Category Archives: Networking

Insider stuff, Networking, Recent Activity, Remote Desktop (RDP), Troubleshooting, WED Blog, Windows 11

Power Outages Mung LAN Addressing

April 16, 2026 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

With clear skies yesterday, our house nevertheless took two power hits yesterday. The first lasted 15 minutes, the second 11 (had to reset certain appliance clocks both times). When I tried to remote into the ThinkStation P3 Ultra this morning, RDP wouldn’t connect. So I tried pinging the host name (Tsp3Ultra2) and got “destination host unreachable.” Pretty conclusive proof that power outages mung LAN addressing, since that very string worked fine yesterday.

If Power Outages Mung LAN Addressing, Then?

For the time being I’ve got Advanced IP Scanner open, and am using the “Tools” option for each network node to call Remote Desktop Connection. That tells me which PC I’m trying to get at, and uses its IP address to make things work. Good enough for now, I guess.

I’ve observed that the name table will gradually correct itself over a 24-hour period. Since our last outage happened just before 5 PM yesterday, that means I can return to using machine names for remote access later this evening. In the meantime, I have a decent workaround.

A quick check tells me that only some PCs were affected by the outage. Not surprisingly, the laptops (kept alive by batteries durng the outage) retain their machine name-to-address relationships. The desktops and mini-PCs (except Flo6, which is on a UPS) have all been renumbered.

Here in Windows-World, it’s always something. Yesterday, it was a quick pair of power glitches. Who knows what’ll hit me today?

Note Added Next Day

As I had suspected (or hoped), the machine names are now all working again. As is typical here at Chez Tittel, a 24-hour period is long enough for DHCP to work itself into usable shape. Now I know that a power glitch (or two) can upset that delicate balance. I’ll probably be reminded again sometime soon, now that thunderstorm season here in Central Texas is getting started. This time, I think the glitch came from construction work at the edge of our neighborhood where power goes from overhead to underground lines.

Cool Tools, Insider stuff, Networking, Recent Activity, WED Blog, Windows 11

Reverse DNS Lookup Reveals Router Change

March 26, 2026 Ed Tittel 2 Comments

I’m pretty fond of the free network scanning tool named Advanced IP Scanner. It’s much more predictable and reliable than the Network facility built into File Explorer. It also makes it easy to do stuff to and over the network. I’ve been noticing on my LAN recently that an increasing number of PCs (and other devices) get DHCP names that end in “.lan” (see the lead-in graphic for more info). So I used a PowerShell script to do a reverse DNS lookup to double-check this. And indeed, this reverse DNS lookup reveals router change in my SAC2V1A Spectrum-supplied router. Looks like it got a recent firmware upgrade that changed its DNS/DHCP behaviors.

How Reverse DNS Lookup Reveals Router Change

I created a PowerShell script to talk to the router and give me DHCP names for all of the nodes it handles, using the ARP (address resolution protocol) as my foundation. If you look at this WinTerm screencap, the pattern is unmistakable:

I forcibly used ARP to drive reverse DNS lookups (from IP address to name from the router’s name table) for all active IP addresses. Notice that every single name here ends with the “.lan” suffix. That tells me Spectrum pushed a firmware update to the box, because it didn’t used to do that consistently for all items.

Why Advanced IP Scanner Shows Some Unadorned Names?

Advanced IP Scanner uses multiple techniques to resolve IP addresses to names. Among this is the NetBIOS Name Service (NBNS), Link-Local Multicast Name Resolution (LLMNR), Multicast DNS (mDNS), SMB/NetBIOS over TCP, and Reverse DNS (PTR lookup). Some or all of these return bare machine names, lacking the .lan suffix. As far as I can, whichever of these lookups responds first is the one that makes it to the name table. And that’s why Advanced IP Scanner shows different name strings than does my script.

Weird and wonderful are the ways of Windows-World. And few are anywhere near as weird, or as wonderful, as the ones that make name resolution work on Windows networks. QED!

Cool Tools, Insider stuff, Networking, Recent Activity, WED Blog

ASUS Router Triggers Security Review

March 13, 2026 Ed Tittel 4 Comments

In reading ARS Technica, I couldn’t help but observe that a major exploit around the KadNap is hitting ASUS routers around the world. “Hmmm,” I thought to myself, “Don’t I have one of those?” Indeed I do. But I’m pleased to report that it’s operating in AP-only mode, has the most current firmware available, and not susceptible to drive-by or external attack. Given how many similar devices have been pwned, I’m happy that when ASUS router triggers security review, the overall results are positive. Or at least, not overly scary…

ASUS Router Triggers Security Review:
Now What?

I couldn’t help but notice I bought this device back in 2018. It’s definitely past the “age of replacement!” So now, I’m looking around for something else to take its place. Copilot recommends multi-node mesh devices, but they’d have to integrate built-in switch capability with 2 or more additional RJ-45 ports to be worth installing.

Good news! Many models for Wi-Fi 6E and 7 include two or more 2.5 GbE ports. That lets me use existing RJ-45 wallplates to accommodate them, and lets me retain connectivity to already-present wired devices. Sounds like a plan!

Now all I have to do is come up with the funding. Here in Windows-World, where’s there’s a will — and the money — there’s almost always a way. I’ll add this to my “to buy, and to do” list!

Insider stuff, Networking, Recent Activity, Troubleshooting, WED Blog, Windows 11

Spectrum Router Roadblock Diagnosed

February 25, 2026 Ed Tittel 2 Comments

Sometimes, the biggest obstacles in tech aren’t the bugs in your code. Rather, they’re the invisible hands meddling with your network traffic. I recently ran into one such gremlin while trying to install the .NET Core 3.1 Desktop Runtime on a Windows machine. What should have been a simple download turned into a multi-device diagnostic rabbit hole, all thanks to a Spectrum-supplied SAC2V1A router and its overzealous filtering behavior. After I looked intently at its behavior, this spectrum router roadblock diagnosed itself through its (lack of) formatting. It was weird, though…

Once Spotted, This Spectrum Router Roadblock Diagnosed

Things started innocently enough. I needed the .NET Core 3.1 Desktop Runtime for a legacy app. I grabbed the download URL from Microsoft’s official archive and pasted it into Chrome. Instead of a download prompt, I got a blank page with a single, cryptic line of text:

GatewayExceptionResponse

This was odd: it included no HTTP error code, no branding or sourcing, and no explanation. Just that one-liner. I tried again in Edge. Same result. Then I fired up PowerShell and used Invoke-WebRequest. Still the same string. At this point, I suspected something was intercepting the request — but what?

The Plot (or Confusion) Thickens…

I tried the same URL on a second Windows machine. Same result. Then on an iPad. Still blocked. That’s when the lightbulb went off: this wasn’t a device issue. It was a network issue. To test the theory, I pulled out my iPhone, disabled Wi-Fi, and switched to 5G cellular. Then came the real test: typing a 60-character URL — a delightful mix of letters, numbers, and dashes — into Safari by hand. No copy-paste. No QR code. Just raw thumb labor. After a few typos and some muttered curses, I finally got it right. And lo and behold, the file loaded just fine.

Now I knew for sure whence this anomaly issues. The file wasn’t broken or MIA. Microsoft’s Content Delivery Network wasn’t off the air. Clearly, this was a problem coming from the LAN, right at the boundary.

A Ray of Light Shines on the Culprit

With a bit of digging, I discovered the culprit: Spectrum’s Security Shield. This cloud-managed feature is baked into the SAC2V1A router. It’s designed to protect users by blocking malicious or suspicious content. Unfortunately, it seems to think that downloading an out-of-support Microsoft runtime from a legacy CDN is suspicious enough to warrant a silent block.

Let me explain what “silent block” means here. Instead of an HTTP error code or an explanatory “I can’t do that, Dave” message, Security Shield simply emits the string:

GatewayExceptionResponse

No HTML document, no context, no wrapper of any kind. It looks like some kind of escaped error message, in fact. Here’s the real gotcha: one can’t manage this router’s behavior from the web interface anymore. One has to do it through an Android or iPhone mobile app. For the nonce, I’ll forgo that dubious privilege (though I could tackle it on the iPad, where I can at least run an external Bluetooth keyboard). Now that I know what I’m seeing, and why, I can live with this once-in-a-while weirdness.

If This Happens to You…

Should you ever see GatewayExceptionResponse pop up in tiny print at the upper left-hand corner of an otherwise blank browser, you’ll know what it means. The router is gatekeeping what it thinks is a dangerous resource from entering your LAN. I found a different download source (dotnet.microsoft.com) and grabbed what I needed. You should be able to sniff out an alternative if you really need it. If you don’t this could be your clue to leave it alone.

And boy, howdy, is that ever the way things occasionally go in Windows-World. You ask for something, and get a cryptic response in return. Then, you figure out what it means and go forward from there. Case closed!

Device drivers, Insider stuff, Networking, Recent Activity, Troubleshooting, WED Blog, Windows 11

Dude! Where’s My Internet?

August 15, 2025 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

Whoa! I had an amusing but vexing hiccup on the new Flo6 Ryzen 7 5800X system when I sat down to work this morning. The Internet was dead, dead, dead. I could ping localhost but nothing further. It got me thinking about the absurdist epic starring Ashton Kushner and Sean Wm Scott. That prompted the tongue-in-cheek question “Dude! Where’s my internet?” I must speculate, and laugh, at what I think is the answer. Let me explain…

Why Expostulate: Dude! Where’s My Internet?

Everything looked OK when I sat down at the machine. But as soon as I tried to access any online resources, those requests went nowhere. And, of course, they took quite a while to time out to tell me there was no there on the other side of the connection.

I checked the cable TV signal (still there, which means out inbound broadband is working). I checked the wireless PCs (still there, which means at least the fallback to the boundary device WAP is working). Soon it became apparent: the Flo6 PC was the source of my woes. I’m not seeing any errors in Reliability Monitor so I’ll make an educated guess.

Waking Up Is (Sometimes) Hard to Do

The Flo6 had been asleep when I sat in front of it this morning. My best guess is that yesterday’s update somehow mucked with the wake behavior for the unit’s Realtek Gaming 2.5GbE Family Controller. So I reloaded the driver, and then unchecked the box under Power Management that reads “Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power.” From sad experience, I’ve learned this can turn into “LAN doesn’t work after waking from sleep” errors.

And gee: doesn’t that sound just like what happened to me this morning? It also demonstrates quite convincingly that here in Windows-World, some mornings start better than others. I’ll let you decide what kind of morning I was having today. I think I already know!

Insider stuff, Networking, Recent Activity, WED Blog, Windows 10, Windows 11

Playing Windows Catch-up Post OOO

May 29, 2025 Ed Tittel 5 Comments

OOO is, of course, a common abbreviation for “out of office.” I just returned from a family visit to Alexandria, VA, late Tuesday night, after attending a family wedding. Thus, for the past couple days I’m playing Windows catch-up post OOO on my mini-fleet of 10 PCs. Of those, 5 are desktops, and 5 are laptops in what I think is a common SOHO distro. It’s been a bit of an adventure, but by no means a real trial. Let me explain…

Deets on Playing Windows Catch-up Post OOO

If you look at the output from Advanced IP Scanner for my LAN, you can see all the currently active nodes there. Some items are routers or WAPs, others include TV sets, printers, iDevices, smart thermostats and so forth. Note: I use Private IP addresses in the C range, which makes this stuff opaque from the outside. FWIW, Spectrum does a pretty good job of blocking scanning and intrusion attempts on their coax network, too.

Here’s the regime I’ve been running to make all my PCs current:

Run WU, apply updates, reboot as needed.
Run WinGet upgrade –all –include-unknown to update local apps for which it has package info in its database
Run PatchMyPC Home Updater to update local apps it handles that WinGet does not
Run vendor update elements for their contributions — e.g. Lenovo Vantage, Dell Command Update, Intel Driver and Support Assistant (DSA), and so forth

Total time required for the whole shebang for 10 PCs is about 2.5-3.0 hours altogether, including walking up to those PCs to light them up for those few not WOL (Wake on LAN) enabled.

What a Typical Week Away Brings the Fleet

Here’s what I observed for the various items mentioned across my collection of devices, all purchased in 2018 or later (except my primary desktop, which I’ll finally be replacing in June, now that our second X5800/B250 PC is home from Boston for good):

Given that the second (optional/preview) WU cycle hit while I was gone, about 60-70% of the PCs got a CU. Some handled them automatically on their own, others I had to run and/or restart manually (depends on configuration, not Microsoft).
For the majority of PCs, WinGet updates numbered from 3 to 7; one outlier needed 9 (but I hadn’t touched for a while before going OOO).
PatchMyPC found an average of 3-plus updates, and varied from 3 to 5.
Intel DSA offered new BlueTooth, Wi-Fi and Wired Ethernet drivers as it seems to do, two or more times a month, like clockwork.

All in all, it wasn’t too bad. Things are all caught up now. Glad to be back in the saddle, with all my gear clean and shiny, and ready to ride. Yesterday and today were both good days in Windows-World, with no snags worthy of note to report. Boring is good, sometimes!

Insider stuff, Networking, Recent Activity, Troubleshooting, WED Blog

Chasing Intel esrv_svc.exe

May 7, 2025 Ed Tittel 2 Comments

Looking over my various Windows PCs and Reliability Monitor reports after a week away, I stumbled across an interesting — but not unexpected — APPCRASH. It’s got me chasing Intel esrv_svc.exe, to learn what it does, and see whether or not it’s serious. TLDR version: runs various Intel update facilities; no, it’s not.

Where Chasing Intel esrv_svc.exe Takes Me

According to MS Answers, esrv_svc.exe is related to a bunch of different Intel update checks, including:

Intel Driver Update Utility
Intel System Usage Report
Intel Energy Checker
Some of the Intel PROSet Wireless Software
Sony VaioCare

The error itself is tied to item number 2 (but that shows up only on the initial ReliMon report page as “Intel(R) System Usage Report”). That said, I also use the drive update utility (as part of Intel Driver and Support Assistant, aka Intel DSA) and the PROSet Wireless software (on most of my Lenovo laptops, in fact). I couldn’t have run DSA on or around the error date of 5/2/2025, because we were out of town. So it was some kind of scheduled task, running on its own.

FWIW, Reddit also ties this kind of error to the Intel telemetry program (aka Intel Computing Improvement Program, which scrapes and sends Intel-related event info back to the company for capture and analysis).

Is There Cause for Concern?

AFAIK, despite this APPCRASH error, there’s no cause for concern around this executable. It’s involved in managing communications with Intel. Such to-and-fro appears to be either update- or event-related and not critical to proper PC operation. I’m going to follow Elsa’s lead from Frozen and just “let it go” into the great bit bucket beyond the confines of the cozy little world here at Chez Tittel.

Here in Windows-World, it’s good to let go when you can. I’ll concentrate on stuff that poses real problems or indicates actual trouble of some kind. This one looks like just another hiccup to me. Plenty of those around here, for sure!

Cool Tools, Insider stuff, Networking, Troubleshooting, WED Blog

RDP Strangeness Requires Dogged Pursuit

April 28, 2025 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

There have been plenty of reports about weird Remote Desktop access issues and Windows 11 of late. Search Google for “RDP issues with Windows 11 updates” to see what I mean. Until this morning, I remained blissfully beyond that fracas. Then I had to jump through a bunch of hoops to RDP into my Lenovo ThinkStation P3 Ultra. Indeed, overcoming this RDP strangeness requires dogged pursuit, as I will now explain. By which I mean: I’m again able to use the Remote Desktop Connection (RDC, aka mstsc.exe) to get into that machine.

Overcoming RDP Strangeness Requires Dogged Pursuit

I considered this as a kind of real-time troubleshooting exercise. Here’s that I did to get my connection working:

1. Opened RDC using the plain vanilla machine name: TSP3Ultra. RDC couldn’t find it.
2. Used Advanced IP Scanner (AIS) to scan my LAN and show me the currently active machine names in use. Tried TSP3Ultra.lan instead, then also tried TSP3Ultra-4314.lan. RDC couldn’t find either one.
3. Used AIS with a right-click to run RDC directly against its IPv4 address (192.168.1.249). RDC still couldn’t find it — this almost always works, so I knew I had a real problem, not just a naming issue.
4. Rebooted the TSP3Ultra, and tried again. It came up with a different IPv4 address this time (192.168.1.99) and RDC worked via a new machine name AIS showed: TSP3Ultra-5815.lan.

I’m now successfully remoted into the previously inaccessible PC, and glad of it. My next move would have been to start uninstalling recent WU updates, one at a time, until things started working again. I’m glad I didn’t have to take things that far.

What’s Causing Remote Desktop Strangenesses?

I wish I could say definitively. All I can do is to point at the changing names for the target device that AIS shows me over time. That makes me thing something interesting is up with machine name resolution on my LAN. Copilot says machine names of the form <name>-nnnn.lan occur when NetBIOS name resolution seeks to resolve conflicts arising from duplicate names.

We can see the IP address changed upon reboot, so I’m thinking it relates to IP address leases that change over time. The machine name, of course, stays the same, but when the IP address changes the DHCP server has to give the same device a new auto-generated name to avoid conflicts from the still-present (but expired) address in the name table.

I’ve witnessed that such things age out after 24 hours or so. Then the plain machine name will work with the new IP address unadorned. It’s just another thing to love about Windows networking, and the occasionally strange behavior of network names and addresses. Thus, it’s wise to prepare for your own dogged pursuits when that happens!

Cool Tools, Insider stuff, Networking, WED Blog

Right Networking Tool Delivers Visibility

February 25, 2025 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

I spend at least 15 hours a week on TenForums.com and ElevenForum.com. To me both sites are invaluable sources of intelligence as well as information, fixes and tutorials. In lurking on the Eleven Forum Network and Internet threads recently, I was reminded that the right networking tool delivers visibility that File Explorer can’t match. You can see what I mean in the lead-in screencap, where File Explorer shows the network with 4 PCs, one printer and one router. To the right, the free Advanced IP Scanner (a personal fave) shows 6 computers, 2 printers, 2 TVs, an iPhone, and various other networking devices, including smart thermostats, cable TV boxes, and two routers. Big difference!

Why Stress That Right Networking Tool Delivers Visiblity

The aforementioned Eleven Forum networking threads often gripe that File Explorer fails to show all network devices. They also provide oodles of ingenious hacks and settings to force that tool to show more, more, more of what’s on the network. I simply turn to Advanced IP Scanner instead, because it not only shows me everything within a private (or public) IP address range, it also provides quick, ready access to remote access and management functions that let me reach out to them.

There is a stubborn streak in the Windows community that sometimes says: “Heck no, I won’t use 3rd-party tools. I’ll do it ONLY with native Windows facilities.” That strategy may be understandable — in theory, at least — but in practice it’s sometimes easier to achieve in some cases, and not so much in others. Getting active network nodes to show up in File Explorer is one of the latter. To me, it’s as much about tail-chasing as it is about getting stuff to show up in the UI.

I’ll skip that tail-chasing myself, and use Advanced IP Scanner instead. It does the job right away and requires no drama, nor other unseemly contortions. As I’ve said before, and will say again: In Windows-World, “Cool Tools Rule!”

Insider stuff, Networking, Recent Activity, WED Blog

CATegorizing Ethernet LAN Cables

September 25, 2024 Ed Tittel 5 Comments

I was flipping through X this morning, and came across a mind-boggling reminder that Ethernet networking has come a long way. You can see the chart from Dan Nanni (@xmodulo) as the lead-in graphic here. We’ve been planning our next move recently, and visiting a lot of new homes, so I can attest most builders are laying CAT 7 cable in such dwellings. But we’ve gone past 7 in categorizing Ethernet LAN cables, as a quick look at the chart will reveal. In fact, CAT 8.2 catches up with current top speeds for USB4 (but 80 Gbps is coming, probably next year).

Categorizing Ethernet LAN Cables Is Only Part

…of a more complicated picture. As I look around at PCs, switches, and so forth, I’m seeing a long tail of networking capabilities. When I see new PCs with RJ-45 ports, for example, I seldom see more than 2.5 Gbps interfaces. 10 Gbps is common on servers, but not on end-user gear.

We’re planning to move in 2026 or 2027, once son Gregory puts his university days behind him (planning on a 2-year Master’s to follow his BA). When we do that I’ll upgrade the infrastructure to support 2.5 Gbps. I see that 8-port 2.5 Gbps switches cost from US$60-100 nowadays. I’ll need to buy a bunch of CAT 7 cables, though: the higest-rated ones I see around here are CAT 6 (though it’s possible I’ve got some 6A shorties here or there).

Copilot puts the CAT timeline out as follows:

CAT 6: early 2000s [max: 1 Gbps]
CAT 6a: 2008 [max: 10 Gbps]
CAT 7 & 7a: 2010 [max: 10/40 Gbps]
CAT 8.1 & 8.2: 2016 [max: 25/40 Gbps]

Methinks there may some some limited need for 10 Gbps home networking, but not much above that speed. Speeds over 10 Gbps are generally limited to 30 m runs on TP cable, so they’re of limited utility in home spaces as well. Wonder how long it will take for these limits to evaporate? I hope to live long enough to find out.