Comment 0 for bug 980727

I have a toshiba laptop from about 2008 connected through cable to a router (roline rotronic router almost no name since I couldn't find firmware upgrades). The router is connected to the isp through pppoe.

I cannot connect to google.com or any sites related to google.com such as youtube or sites that use google-analytics. It either times out or it finally connects after about 5 minutes in waiting. This behavior starts about 2 days after booting, so the first about 48 hours everything is peachy.

I have tried using firefox, opera, chromium, lynx, wget everything. Ping works and it's not a DNS problem since I tried the google 8.8.8.8, 8.8.4.4 addresses and it doesn't help in any way.

I tried restarting the router. Nothing. Modified the mt from 1500 to 1492 like on the pppoe on the router. Nothing. Tried 1464. Now no sites work. Back on 1492, everything works except google.

I install wireshark and see that when I wait for google to load I get a lot of TCP previous segment lost errors to google ip. The dns keeps trying different google servers with different ips but all have the same problem: TCP previous segment lost. After a few minutes it either times out or it finds a server that responds. But if I try again then I have to wait another 5 minutes.

Rebooting the sytem works. For 2 days that is. Using windows both xp and 7 doesn't exhibit the problem. Other windows machines on the network don't exhibit the issue. I closed all other machines so that I am alone connected to the router. Nothing. After a few hours it might start working again all by itself and after another couple of days it starts having the problem again.

I reinstalled the system from scratch. Formatted even the home partition hoping it was some damn configuration file. Still can't connect.

Using startpage.com instead of google.com or google.ro (I am from Romania) works.

I had the system working for months when I installed some updates including a kernel update a couple of months ago. From then on ubuntu 11.10 started exhibiting this problem. I do not remember what kernel version it was but I updated to 3.2 I think after I tried the precise pangolin beta and it still exhibited the issue.

Last thing I tried now: I got rid of the router and connected directly to internet using pppoe configuration from ubuntu. Guess what now google and everything else works. I got back behind the router and you guessed it: everything works except google. So it seems there is some bad interaction between my ubuntu and that router! But then again it worked for months and windows xp and 7 both work like a charm. Any ideas what the kernel programmers might have changed in the tcp stack (I assume it must be something about the interaction between linux stack and the router stack)?