Lindbergh wrote:> You are welcome Bruce.
If I were you, I would probably do a scan with
> Malwarebytes or Combofix.
>
> If you want to do a screen capture of all your running services and
post it to
> an image hosting site, I will be happy to take a look at it for you. Same
> applies to your installed software.
>
> If you need to know how to do any of this, let me know.

Narrowed it down some, assuming I'm on the right track. msconfig lets
you disable services (on the next boot) and has an option to hide
Microsoft services. So I disabled every last non-Microsoft service,
rebooted, and Firefox still fails.

So if it's the fault of a service, it's a Microsoft one. Not what I was
hoping for.

Oh wait. The ESET service is still running. It shouldn't be. It may be
an essential service so they somehow prevented it from being disabled.
Sigh.

Bruce.

[Bruce.]

Ok, more progress. Something ESET does prevents me from disabling a ESET
start up program and the ESET service. If uncheck them in msconfig the
checks just come back. I tried in the Services app too and it also
wouldn't let me disable the ESET service, I think because of permissions.

So I booted back to safe mode and now the Services app would let me set
it to Disabled. I also unchecked the startup ESET program.

Did a full boot and Firefox works great. Just to make sure I'm on the
right path, I re-enabled all the startup and services I had previously
disabled EXCEPT for the ESET ones.

Full boot and Firefox still works fine.

So it's definitely ESET. My next question is why does my wife's computer
fail in the same way? She uses Micro Trend, not ESET. Hmmm.

All I can think of is that Microsoft has a bug in whatever Windows hooks
they created so that third parties can write anti-virus/firewall
programs to replace the default Windows ones. It might be that any 3rd
party firewall might cause the problem.

As another experiment, I re-enabled the Windows Firewall and Firefox
still works great. So the default Windows firewall does not cause this
problem.

It might also be in the antivirus engine, not the firewall.

I've been considering shopping for a new anti-virus program anyway, for
performance reasons. This gives me an incentive to go shopping again.

Thanks again. At least I know were the problem is now.

Bruce.

[Bruce.]

On 8/24/2014 3:22 PM, Charles Lindbergh wrote:
> One additional idea, check / change the following setting in windows 7:
>
> Start>Control Panel>Administrative Tools>Local Security Policy
>
> Then:
>
> Local Policies>Security Options>Network Security: LAN Manager authentication
> level:
>
> Set it to Send LM & NTLM - use NTLMv2 session security if negotiated

It doesn't look like I can try that. No such function in Administrative
Tools. I suspect that's because I have Windows 7 Home rather than Pro.

Bruce.

[Bruce.]

On 8/24/2014 4:24 PM, Charles Lindbergh wrote:> You might take a look at
this:
>
>
https://forum.eset.com/topic/1389-eset-av-blocking-my-router-web-admin-page/

Wow. Outstanding find!

That seems to have nailed it. I wasn't searching on ESET and I was
mostly searching for "transferring data ... " which the thread doesn't
mention, so I never would have found that.

I tried their recommended change in the ESET protocol filtering
(excluding 192.168.1.1) and that seems to have done the trick! I also
added the IP of my D-Link router and that one is now fixed too.

Thanks so much for the help! I don't know why that was necessary, but it
works. Now I don't need to go antivirus shopping!

Cool. This has been bugging me for a very long time. :-)

Bruce.

[James Moe]

On 08/24/2014 11:24 AM, Bruce. wrote:
> > I can only guess that there is something about the way the router
> > handles the protocol that makes FF think the router has not responded
> > when it has.
> > For situation like this, I use Chrome or Opera.
>
> Unfortunately for me Chrome and Opera do it too. they don't display the
> "transferring .. ." message, but they stall at the same place.
>

It's the router then.
Is there a software update available for the router?

[Bruce.]

On 8/24/2014 6:57 PM, Charles Lindbergh wrote:> You are welcome, I would
have found it earlier but you told me you had
> completely disabled your security software.

Yeah, that was the "facts" at the time. ESET has 2 disable functions,
and apparently they don't totally disable it. I'd call that a bug.

And my wife's computer still fails and she doesn't use ESET so her Trend
Micro must have the same problem.

> Keep the Hiren's disk, it is INVALUABLE for solving many, many
computer issues.

Will do. It looks really cool. Thanks again.

Bruce.

[Bruce.]

Just as a followup, I started noticing more and more web pages that
stalled before finishing loading. I would have normally blamed that on
the Internet, but I was starting to wonder if the stall I had with my
router web pages was also happening elsewhere.

In addition to ASUS router and D-Link router, it also started on a
Netgear repeater I recently bought.

It turns out I was getting more stalls than I thought, all completely
randomly and with varying frequency.

The Disable functions in ESET don't completely work so it was also tough
to try the web pages with and without ESET.

Eventually I ran across web pages that failed often enough for me to try
with and without ESET, and there was no question. ESET was screwing up
reading web pages.

I uninstalled ESET and all the problems went away. Page loading is now
rock solid.

I wasn't unable to find any global ESET setting that would fix every
page in the internet, like I had done for my routers individually.

So I've moved on and am trying the well reviewed Kaspersky instead.

Bruce.