Warning: XP SP2 ICS sent by aliens to destroy us, or blue tooth/red eyes

Forums › LAN (ethernet/Wifi/routers/Bluetooth) › Warning: XP SP2 ICS sent by aliens to destroy us, or blue tooth/red eyes

Potato Head

7 posts

Wannabe Geek

Topic # 4849 2-Sep-2005 13:39

I've had it with trying to get ICS working through bluetooth

It was working before on SP1
My Laptop used to connect through Widcomm drivers and a dongle, to another dongle on the desktop, and then on out to the tinternet and beyond and back again without so much as a wheeze. But those were the good old days.

I bought myself an Mp3 player and needed the faster USB2 offered by Service Pack two, so I upgraded the desktop machine and lost ICS forever.

Have since tried many many many many things to get this working again. I've been to generic drivers, and back to widcomm's clean installed. Tried countless combinations of DNS servers and IP addresses and firewall settings.

The laptop runs XP home, now also with SP2.
I can Ping IP adresses on the www but I have no DNS capability and that's as far as the story goes.

I surrender. I give up. SP2 is not having anymore of my hair or my time. I'll just get hold of wireless and a wireless hub and kiss this whole bluetooth SP2 ICS thing goodbye. WHat a pain in the posterior it has all been. Do you notice how the largest number of posts by far in these forums is on the bluetooth one? No wonder. And what the hell were windows thinking when they decided that generic bluetooth support wouldn't bother to allow ICS over PAN because "it's not a network". Grrrrrr.

I'd like to put my bluetooth dongles in the coffee grounder, and Service Pack 2.

Yours,

Well and truly beaten,

Potato

freitasm

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Geekzone

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Reply # 19537 2-Sep-2005 16:46

If this hardware comes with a Widcomm or IVT BlLuesoleil software you shold use that instead. Follow the instructions on how change from Windows XP Service Pack 2 to Widcomm.

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Potato Head

7 posts

Wannabe Geek

Reply # 19543 2-Sep-2005 19:15

thanks freitasm, but I have been there. Both machines currently use WIDCOMM driver version 1.4.2.8, as the native windows drivers don't allow me to create a network (PAN) which ICS will recognise.

However, although both machines use a clean install of the WIDCOMM drivers, the bluetooth LAN isn't doing DNS. Refuses to go there. Pings out fine to 210.48.22.45 but cannot find geekzone.co.nz for example.

Through all my fiddling about with IP's and DNS entries, I'm almost sure I did get it to ping a domain name ONCE, but it is quite possible that I was hallucinating by this point, because when I excitedly cranked up my browser, DNS had disappeared again, just seconds later.

It is this kind of sporadic, unexplained behaviour that makes me lose faith in ever being able to sort out ICS thru bluetooth under SP2.

More setup info:
Laptop runs XP home SP2. Desktop runs XP Pro, Corporate edition, SP2. ICS worked out of the box with SP1. What has SP2 done??? Added firewall... I've disabled it on the bluetooth network, and briefly on the internet adapter, which incidently is connected to a speedstream router/modem 5660, but no joy.

Now, where is that wireless brochure...

freitasm

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Reply # 19545 2-Sep-2005 20:49

Just a few suggestions:

Make sure the ICS is from a LAN adapter facing to your Bluetooth LAN adapter on your server machine (the one accepting the connection).

You must have a valid DNS server address on your Bluetooth LAN adapter - don't use automatic!

The Bluetooth adapter must be 192.168.0.1, so be sure your network is not using this address and the address is not available for a DHCP server.

You have to use the LAP profile, not PAN:

If you have to use PAN then you have to Bridge connections, not use ICS.

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Potato Head

7 posts

Wannabe Geek

Reply # 19546 2-Sep-2005 22:17

ICS is enabled on pci nic connected to router which has gateway of 172.26.0.1 and it's own IP is 172.26.0.2. Two DNS servers are listed here and they work fine from the desktop machine.

On the Desktop bluetooth, we are on the same subnet mask 255.255.255.0 although I have also tried on a distinct subnet mask. I have entered DNS servers in the TCP properties of this connection, and also tried entering the other cards IP as DNS. I have tried various gateways too. Nothing works. The Bluetooth adapter is set up to allow other decices to connect to internet. Doesn't work. I have tried with just TCP enabled and with networking and TCP enabled.

Laptop adapter is set to automatic, although I have also tried manual configuration of everything. No DNS. No fun.

ICS is not playing straight under SP2. As I said before, under SP1 eveything worked out of the box. It's so damn frustrating!

freitasm

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Reply # 19548 2-Sep-2005 22:28

Make sure the IP address on the Bluetooth NIC is static and set to 192.168.0.1, since this is required by ICS. Enter the DNS address from your ISP, not the local desktop or router.

Are you running Zone Alarm, Norton IS, or similar? Make sure Zone Alarm is set to medium, and that you have rules allowing the Bluetooth program to communicate - this includes the Windows XP SP2 firewall.

As for connecting, have a look in this article.

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Potato Head

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Wannabe Geek

Reply # 19549 2-Sep-2005 22:49

Thanks for the help, but no banana

I have tried both static and automatic IP assignment on the desktop bluetooth adapter. Automatic assigns the same IP anyway, ie: 192.168.0.1.

The LAN part of all this works fine. I can browse files on both machines. I can also sync my phone from the desktop.

Windows firewall is disabled for the bluetooth connection. There is a firewall in the router on the other NIC, but this shouldn't affect things, should it? Pings return to laptop afterall.

What is not working is DNS. Hitting ping google.com for example, sends a packet out into the internet, because I can see the router activity lights DSL and LAN twinkling away. But nothing makes it back to the laptop. Ping IP address on the other hand, does make it back to the lap top. So this is not an IP assignment problem. It is a DNS problem, yet there are valid DNS entries on the bluetooth adapter and the main NIC. I wonder what the default DNS route is if you don't enter anything in the DNS field of tcp properties of the bluetooth adapter on the desktop... does it automatically use the DNS of the NIC which provides ICS?

yours, confused and bruised

potato

freitasm

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Reply # 19550 2-Sep-2005 22:55

Oh dear... I am running out of suggestions. I can only think that you should check the DUN connection on the client - it may be that you have left an invalid DNS there. The DUN adapter configuration must have everything in automatic.

And this is the DUN created by the Bluetooth software when you first tried the connection, not the Bluetooth NIC

On the server you should have everything manual: IP=192.168.0.1, DNS = ISP Server, Gateway = Router.

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Potato Head

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Wannabe Geek

Reply # 19555 3-Sep-2005 04:30

Thanks for the suggestions.
Yep, everything is set to automatic on the client adapter.
And manual on the desktop.

It's interesting that a straight ping works all the way out and back, but no DNS. I wish my brain could figure out what that might mean, but regardless, I get the feeling that this is never going to work, and it makes me wonder is it an incompatibility issue between Windows Pro ICS and Windows Home.

Does anyone out there surf the web successfully across bluetooth from XP HOME thru XP PRO????

...and there I'll leave it. If I manage to get Etherdetect to work again I'll let you know what's happening at an IP level, but for the moment it will only sometimes recognise my adapters; they tell me that it doesn't recognise USB adapters, but I had it working yesterday for a while. Crumps. So many grey areas.

again, thanks for your input, you sure get around!

Potato

Potato Head

7 posts

Wannabe Geek

Reply # 19558 3-Sep-2005 07:56

Well, I managed to get etherdetect to watch the packets on both NICS, albeit sporadically. I think there is some kind of NAT conflict between my router and ICS.

The laptop bluetooth network seems to be doing everything it should, so I'm concentrating on the desktop, which is where things are getting lost, and I notice that a ping from the desktop to google.com uses a real port number, whereas a ping from the laptop, through ICS, uses a dynamic or virtual assigned port number. For some reason my NAT router doesn't like this, although it didn't complain under SP1. Strange. But true. All packets with the dynamic port number don't make the trip back.

hmmm

potato