The Wood Beyond The World Forum WTF is up with my internet?

Hey guys, I know this isn't about writing and I apologize. I have had a nightmare with the internet this month. Just wanted to run something by you (I'm on my trusty old dial up now, which is excruciatingly slow) to see if it sounds familiar to anyone.

All of a sudden yesterday, everything being fine up till this moment, I try to click on the internet and I get this: "Limited or no connectivity. You might not be able to access the internet or some network resources. This problem occurred because the network did not assign a network address to the computer."

Huh? The little repair box it offered me didn't work. It said, "The following action cannot be completed: renewing your IP address."

I have two computers, and oddly this affected BOTH of them, even tho I haven't been on the desktop in months.

Has this happened to anyone or does it make any sense? I know the fact that I can get on the internet with my dial up but not my high-speed cable means something.

Not expecting anyone to be a computer wiz, I just wondered if this sounds familiar to anyone.

Contact your IP provider.  It sounds like they got attacked or during routine maintenance they might have wiped out a file containing addresses.

I have seen a spike in attacks since just before the olympics according to my security system.    Yes, I do track attacks or attempts and lots of them are coming from china right now.   Damn hackers...

Nick.

Thank you Nick. That is so interesting, especially about the routine maintenance thing. We played with the cables, switched 2 around, used different "ports" and it sort of seems like one of our ports is bad, which could be that routine maintenance thing you mentioned. In all the frenzy of trying to figure this out I uninstalled my Comodo firewall and Spybot Search and Destroy. Now I'm surfing with only the free AVG virus. I spose I'd better put a firewall back on, but they sure do seem to cause a lot of problems. Uninstalling was the first recommended thing I saw yesterday on the internet forums.

I wish I was smarter but this is all way above my head. Hackers!! Isn't life difficult enough?

Reb,...

Never-ever search the web without your firewall turned on.  I paid a very dear price one time for just one day of surfing with the fire wall not in place.   My son the tech guy could not solve the problems caused and I ended up having to reformat the whole hard drive and reload all the programs and files.   Thankfully, I keep back ups so I did not loose too much, none of my writing anyway...

Hopefully the hackers haven't gotten to you yet...

If you have a good security system, you will need to do a full scan of your computer to make sure you have not picked up any nasty bugs or worse...   This may require uninstalling your security system and then reinstalling and getting all the updates before scanning your computer.   If it was affected that is...  

God...what did we do before the internet?  Answer...we did not have to worry about hackers and crashes.

Nick. 

Thanks Nick. I guess I was lucky. I have internet today (not quite sure how, but I'm happy and hope it lasts) and I reinstalled the firewall. All I had were 500 tracking cookies. My fingers are crossed and thank you for your patience!!!!

I remember the days before computers, when I had to write with paper. And pen. Pencil. Ugh. And a typewriter. Had to retype the whole book if I wanted to make a change on page 47.

Coincidentally (I hope) I've been having internet trouble too.  Only on my wireless, but that's what I rely on.

I am connected, but can access no website except gmail.  Right now I'm on my husband's desktop, which is still humming along nicely.

We have always had a finicky router (since we switched ISPs) and at first we assumed that was the problem.  Now I'm not so sure. 

Anyhow, the next step is Comcast tech support, I guess.  Wish me luck.

Unfortunately I can't help at all here, but I do know that at the end of the week before last I couldn't get onto this site. It kept giving me that same msg about connecting to internet. But obviously is was a writerscafe prob rather than me specifically - and region specific too since it seems everyone else was active while I couldn't get in.

V strange.

Zuri, what a great picture of you. I wish I was photogenic. I think that is spelled wrong but it's too early to open the dictionary. Anyway, I, too, could not reach this site for about a week, I guess it was. Stuff's been happening a lot lately on the internet! I hope it's not a sign of the future.