NationStates Jolt Archive

I am having trouble getting updates on a program that downloads information to the program I use. It is a simple enough program that just downloads text updates. I hit the check for updates button and then it says no internet connection detected are you sure you have a internet connection? Well, obvisouly I do because I am on the internet now. What gives? Any help with this and will be so appreacitate that I will send you some of the 30 below zero weather that I have up here.

You're far too vague, but I'll hazard a guess & say your firewall or router is misconfigured.

You're far too vague, but I'll hazard a guess & say your firewall or router is misconfigured.

I realize that I am vague but I don't know how else to explain it. I have turned of the firewall and that didn't help. It is only a problem with this and one other program as far as I can tell.

Check your /etc/hosts whether it directs the URL you want to reach to some weird IP like 127.0.0.1?

I realize that I am vague but I don't know how else to explain it. I have turned of the firewall and that didn't help. It is only a problem with this and one other program as far as I can tell.

i have tried suggestions from the other thread and they have not solved the problem.

I really was quite rude wasn't I?
While in principle I don't think it's wise to encourage these kind of threads, I'll try to make up for being rude in this instance.

If you give a vague problem, you'll get a vague solution. The very first reply is absolutely sound, and it's about all that can be said without knowing more details. Details like:

PC or Mac?
What OS?
What kind of internet connection?
What programs have the problem? E.g. "the Sage plugin for Firefox 2.0"
What's the exact error message you get?
Firewall, any routers (eg wireless) in your place.
ANYTHING else you think might be relevant.

Then, you have at least a small chance that someone will reply "Hey, I had that exact problem. You need to set woggles on in the dweeb menu, then it works fine" or whatever.
Even if it's not that easy, at least you won't get misleading advice that really doesn't apply to your situation.

Perhaps you aren't comfortable with revealing all that information to a bunch of strangers on a forum. In which case, bad luck, you're on your own.

I really was quite rude wasn't I?
While in principle I don't think it's wise to encourage these kind of threads, I'll try to make up for being rude in this instance.

If you give a vague problem, you'll get a vague solution. The very first reply is absolutely sound, and it's about all that can be said without knowing more details. Details like:

PC or Mac?
What OS?
What kind of internet connection?
What programs have the problem? E.g. "the Sage plugin for Firefox 2.0"
What's the exact error message you get?
Firewall, any routers (eg wireless) in your place.
ANYTHING else you think might be relevant.

Then, you have at least a small chance that someone will reply "Hey, I had that exact problem. You need to set woggles on in the dweeb menu, then it works fine" or whatever.
Even if it's not that easy, at least you won't get misleading advice that really doesn't apply to your situation.

Perhaps you aren't comfortable with revealing all that information to a bunch of strangers on a forum. In which case, bad luck, you're on your own.

I have a PC, with Broadband, I turned off the Microsoft XP firewall, the programs (there are two) would be unknown to other people, I have a wireless card. The only message is "internet connection can not be found, are you sure that you have connected" or something very close to that. I realize that I probably won't get the answer here on NSG, but there are so many people with a great deal of computer knowledge that I lack I thought it was worth a shot. thanks again. If you are ever up this way I will take you ice fishing...in July. :D

I really was quite rude wasn't I? I thought it was pretty funny. The "No 'puter, no table, no shit" replies made me laugh.

i can't help except to offer similar stories. i can never get my virus checker to update. it just doesn't ever give me the option to, maybe it does it all by itself without asking, i dunno. also, when i click on the update links on limewire they just open windows media player and nothing happens. pretty stupid.

I thought it was pretty funny. The "No 'puter, no table, no shit" replies made me laugh.

i got a chuckle out of that too.

I thought it was pretty funny. The "No 'puter, no table, no shit" replies made me laugh.

Wasn't me. I got a chuckle too.
Good thing you can't buy C4 in Wal-Mart, or someone would probably try that.

i can't help except to offer similar stories. i can never get my virus checker to update. it just doesn't ever give me the option to, maybe it does it all by itself without asking, i dunno. also, when i click on the update links on limewire they just open windows media player and nothing happens. pretty stupid.

Seems to be a chronic problem with virus checkers ... that and going on a jihad against virtually everthing you have installed, including themselves.

"The auto-destruct mechanism got hit, and blew itself up" -Lt Goldburg, Dr Strangelove

I'm a Debian user myself, but I get to see plenty of XP machines used as browsers, and I don't think I'd ever use automatic updates.
Save any settings files, uninstall the program and put the new version in fresh might be a solution?

The "No shit" reply was mine. I shouldn't laugh at my own jokes. he he

I will try your suggestion. Thanks again.

I have a PC, with Broadband, I turned off the Microsoft XP firewall,So far so good. Now we know the OS & we know you've disabled the one firewall in existence that couldn't be a problem in this scenario, hehe. But at least you now know it's perfectly fine to turn it back on.the programs (there are two) would be unknown to other people,Unless you've made them yourself, that's unlikely. We have the interwebs to draw on, so go ahead & clue us in.I have a wireless card.That's a fairly odd thing to say, but I can guess what you mean :pThe only message is "internet connection can not be found, are you sure that you have connected" or something very close to that.If you hit the control & print screen keys on your keyboard, you'll get a snapshot of the image on your monitor. Open up paint (look in the start menu -> Programs -> Acessories or there abouts), hit control & V, and resize the new image 'til you just have the nice little error message left. Save it where you can find it, upload it & post it here.I realize that I probably won't get the answer here on NSG, but there are so many people with a great deal of computer knowledge that I lack I thought it was worth a shot. thanks again. If you are ever up this way I will take you ice fishing...in July. :DEh.. I'll pass. Cold enough as it is. Anyway, it'd be nice to know exactly what your connection is & what hardware's involved in it (look at the damn things, they have names & numbers on them), as well as the proggies you're struggling with.

It'd also be nice if you could say with certainty whether you have a router and/or other software/hardware firewalls. If you just realised "Oh damn, I do have a router sitting on the floor 3" from my left foot!" then check out www.portforward.com - it's much easier than asking us.Seems to be a chronic problem with virus checkers ... that and going on a jihad against virtually everthing you have installed, including themselves.Hahaha, remember the Chernobyl virus? It got into.. I think it was Symantech.. Resulting in an infected AV that immediately opened up & infected every single exeutable on the 'puters. Pure mayhem.

I'm a Debian user myself,
Debian sucks. I cannot get madwifi to work on it.:(

Debian sucks. I cannot get madwifi to work on it.:(

Do you have all the Requirements (http://madwifi.org/wiki/Requirements) ?

To be honest, it looks like something I'd try once and then give up on. You have to compile it yourself? It would be best to use all the recommended versions of libraries etc, plus a kernel compile to do for those switches, and generally you'd have to really want it.

Do you have all the Requirements (http://madwifi.org/wiki/Requirements) ?

To be honest, it looks like something I'd try once and then give up on. You have to compile it yourself? It would be best to use all the recommended versions of libraries etc, plus a kernel compile to do for those switches, and generally you'd have to really want it.
I used the Debian source packages (which depend on the tools needed to setup a connection). Then I build and install the kernel module using module-assistant.

Then, when I boot I get an error message along the following lines:
wifi0: unknown hardware address 801

On most distributions, downloading the source, make, make install, modeprobe ath_pci is all that is needed.

Actually, I've got a question of my own.

My mother has a P3 laptop, it's pretty slow (500 MHz I think,) 64 MB RAM and wireless card.
It has windows 98 on it and a dedicated linux firewall machine to protect it on the net.
Now, she recently bought a webcam and wants to make videocalls. I'd like a recommendation for videoconferencing software, taking into account:


It should be as lean as practicable, 64 MB ain't much RAM and she runs other things.
It should be simple to use. Tricky setup not such a problem.
It should be free. Open source if possible.


There all interoperable, aren't they? It will be talking to Macs and PC's so I hope so.

Sorry I went away for so long (I won a game of Scrabble and ate some curry.)

I used the Debian source packages (which depend on the tools needed to setup a connection).
Just to be sure, you mean the package they're talking about here (http://madwifi.org/wiki/UserDocs/Distro/Debian/MadWifi)?
The Debian package in non-free, same version as your kernel source? Then I build and install the kernel module using module-assistant.

Then, when I boot I get an error message along the following lines:
wifi0: unknown hardware address type 801
... and the card isn't working? This error seems to happen even whent he module and card are working fine. Is there a DHCP request sent out just after that, in dmesg ? (I'm assuming you're letting your router do DHCP, not everyone does).
I'm asking that to eliminate that the card is working but you have a WEP/WPA problem.

On most distributions, downloading the source, make, make install, modprobe ath_pci is all that is needed.

Yeah, that's about the limit of what I know how to do anyway.
The instructions for Debian seem to have some other steps though: madwifi wiki (http://madwifi.org/wiki/UserDocs/Distro/Debian/MadWifi)

Suse is fine. I like Debian because I'm reading from the same page as Ubuntu users I know, without actually having to use that distribution which I find a bit limited and not well documented. I'm using Debian Etch, but honestly don't know if it's gone stable yet.

I've got a crappy laptop I'm going to install Debian Etch on, and a Netgear card that needs madwifi, so I might know a lot more about this subject in a week or so. (On the other hand, I might have some fun smashing a laptop with an axe.) I'll gravedig the thread if I get a clear solution or it 'just works.'

Just to be sure, you mean the package they're talking about here (http://madwifi.org/wiki/UserDocs/Distro/Debian/MadWifi)?
The Debian package in non-free, same version as your kernel source?
... and the card isn't working? This error seems to happen even whent he module and card are working fine. Is there a DHCP request sent out just after that, in dmesg ? (I'm assuming you're letting your router do DHCP, not everyone does).
I'm asking that to eliminate that the card is working but you have a WEP/WPA problem.
I got the packages here (http://www.us.debian.org/distrib/packages), newest kernerl/headers/madwifi-source/madwifi-tools. I gotta download the packages via Windows, so it takes a long bloody time to do that (thank god Debian lists each package's dependencies). I'm at school, so I'd have to check what dmeg says later.


Suse is fine. I like Debian because I'm reading from the same page as Ubuntu users I know, without actually having to use that distribution which I find a bit limited and not well documented. I'm using Debian Etch, but honestly don't know if it's gone stable yet.
I find that Ubuntu has all sorts of tiny problems that break the direct rendering of my ATI card when I keep my system up to date. That and I have to compile my own kernel if I want to boot in under 3 minutes.:rolleyes: There are a few other things that I need to compile too, which are less annoying than a kernel, but still, I have ~25 hand compiled packages.

Suse is meh. More bug free than Ubuntu (and not uglier than sin either), but I am just not used to how it does certain things. Plus Yast is slower than sin, yet hard to avoid.
I've got a crappy laptop I'm going to install Debian Etch on, and a Netgear card that needs madwifi, so I might know a lot more about this subject in a week or so. (On the other hand, I might have some fun smashing a laptop with an axe.) I'll gravedig the thread if I get a clear solution or it 'just works.'
Look for to hearing about it.