🚀 go-pugleaf

 In article <828302984_OASIS_@mbedford.demon.co.uk>
  mike@mbedford.demon.co.uk () said:-

>It's somewhat pointless to provide a service whereby a modem (Demon's 
>of course) will answer immediately (ie. no ring tones) and it then sit 
>there mute. The only way I've found out of this bind is to hang up and 
>try again. I presume I have been charged by BT for this non contact. 
>Is Demon breaking it's contract under the sale of goods act by 
>providing such a duff service as I reckon that 506f the time I get 
>this type of 'log on'. Perhaps it should reimburse subscribers in a 
>similar situation. I get the impression this problem occurs regularly.
>
>What would Demon do if it received similar poor service from one of 
>it's suppliers?

Here's a FAQ I did on the situation. Note that the bit about which 
modems are Ascend and which are USR is not valid anymore. Ascends are 
du-finc numbers below 193, USR are 193 and above.

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The Ascend Problem And Nos
==========================

The most probable indication that you have an ascend problem is that 
your machine will log on to the server but then sit there ignoring 
anything else. Read the whole text because it's in no particular 
order.

To confirm an ascend, type

ppp sl0

where sl0 is S-L-ZERO in lowercase.

Look for the "LCP" line. If it says "opened" you do not have an 
ascend problem otherwise it will say "waiting for remote host to 
attempt open" or similar in which case read on ...

The reasons why this happens is not clear and is not platform specific 
but it seems that the ascend modems miss or ignore the attempt by Nos 
to open the LCP connection. This attempt needs to be made again.

After each attempt, type "ppp sl0" to see if the LCP line has changed 
to "opened". When it has changed you have been successful.

The most likely cure
--------------------

ifconfig sl0 up

This tells Nos to see if sl0 has been configured and if it has then 
make another attempt at connecting. This requires NOS 0.42 as older 
Nos versions may not understand the command. If it works, slap it on a 
function key for future use. This command does not do any harm if 
issued erroneously.

Next most likely
----------------

status up

I've not looked at the source code but this has been reported as 
successful by some people. If you are very lucky you may find you can 
put this at the end of your DIAL.SCR and get it done automatically. 
What tends to happen though is it stops working when you do it - but 
it's worth a whirl!

Some more
---------

These are ones I cannot remember or that have been pinched from PC 
solutions ...

Putting a delay into DIAL.SCR at the end followed by "status up". I 
think 10 seconds was the delay - not sure.

Just plonking a cwait with a carriage return - I haven't a clue what 
I'm on about here - oh for a decent memory!

(mind's gone completely blank now)

Least likely
------------

Do you have a USR modem? - there is some concern that a small minority 
of these modems have buggy ROM chips and unfortunately these exhibit 
the same symptoms as the ascend problem. To get some information on 
this try dialing into lines which do not have ascends.

Ascend modems typically are named "finch-xxx" where xxx is a 3 digit 
number. Other server types are named "x.demon" where x is a character 
ranging from 'a' upward. The x.demon servers are not ascends and 
should not give any trouble at all. If they do then you are probably 
barking up the wrong tree reading this :-(

There is currently one exception - finch-193 is in fact a.demon 
wearing the wrong hat. As you would expect, you will not get any 
trouble from this server.

Some points to note
-------------------

When fiddling around with "ppp sl0" don't rush. Leave 5 or 10 seconds 
between doing things because a successful negotiation is not 
instantaneous. Sod's Law will come into effect - you'll issue a 
command which is starting to work then follow it by another too 
quickly which will screw up the previous one.

If you find a solution which is not covered above then please email it 
so I can tag it onto the end of this.
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__

Guy Harrison

guy@swampdog.demon.co.uk