# Downloads hang consistently -- stumping everyone



## bswb (Nov 26, 2008)

Hi everyone,

I've got a problem with our DSL that's stumped SBC DSL's tech support folks. Hopefully this will be more effective than that!

When I try to download certain types of files, my computers on my network will hang. This happens on all of my computers regardless of wireless or desktop. If I try downloading a file on any web browser on different computers, it often hangs at the same spot in the download. I send a lot of Word docs for my business and this is happening a lot with those. I'd say that about 25% of the time, Word docs will go through. The other 75% of the time, the files:

-Hang indefinitely before they get started
-Download with an "unknown file size" and never finish
-Hang for a very long time (an hour), then complete
-Go to a certain point (like 23%), then hang indefinitely

General web traffic is fine EXCEPT for streaming audio/video. In the case of XM Radio Online and other online radio stations, things will be fine for a while, then it'll drop for a minute or so, then it'll re-buffer and come back on. For YouTube, the file will load to a certain point and then just stop. If I click on a different area of the file's playback (e.g. the 45 second mark after it hangs at 20 seconds), the whole thing kick-starts itself into working.

On my Playstation 3, files always hang at the same time. For example, one file always hangs at either 8%, 23%, or 72%. I have a mandatory update for one of my games that always hangs at either 11% or 19%, rendering the game unplayable.

What does work? Like I said, general web traffic. Email downloads from Outlook. PDF files, zip files. FTP is very erratic, but I don't know if that's just because FTP can be unreliable at times.

My hardware:

-Linksys WRT54G 
-Speedstream 5360 modem
-2 laptop (1 XP, 1 Vista) on wireless, PS3 on wireless, desktop (Vista) on ethernet

What I've tried:

-Bypassing the router and plugging directly into the DSL modem
-Swapping out the DSL modem
-Downloading with different web browsers on different computers
-On my PS3, there is a "download in background" option for certain type of files (store files but not system files). When I do that, you can pause/resume downloads. When downloads hang, I can pause/resume repeatedly and it will kick-start the whole thing maybe about 75% of the time.
-Adjusting wireless settings such as channel, time-out time, etc.
-Opened up my phone box and my wall outlet to make sure that wiring was still secure

I believe my troubleshooting has eliminated modem/router as the cause of a problem.

The SBC Yahoo tech support folks believe that this is either a firewall issue or a virus scan issue. However, I'm not sure how this is possible as I've plugged directly into the modem, turned off Windows firewall and my virus scanner, and the same stuff happens.

The strange thing is that this just happened in late July or so. I've been tinkering with it on or off as time allowed, though I'm getting to a point where frustration is setting in. SBC Yahoo folks are no help and I'm thinking of ditching their service altogether in hopes of finding something. 

Can someone on here help? I'd be very appreciative of any suggestions!

:4-dontkno


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## johnwill (Sep 26, 2002)

Register at DSLReports and run their Line Quality Tests. It's best to run this test with a direct wired connection to eliminate any wireless issues from the results. It's useful many times to run this test several times, and we'd like to see each of the results. Post the results link from the top of the test display page for each test run here.

The link to post is near the top of the page and looks like:

If you wish to post this result to a forum, please copy/paste this URL
*http://www.dslreports.com/linequality/nil/2357195* <- _sample only, yours will obviously be different!_
and your IP will be disguised.

Copy/paste that link here.

*Note:* _You will have to enable PING (ICMP) request response either in your router (if you have one), or in your computer's firewall for direct modem connections. This is very important to get the most important part of the test to run._


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## bswb (Nov 26, 2008)

I ran three line quality tests. The first two are from my desktop directly wired via ethernet to my Linksys router:

http://www.dslreports.com/linequality/c7728389594a/2458399
http://www.dslreports.com/linequality/78295b6ab75b/2458401

The last was run from my wireless laptop:
http://www.dslreports.com/linequality/45766a478259/2458404

All of these tests gave me the "Pass" icon so I'm assuming it generally says that the lines are good. Also, right after I did the third test, I tried testing out downloads from both my laptop and my PS3 and I'm getting the same problem.

One other bit of info that might be useful -- here are my virus programs being used:

Desktop: Panda Internet Security
Laptop 1: Panda Internet Security
Laptop 2: Avast Virus Scan

Windows firewall is currently turned on with all three computers, though I've tried switching that off at various times to see if that affected things.


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## GetOutOfBox (Oct 17, 2008)

Did you try formating the hard drives on all of the pc's then reinstalling windows? You might have a virus, viruses can add themselves to your anti virii tool's code and fool it into not detecing them. If that doesn't work, maybe you have some app that is on each pc that interferes with certain downloads. Or it might be your provider screwing up.

Hope this helped!


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## sobeit (Nov 11, 2007)

try the download in safemode with network.


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## bswb (Nov 26, 2008)

I've uninstalled Avast Antivirus from my XP machine. My Vista desktop still has Panda Antivirus installed and the Vista laptop is shutdown.

Tried downloading the PS3 firmware update today and I got the same hanging timeouts. However, I was able to download some Word docs and those are usually fickle. I have no idea if this means anything.


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## johnwill (Sep 26, 2002)

Line quality does look fine, so it appears to be something local or it happens when we're not testing the line.


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