It was the Saturday afternoon of Memorial Day weekend when I realized that our home Internet was not working. Well, mostly.
The laptop computer would not connect to the Internet, even though the WiFi was clearly working, verified both by the computer itself and the guy on the phone from Time Warner Cable. Later, I saw that my wife’s Apple device had no Internet connection either.
So the problem is probably in the router, though I rebooted it at least thrice. Plugging it directly into the computer did not help.
But wait: this is weird. Operating the laptop, in Google Chrome (but NOT in Internet Explorer), I COULD get to an array of Google products. I could access Google itself, though none of the links worked. I could visit Google+, Google maps. My old blog, and others I write, are powered by Blogger, and I could compose blogs in Blogger, but I couldn’t preview them; I could even publish them, but I couldn’t read them to check for errors.
I commiserated with a bunch of my Internet buddies. Sunday afternoon, I took the laptop and iPad to the library, which was still closed, but I thought sitting outside, maybe I could access the signal; no go. Went to a local Internet cafe, and neither worked; ditto the closed bagel shop.
Back at home, the Google miracle no longer worked, and I had no Internet at all.
The guy from TWC arrived on time at 11 a.m. on Tuesday morning. It wasn’t theft of services or some other nefarious ploy. The short explanation is that he thinks that my router just wore out, and he replaced it. He also gave us a new cable remote that actually worked; previously we needed to use the TV’s remote to turn it on and off, and the cable remote to change channels and watch the DVR.
This explains why I was slow in answering emails, and visiting blogs, including for ABC Wednesday, last week. It also made my inclination to write ahead in my blog a good one, because I burned through six posts catching up with other things before I could write a new post, that being this one.
And the Google miracle STILL defies explanation.
Cached copies of the pages? That’s the only explanation I can come up with.
Very occasionally my home wifi will randomly drop out for a few minutes. It’s weird and slightly aggravating because the modem still has its “happy lights” (signifying everything is working) lit, and the router still has its “on and functioning” light lit. Usually if I wait a couple minutes it comes back….
I do have a pretty new modem and router; the router was a gift last year from the computer dudes as a “we’re sorry it took so dang long to get your new computer to you” and the modem was replaced by the cable guys when they came out to fix a part of the cable a squirrel ate. (long story).
I still have the old router but have been told it won’t “talk” to modern connections, so I’m hoping the local recycling place has an e-waste day some time soon, I’ve got lots of stuff to dispose of them (the old laptop, the router, an old landline phone….)
Cache shouldn’t let me use my email and write new blog posts for 24 hours. Very weird.
I too have ancient technology that needs to go away…
I’m guessing that the real problem was inability to connect to TWC’s DNS server — and since Google operates its own (at 8.8.8.8), I would not be surprised to find that a Chrome installation has the Google DNS as a default backup, if only to connect to Google’s own suite of products. (I have never actually worked with Chrome, so this is purest speculation.)
My router is twelve years old and still kicking.
Sometimes unexpected things occur. I know its frustrating when things like that happen, especially no internet. But Anyway after a long of struggle finally you got the solution. The TWC internet are good internet services providers they do listen to their customers problems carefully.