AOL and Safari with a netgear router=BIG problems

[inocen1]

Hey everyone,
I just recently bought a new imac and my dad uses AOL on it. I have a wireless router attached to it though the imac uses a hardline ethernet cable to connect to the router. So my problem is that AOL doesn't seem to like having a router to go through and doesn't want to work that way. Neither does Safari actually. Internet explorer is the only thing that will work. What the heck is going on? What do I need to do? AOL told me I need to change some port or something, which I have no idea how to do. Apple couldn't do anything to help me. Please help you guys. Someone else has got to have had the same issue.

Matthew

 

[Kwyjibo]

you only need one thread ...

 

[inocen1]

Anyone please help

Anyone out there with any idea what the problem is would be a great help to me. Someones gotta know whats goin on.

 

[MisterMe]

Re: Anyone please help

Originally posted by inocen1
Anyone out there with any idea what the problem is would be a great help to me. Someones gotta know whats goin on.

AOL's MacOS X client requires that certain ports be open that are probably closed on your router. I have a Siemens router that has the same problem. It really didn't like my attempts to open the requisite ports. This morning, Siemens got a little brother named Linksys. Problem solved.

 

[inocen1]

Yeah the netgear router didn't like my attempts to do port forwarding on it so i can't seem to get aol to work. So is linksys the way to go or is there something else I can do?
Thanks

 

[MisterMe]

Originally posted by inocen1
Yeah the netgear router didn't like my attempts to do port forwarding on it so i can't seem to get aol to work. So is linksys the way to go or is there something else I can do?
Thanks

The sales assistant at Best Buy recommended that I not buy a NetGear. He said that they receive a lot of complaints from customers who claim they don't work. Bottomline line: Buy a Linksys. I'm glad I did. You will be too.

 

[Lanbrown]

I would not trust anything a sales assistant at Best Buy says. If they were computer savvy at all, they wouldn’t be working at Best Buy. Every company has problem with at least one of their products. Usually the consumer buys the cheapest thing they can find. Here at work, if you ask two guys what they link of Linksys they will say they are awful. They have had four of them fail. I have used them before and another coworker has used them as well on side jobs. He has put in several dozen of them and never had one single problem. The only difference has been the user and in a few cases, a different model. The biggest drawback IMO with Linksys though, is if it does fail, you have to send the old one in first and then when they receive it they will send you a replacement.

 

[MisterMe]

Originally posted by Lanbrown
I would not trust anything a sales assistant at Best Buy says. If they were computer savvy at all, they wouldn’t be working at Best Buy. Every company has problem with at least one of their products. Usually the consumer buys the cheapest thing they can find. Here at work, if you ask two guys what they link of Linksys they will say they are awful. They have had four of them fail. I have used them before and another coworker has used them as well on side jobs. He has put in several dozen of them and never had one single problem. The only difference has been the user and in a few cases, a different model. The biggest drawback IMO with Linksys though, is if it does fail, you have to send the old one in first and then when they receive it they will send you a replacement.

I don't have to trust a college student working at Best Buy. I can trust myself. According to me, the Linksys router works great. It provided a solution for the very same problem that inocen1 was looking for when he started this thread. Truth is that which works.

 

[inocen1]

Thanks MisterMe and Lanbrown,

Mostly I'm suprised that more people haven't already had this problem and that this problem hasn't been discussed in the past. I guess maybe its just my netgear router thats having this problem.
Thanks.

 

[Flowbee]

I've never had a problem with my Netgear router, AOL or otherwise.

 

[MisterMe]

Originally posted by inocen1
Thanks MisterMe and Lanbrown,

Mostly I'm suprised that more people haven't already had this problem and that this problem hasn't been discussed in the past. I guess maybe its just my netgear router thats having this problem.
Thanks.

I used a Siemens before I bought my Linksys. My Siemens has this problem. I would think that the reason there is not more discussion of router incompatibilities is that most people who use AOL use it via dial-up. Others may blame Apple or AOL rather than the router manufacturer. And, if you have broadband, then you really don't need AOL. Earlier this year, I was trying to solve the problem, but AOL introduced AOL Communicator before I solved it. Communicator works fine with the Siemens router. It also satisfies my need for AOL access. The issue lost its urgency.

So, there are a lot of things that the subset of MacOS X users who use AOL over broadband who have this problem might blame before they blame their router. Since getting the new router, it occurs to me that some of my non-AOL network problems may have been caused by the Siemens router.

 

[inocen1]

yeah, its definitely the router. I hooked up my old as the hills SMC wireless router and it worked just fine. Sad to say, I've switched to G and don't want to use a wireless B to screw up my signal strength, so I still have to buy a new router.

And yeah MisterMe, I actually really dislike AOL. I consider it pretty pointless with broadband. But you couldn't pry my dad away from it with a crowbar. I've told him countless times that it is quite a waste of money to have aol (21.95) and broadband (40.00), and that all of AOL's features are available online for free, but I have no luck and he's lost without it. Damn thing just causes me all kinds of troubles. What'cha gonna do.

 

[ronsky]

Go to Network settings>Ethernet settings and set the MTU (max transmissionunits) to 1450. I think that aol uses a funky ethernet encapsulation method and thus your frames (ethernet data units) exceed the max size of an ethernet frame which is 1512 byte (or 1518 on 802.1q tagged frame)
Open the terminal app and type
ping www.yahoo.com

and if you get a reply that looks something like
rons-Computer:~ ron$ ping www.yahoo.com
PING 216.109.118.69 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 216.109.118.69: icmp_seq=0 ttl=51 time=144.563 ms
64 bytes from 216.109.118.69: icmp_seq=1 ttl=51 time=145.711 ms


you should be able to surf the web with Safari

Hope this helps

ron

 

[inocen1]

Thanks Ronsky,
Since the original topic was created I did get Safari working. AOL is still a problem though. I'll try your method and let you know how that goes. Thanks for the help.