MSN and Hotmail no longer working with AOL

Submitted by Sarah Bird on January 27, 2008 - 4:27pm

Sometime in the last two weeks my father had overnight been unable to access MSN, Hotmail and Windows Updates. The problem also extended to him not being able to connect to me using the NTR remote connection software that we use, however he did still have VNC installed.

Once he connected to me via reverse VNC and I'd confirmed that he had made no changes to system, been hijjacked or infected. We left it overnight to see if it was a transient problem.

It wasn't.  He is with AOL broadband and apparently they have have made some changes. 

The MTU settings in the Netgear router they supplied are the source of the problem. 

This is how to fix it:

  1. Locate the control panel for your Netgear router, standard address ** is http://192.168.0.1
  2. Open a web browser and log in to the control panel, standard username and password are admin and password
  3. Scroll down the left hand side and find the menu option called Advanced Setup and then click on WAN Setup
  4. Scroll down that page and find the option MTU and change the value in the box to 1400 (it was set to 1458)
  5. Apply the settings - this also reboots the router - and you're all done.


** if it is not at the standard address you can find it out by determining your default gateway.

On a Windows machine:

  1. Go to Start, then Run (or use the search box in Vista) and type in cmd then press enter.
  2. In the black window that pops up type in ipconfigand press enter.
  3. In the results that follow the Default Gateway is clearly listed, make a note of this and return to the steps above.

On a Apple machine see this article: How to find your router on an Apple Mac

Subjects: 
fix and repair
Tags: 
AOL MSN Hotmail

Comments

comment - January 29, 2008 - 4:38am
Hi! I'm soo grateful that I found your advice because I'm going crazy here! But I have a maybe somewhat stupid question for you. After typing in the default gateway in the browser, I don't find any info on advanced setup or Wan setup, so I can't find where to change the MTU. I'm using a regular pc. Any advice? Many thanks in advance!

Dan White - January 29, 2008 - 10:21pm
What is the make and model of the equipment you use to connect to the Internet? i.e. what is the connected to the phone line?

comment - January 30, 2008 - 3:23am
It's supposed to go via ATT and Bellsouth, although I've discovered that it still connects through AOL. It goes through a Motorola modem. I think it's a DSL modem, but this is my aunts equipment so I'm not sure. I'm just trying to fix it for her. The problem seems to be that everything that requires a password (hotmail, facebook etc) and isn't her AOL email, is blocked. It says that the password is wrong, although on other computers the passwords work just fine. Once again, many thanks for any help I can get!

Dan White - January 30, 2008 - 9:10am

Since I'm not looking at your equipment all I can do is guess.
If it is this problem then maybe changing the MTU values in Windows for the modem adapter in question might sort you out.
Try the Windows MTU changing utility here or here.