SatSig topic:

TCP connection errors

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Dec 21^st, 2006 at 3:02am

Trying to help my boss. We access company email via lotus notes webmail innotes account. He was on earthlink dialup and all was well, albeit very slow. He switched to hughsnet and although his internet is much much better, he is having extreme difficulty connecting to webmail and company support says it is the satellite. Hughes says it's not them. WHen connecting, either before or right after logging in, he gets an error message: "Network Error (tcp-error) "Connection Refused" The web server may be down, too busy, or experiencing other problems preventing it from responding to your request. You may wish to try again at a later time. For assistance contact your network support team." This only happens to him on satellite. Any suggestions? Thanks!!

Dec 21^st, 2006 at 3:50pm

Is he using any VPN software (CheckPoint, etc.) to connect? This sounds like a VPN problem.

Pat

Dec 22^nd, 2006 at 2:16am

Thanks for replying. No VPN software.

Dec 22^nd, 2006 at 4:52am

Quote:

WHen connecting, either before or right after logging in...

I'm unclear on this part - when he's connecting or logging into what? You say he's receiving a TCP error, yet email is typically either SMTP or IMAP. Is this error generated by his company servers, or from his HughesNet connection servers?

//greg//

Dec 22^nd, 2006 at 12:09pm

It is company webmail. Company claims it is not them. I don't have an issue, no other users are having the issue. He gets to the webmail front end, logs in with a username password on the web page, the loading window shows (sometimes it doesn't) then he gets the TCP error. It was working fine for him on dial up (AOL), he gets satellite, the issues begin.

Dec 22^nd, 2006 at 2:12pm

Ah, webmail. Sort of a hybrid beast; a webmail server is in between the actual mail box and the web client, using the POP/IMAP and SMTP protocols on one side and the HTTP protocol on the other. Your friend opens a browser that employs HTTP/TCP to access the webmail server, which in turn fetches mail from the corporate POP/IMAP-SMTP server.

The issue may lie in the probability that your friend's browser is routed through the HughesNet HPEP (proxy) server - which is not present on the AOL dialup path. Since HPEP is a proprietary HTTP accelerator, there may be an incompatiblity issue with the corporate webmail server protocol. That "contact your network support team" message might be the webmail server saying it cannot make a proper connection with the HughesNet HPEP server.

I think the fix may be to make a configuration change in the modem's user interface that bypasses the HughesNet HPEP server. This would connect the user to the internet via HughesNet DNS instead of HPEP. But unfortunately that's like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Bypassing the HPEP server will almost certainly slow down ordinary web browsing and downloading. So rather than start fooling straight away with modem properties, I recommend disabling PROXY in the browser's connection properties first, re-enabling PROXY after the webmail check has completed. If that works, your friend can download and install a simple free proxy switching utility. - just for the purposes of checking email.

If it doesn't work, there's still the modem configuration change - but it's cumbersome in the face of frequent webmail activity. So I'd consider that as a last resort. A more practical alternative may be to abandon webmail altogether. Have your friend investigate the possibility of his company letting him log directly onto the corporate mail servers with his email client - rather than using the browser and webmail method.

//greg//