Don,

Try resetting the Winsock by going to Start, Run, type in

netsh winsock reset

Click OK. You should be prompted to restart the system to complete the
operation.

MowGreen [MVP 2003-2006]
===============
*-343-* FDNY
Never Forgotten
===============

Don wrote:

> I'm running XP Pro with all the latest updates. I was running a VPN
> client from my employer and when I disconnected the VPN, the client
> crashed. Ever since then my Internet connectivity is VERY sporadic.
> Applications like Firefox and Thunderbird will not talk to the net at
> all getting a "connection refused by server" message. Outlook can
> sometimes get out. IE is the only application that can get to the net
> pretty consistently but even that is not 100%. Some pages won't come
> up.
>
> I've checked all hardware (D-Link router and cable modem) and
> everything is fine. Another computer attached to the same router has
> no problems (that's the machine I'm sending this from). That second
> computer can ping it's own IP address with no problems and has no
> trouble getting out to the Internet and this second machine can ping
> the computer that is having the trouble.
>
> I also tried connecting the VPN again and disconnecting it. It does
> not successfully connect any more either and the disconnect does not
> fix the problem. I also tried uninstalling and reinstalling the VPN -
> Again with no effect.
>
> I've tried running with the XP firewall disabled and enabled with no
> change in the symptoms.
>
> I can ping the other computer on my home network and I can ping both
> 127.0.0.1 and "localhost" on the problem machine with no problems.
> The "good" computer can ping all of the above and it can ping the "bad"
> computer. It can also ping it's own IP address just fine. Running the
> XP network diagnostic on the "good" computer shows everything passing
> with no errors.
>
> The IP is set up as DHCP from my local router. I've released and
> renewed the license several times using ipconfig and even forced it to
> use a different IP address by changing the settings in my router. None
> of that had any effect.
>
> The DNS server is passed through my router to the ISP and appears to
> work fine as the other computer on my home net has no problems
> accessing the net.
>
> The WINS settings are to enable LMHOSTS lookup and the NetBIOS is set
> to the "default" setting.
>
> I tried comparing the settings on the two machine that I have on my
> local net. They are both running the same version of XP so they should
> be pretty much identical but one works and the other does not. So far,
> I think I've gone through all the dialog boxes there are and have not
> found any differences in the setting on the two machines.
> I ran the XP Network Diagnostic tool and it failed. The only part of
> the test that failed is when it tries to ping it's own IP address. I
> tried this manually and got the same results. I can't ping my own IP
> address. The "good" machine on the local network works fine and can
> ping anything including the machine that is having the problem.
>
> I'm guessing that the VPN crash left my machine in some indeterminate
> state but I've checked everything I can think of and nothing appears to
> be wrong.
>
> Help!
>