Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Calling out ALL Techies

Long story short...

I bought a new router, Buffalo Wireless-N Nfiniti ADSL2+ (WBMR-G300N), and it's working flawlessly. The only problem is I cannot use it to sign in Windows Live! Neither my hotmail nor MSN Messenger work and it's only acting like this with Mac.

I tried my rusty Acer laptop and it can access just fine but when I use my MacBook Pro or my sister's MacBook it keeps loading forever and sometimes stops with the message "Sign in to Microsoft Messenger failed because the service is not available or you may not be connected to the internet".

I replaced it with my old router, Linksys Wireless-G (WAG200G) and there was no problem signing in Windows Live accounts.

No Firewalls enabled, no third-party security applications, nothing at all. I even tried forcing the router to keep Windows Live ports open yet there was no connection.

The odd thing is, Firefox can access my email through hotmail.com but it takes around 10 actual minutes to reach my inbox.

Any idea of what might be causing this or how to solve it?

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Try upgrading the firmwares of your router.

http://www.buffalo-technology.com/support/downloads/

Anonymous said...

you could...do the following

1. Disable the firewall on the router.

2. Ensure no portfowarding is done on MSN ports.

3. check the MTU settings on the router. mention it here.

MacaholiQ8 said...

Patrick:
I already looked there, no firmware updates for this model.


Rayboy:
1- As mentioned in the post, no Firewalls enabled on neither the router or my Mac.

2- I didn't have any but out of hopelessness I enabled MSN messenger portforwarding (1863 over TCP) and still no response so I disabled it again.

3- MTU is set to "Auto" but it's currently fixed to "1492".

I have been looking up the problem over the internet for the past couple of days and it seems a lot of people are having the same problem but not with this brand, most of them are using Netgear and they blame Microsoft for this.

I cannot really blame anyone since it connects fine with my old router but with this one it doesn't. Odd isn't it? :/

Anonymous said...

Since it works for one and not the other:

1- Were they all connected by same way (both wireless, or both wired?)

2- Since both non-working devices are MacBooks, very likely MacBook is not working properly with that device. So as suggested by Rayboy, try upgrading both MacBook Pro and the router.

3- Try ping to the domain live.com, or also traceroute live.com
from terminal and see how it goes.

Anonymous said...

It is odd, why did you chose buffalo? I suggest to return it if you can and get something else. Linksys or 3com.

MacaholiQ8 said...

bashar:
1- All three (two macs and one acer) are connected wirelessly. Browsing works fine but in both macs I cannot login to Windows Live accounts.

2- Upgrading from what and to what? Both Macs are up-to-date and the router is preset out of the box with no firmware updates on the main site.

3- I got no response for ping [link]
And I got this response for traceroute [link]


patrick:
I got a decent offer. Besides, there's nothing wrong with the connection itself and browsing seems to be fairly well, in fact I have spotted a small improvement over ethernet than my last router, but the only problem is Windows Live accounts authentication. :/

Anonymous said...

Could you try changing the MTU to 1458

MacaholiQ8 said...

MTU 1458... Same thing, nothing happened. Browsing speed went down too. Back to "auto".

Unknown said...

Taw.ha ur sister daga tet7al6am 3al router :P

Anonymous said...

Were you able to fix it?

MacaholiQ8 said...

zaboo6a:
Heh, she shouldn't complain. She's getting everything for free. :P


patrick:
Nope. I took it back to the local dealer and guess what, they found that this problem persists ONLY with United Networks! How could that be possible? :/

They said they will contact the manufacturer about this issue and hopefully find a new firmware/update for my router. Otherwise I'm going for full refund.

Anonymous said...

That's really weird...