I discovered my network connection has been dropped again as I tried for the first time this morning to open a web page. Please see attachment below for output of tail of syslog. I reads a little different than my most previous attachment because as soon as I found out I was disconnected, I issued the tail command. Would you please review and share your thoughts on it?

Attached Files

2014.07.13_SyslogOutputOfNetworkError.txt (11.0 KB, 12 views)

Going on the possibility that the problem is a hardware issue, as kentyler and trieudoahong kindly suggest, I have been booted into Windows 7 for the last couple of days. (I dual-boot Windoze 7 and Debian Wheezy). This was following the network drop in Debian yesterday morning, from which I posted in this thread the printout of the syslog tail. So, immediately following the post of the syslog tail yesterday morning, I shut down Debian and booted into Windows 7. Then I immediately performed a Windows Update, restarted Windows, no more updates to do, so all set to run the experiment. Following the Update, I restarted and I opened my browser within 10-15 minutes of booting up and logging into Windows, to begin the experiment. When I opened my browser, my default web pages opened up (running Google Chrome). Then while booted into Windows for at least several hours, I was suddenly given the option by Windows to select which type of network I wish to use for my Internet connection. I really don't know what happened. All I know is that I was away from my computer, running Windows, for at least an hour (the screen went blank according to my power settings). When I came back to my computer and moved the mouse to turn the screen back on, there was a window offering me choices as to which type of network I wanted to use. I think the choices were "Home", "Workplace", and "Public". Of course I chose "Home". And so, a network connection was established (again?). But, I already had a connection when I first booted Windows yesterday morning, and after I restarted after the Update. I know this because after I restarted after the Update, I opened my browser and my default web pages loaded. So, I am not sure why Windows prompted me to select my network type. It could be that the network was dropped, but I had no other indication to that effect. Nonetheless, when I am in Debian, the network connection will be dropped at least once every three days maximum. Usually, it only takes one or two days at the most for the network connection to be dropped (in Debian). So, having this pattern established in Debian, I am presuming, if it is a hardware problem, that I can give Windows a week from today (seven days, I guess?) for the network connection to be dropped, assuming the above mentioned prompt for network choice was some unrelated occurrence. And, if the network does not get dropped while in Windows for the next week, I suppose I can conclude that the problem is not a hardware issue. If it does get dropped, then we can be fairly certain that kentyler and trieudoahong are correct, and I will have to call my ISP for them to troubleshoot. They'll be easier to deal with anyway if I am running Windows and the network connection gets dropped. Most of those call center agents hear "Linux" and turn all ghosty--"We don't support Linux". I have heard that more than once, but it is not impossible to get an agent to help if the problem is exclusive to Linux. It is simply more difficult.

At any rate, I will continue to run the experiment for about the next week. I will post results and/or progress reports accordingly.

Thank you in advance for your help.

IMHO, Unix driver for Broadcom/Intel is much far better than Realtek's one. If you must find the root cause then take your time. If you need stable one (for serving client...) I suggest grab some Broadcom/Intel NIC off eBay. They're quite cheap there, some time even cheaper than some Realtek based NIC.

Thank you, T. I will take that into consideration.

I looked at my computer online at my computer manufacturer's website. The network interface is integrated into the motherboard. My computer doesn't have a detachable NIC. Hoping and praying for a simple solution.

Friends,

My apology for not updating sooner. Time flies when you are having fun, right? I have been having some fun with this connectivity problem---well, learning about it anyway. Now, I am not 100% positively certain about my suspicion, but I think I have found what has been the cause of my problem.

I mostly use Google Chrome, and on occasions when I thought I was dropping my connection, I now believe that I actually was not dropping my connection. I am, based on my experience with this particular issue, fairly certain that kentyler's assessment is 100% accurate, in that I was not dropping my internet connection, either from my computer or from my modem. He indicated this based on my ifconfig and dmesg outputs.

During my lengthy realization that I was having a problem, I would be browsing the Web with Chrome, and would open another tab and try to go to a different website, usually for a quick reference while doing research. As I tried to open up that website, I would get blocked by Chrome. On the page of that tab, with the website blocked, I would instead have a couple of buttons to press, and the rest of the page would basically be blank. The two buttons that I would be offered to press are "More" and "Reload". If I pressed "Reload", Chrome would attempt a reload, but nothing changed. If I pressed the "More" button, I would have a message open up in that tab window explaining the problem, along with an error reading "ERR_NAME_NOT_RESOLVED". The explanation of the problem on this page had very much to do with failure to resolve a DNS server. However, due to my stubborn streak, it took me a while for all of this to sink in. It was a new thing to me, this DNS non-resolution thing. I mean, at one time I was taught the purpose of DNS servers, but I guess cobwebs grew over that knowledge. So, it took a lot of fiddling, on my part and on the part of LinuxQuestions.org members kentyler and trieudoahong, to get to our current way point, much thanks to them.

What I have come to find out so far is that the problem is likely caused by the DNS servers listed in my /etc/resolv.conf file, and that I think are provided either by my OS installation/version, or by my ISP. What I think I am going to have to do to resolve the problem is resort to something like Google Public DNS project nameserver IP addresses, or OpenDNS nameserver IP addresses, to be placed in the /etc/resolv.conf file, to replace the current list (there are only two addresses currently in the file, as well as that which is provided by each of Google and OpenDNS). I am still doing a lot of reading on it, and have quite a bit left. But, in the meantime, I found out last night that when Chrome gives me that 2-button page instead of the webpage I requested, I can open up a tab right next to that one and request a page that I frequent, or request a page that I have never visited since the installation of my OS, and probably get that second page to open up. This now clearly lets me know that as I was receiving that ERR_NAME_NOT_RESOLVED message, I was all the while still connected to the Internet, and that I could request a different page and probably get it to load, I just couldn't get the one particular page to load due to a DNS resolution issue. The problem was persistent, and finally, with its persistence and enough troubleshooting, we've come across some info on DNS resolution that I think will be very beneficial, and worthy of several days reading. I have come to believe that after reading as much online content on this subject as I possibly can, I will probably have a solution that will not only be relatively trouble free, but will probably lead to faster page loading times.

Bear in mind that through all of this, I almost dropped my current ISP, providing cable internet access, for another ISP, that would have provided DSL. Another thing I had to consider is that when the cable technician showed up to see what he could do to troubleshoot/improve my Internet access condition, just before he left he told me that all the cabling in my apartment complex is just "very old", and the next step in resolving my problem may have been to completely re-cable my entire apartment unit---meaning I would have to go through my property manager (ugh!) to have the work authorized. It is good to know the American spirit of hard work ethics is alive and well, particularly with certain segments of my ISP. Although, I just think I would rather edit two lines of my /etc/resolv.conf file, thank you very much. :-D

I will leave this thread unsolved, so far, but with the intention of having it solved within the next few days. Before I mark it solved, I have to educate myself, then make a decision. I can say that I am leaning toward a simple fix of editing my /etc/resolv.conf file. However, I do not know enough about it yet to be absolutely sure. In the meantime, my uptime is 1 day, 10 hours. I am cautiously expecting that I will not have to reboot for at least several days or weeks, as I now think that I simply just can't reach a few pages out there due to an isolated DNS issue. I have come to understand with a fair amount of certainty that rebooting essentially is not restoring a supposedly "lost" internet connection that truly was never lost in the first place for this general matter. Rather, my /etc/resolv.conf file is probably in need of proper editing. After that, I think will be able to "surf" the big waves, so to speak.

Till next time...

I found the thread at the following hyperlink very interesting. I just adjusted the setting in Chrome to see how things go for a few days.

https://superuser.com/questions/6538...se-the-os-defa

Well, I was dreading that it would ever come to this so soon, but I am in the process of reinstalling everything. Turns ou the closer I thought I was getting to a resolution, the further away the resolution. This problem is yet to be deemed "Solved".

Alright...So, I think I am making significant progress now, because I have done more and more searching on the Net about the particular problem I started this thread on, and have continued since then to work on. Turns out that there are a lot of complaints out there with this problem that go all the way back to 2009. However, most recently, the complaints with the NIC that ship with Debian Wheezy, and maybe the previous Debian Squeeze, and that are mentioned on the Net have been resolved by many users (carefully, of course) by simply updating the kernel.

The kernel that ships with Debian (Wheezy) 7.0 is version 3.12. The latest stable kernel is 3.15.8, which is what I am now in the process of bringing it up to.

A fairly decent guide is posted, although there was one notable error in the guide, which was brought up in the comments, and that I will post a correction to here in a minute.

So, after all the troubleshooting, bringing new meaning to the word "trouble"-shooting, I got to a point where I had to reinstall the OS. Although, if this kernel update thing solves the problem, I could have avoided the reinstall, and could have just jumped to a kernel update.

The guide on the internet that I used is:

http://www.tecmint.com/kernel-compil...-debian-linux/

The one error that I had to make sure that I entered correctly is where he says to enter a command such as:

# cp /boot/config-`uname –r`.config

the command is actually

# cp /boot/config* ./.config

The first one may work, however, some of the commenters noted problems with the original command, and through a little man page reading, IMO, I think the second method is more elegant, provided your extracted kernel directory is in the /home directory and assuming you really don't want your directory while you are working on this to be anything other than the directory of the extracted file, ~/linux-3.15.8 in my case. Or, more simply, you have downloaded and placed the original file in /home, and have extracted that file to /home, and are thus working in ~/linux-3.15.8. The location of the download is

https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v3.x/

Note that there is a patch for the latest kernel version. Although I have not seen any comments about the patch, and those comments are on the page of the above-mentioned guide, and all the comments on that page indicate satisfaction, I am still interested in patching my kernel up accordingly because what else would the patch be for? I could use somebody's expert advice on this, if there is any available, please.

I do appreciate all the encouragement so far in getting this issue resolved. It is now time to reboot and check for any errors, etc. Will follow up later.

Alright...Reboot went smoothly. However, I am still bugged by this NIC issue.

I came across it in the final conclusion of the kernel update installation.

I was alerted to a possible NIC firmware problem, but I am not sure that it related to me. So, I looked online to see if I could find anything telling me if my whole system would be okay, or if I had to do something about it. Naturally, I found conflicting opinions. So I went to my shell and got an output of exactly what is concerning me right now, and if I still have a NIC issue that should be resolved.

My shell output is this:

If someone with this kind of experience could please answer with a resolution, if that is indeed necessary, I would be greatly obliged. I have been pulling this NIC problem along for the last month. I would be very grateful to know of how to fix it, if that's what is required for a stable network interface. In the output directly above, notice my Ethernet controller after the lspci. Then, above that, notice the errors that I reproduced, that stemmed from the installation of the kernel update. Are these errors something that I can fix??? Or that require fixing?? Or, is it best just to leave them as they are???

Also, it seems like there is a patch for the latest stable kernel. I am having trouble understanding how to install/apply/understand the patch, and what I can do with it that would benefit me and my computer system. Any explanations for this??

Much thanks in advance.

Alright...I did some research on the previous post, and I found numerous reassurances that the warnings are nothing to worry about.

I also did a:

so, as best as I can tell, my network interface has all it needs. So far, network connection is functioning without interruption. Will leave system running for at least a few days, as much as I can help it. Current uptime is: 2 hr., 36 min. An aside, I slightly suspect that I am getting the warnings because I don't have a network card, per se, but that the network interface is built into the motherboard. Maybe if I had a card, that separate hardware would be detected and the resolution of the warnings could possibly be take place rather efficiently. Just a hunch (could be wrong, and could be something else worth looking into).

I downloaded the patch tarball, and all it contains is, I think, a text file that looks like a change log. Although, I can't remember what a change log looks like, but if I were to imagine what a change log looks like, that text file presents an impression of just what that might be.

Still would like to know how to apply the 3.15.8 kernel patch, if that is possible. Any ideas??

Much thanks in advance for your help.

Update---

The computer was up for about 21 hours, I awoke this morning, got some coffee, and sat down in front of my computer. Tried to go to a page, and no connection. No documentation that I can find on Internet to show how to force network manager to use a network connection that I added, thus giving me Google Public DNS server ip addresses to use instead of default addresses. Resorting to purchasing a new computer. Take-away lesson: do not buy a computer with network interface integrated into motherboard. Closing thread as "Solved".

Not quite - I have found Intel pretty good in supporting Linux; I insist on them. Realtek (especially) and Broadcom are bad - the latter has gotten better over the last few years.

Tru dat/I concur/I agree. I stand corrected. Granted, that with my current NIC being Realtek, I do feel that I have the root cause of my network connection woes for the past several weeks, and that they were indeed caused by Realtek technology. However, I do have a 64-bit system, and were I to have a 32-bit system, I might have been able to resolve this issue by updating the driver as provided by Realtek's website. Realtek's update for my system is 32-bit only. I do have some more research and, thus, contributing to do to this thread. I will go into Windows Device Manager and see if the driver needs an update. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Woop. I misspoke. I don't even have Windows installed on my machine anymore. So, I can't check for driver update. But, I did order a new computer, so I will have to look it up, and maybe call the manufacturer to see just what I am getting into with the networking setup 'n all. This is probably more info than anybody cares about. But, I am trying to conclude this thread and get on with things, without being rude.