Category Archives: Networking

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

Router Management By iPhone…NOT

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This morning started with a simple task. I needed to RDP into TSP3Ultra2, one of my local Windows machines. The connection failed. Machine name resolution was broken. My first instinct was to check the DHCP table on the Spectrum router. I pointed my browser at 192.168.1.1. Instead of a login page, I got a Cauzin barcode page. It told me to download the My Spectrum app. That was not helpful. Indeed, Router Management By iPhone…NOT is not just a clever headline today. It describes exactly what happened to me.

I turned to Advanced IP Scanner. It found TSP3Ultra2 on the network immediately and showed its current IPv4 address. From there, I used Advanced IP Scanner’s Tools menu to launch an RDP session directly to that IP address. That worked. The underlying name resolution problem still exists. I just bypassed it.

Router Management By iPhone…NOT:
My Spectrum Story

Spectrum’s current Advanced WiFi routers do not support local browser-based administration. The 192.168.1.1 address exists. It just redirects to a barcode page instead of showing a login form. That page pushes you to install the My Spectrum app.

This is intentional. Spectrum manages router firmware remotely. A mobile app is their chosen support interface. The side effect is that you lose access to your DHCP table, your device list, and your network diagnostic tools at the router level. When name resolution breaks, you are left to improvise.

Advanced IP Scanner filled the gap this morning. It is a free tool. It scans your local subnet and returns device names, IP addresses, and MAC addresses. Its Tools menu lets you launch RDP, open a shared folder, or connect via HTTP directly from the scan results. It is not a router admin panel. But today it was close enough.

The Spectrum App: I Want My MTV

The My Spectrum app covers the basics. You can change your WiFi name and password, see connected devices, or run a speed test and restart the router. What you cannot do is adjust DHCP settings, configure port forwarding, tweak firewall rules, or see detailed device data. The app gives you a simplified view. Simplified is another word for limited. Indeed, the web interface thru spectrum.net not only looks the same, it’s subject to those same limitations. Sigh.

BYOR?

If you need real control, one reliable option exists. Buy your own router. Connect it to the Spectrum modem in bridge mode. You bypass the Spectrum router entirely. Because it’s yours, you get full admin access through the manufacturer’s local web interface. This brings the familiar controls through 192.168.1.1 back.

This costs money upfront. It removes you from Spectrum’s managed WiFi ecosystem. You give up app-based parental controls and Spectrum’s network management tools. For some power users, that trade may be worth making. Personally I’m only provisionally interested in that level of network management for the Chez Tittel agglomeration of Wi-Fi and GbE network segments.

Spectrum made a deliberate choice to move router management into a controlled mobile app environment. That choice works for many customers. It does not work for every customer. If you expected a classic browser-based admin page, you will be disappointed. If you’re comfortable with a simplified app interface, you will get by. But for real control, plan to spend money on your own hardware. I’m learning to live within the limitations of what I’ve got. That’s not unfamiliar to us wizened denizens of Windows-World!

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

OOB KB5129195 Impacts LAN

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Imagine my surprise this morning when I sat down at Flo6, my trusty B550-based homebrew desktop. Instead of taking me to the desktop, I faced a login prompt. “Hmmm,” I thought to myself, “Looks like an update came through.” Sure enough, when I checked I found MS pushed one yesterday to fix issues following last week’s Patch Tuesday. And indeed, OOB KB5129195 impacts LAN access via RDP to at least one of my machines. Let me explain, and provide more details.

How OOB KB5129195 Impacts LAN

When I tried to RDP into the ThinkStation P3 Ultra Gen 2 (aka TSP3Ultra2), the machine name wouldn’t resolve. Using Advanced IP Scanner, however, I was able to get in through its IP address. I quickly determined that the update had toggled the Network type from “Private” to “Public” (in that latter situation, Machine Names don’t work). Resetting the toggle to “Private” put things back in the pink.

TLDR: OOB KB5129195 in Brief Bullets

  • OOB KB5129195 shipped September 14, 2026, outside the normal Patch Tuesday schedule, to hit my PCs last night.
  • It fixes RDP instability, Hyper-V folder sharing, USB audio failures, and a partially unpatched privilege escalation flaw.
  • Five of my eight home PCs received and installed the update.
  • Two machines required manual restarts; only one flipped its LAN profile from Private to Public afterward.
  • Fixing the profile flip takes about two minutes in Settings;be sure to check for it.

The OOB Release Trigger

September’s Patch Tuesday update, KB5122880, introduced several nasty regressions. Remote Desktop Services became unstable, causing RDP failures and server hangs. That alone would justify an emergency fix. Hyper-V Plan9 folder sharing also broke for Linux VMs, a real headache for developers. USB Audio Class 1.0 multichannel playback went sideways on some affected systems too.

On top of all that, a privilege escalation flaw, CVE-2026-62721, was only partially patched in the original release. That flaw lives in the Windows User-Mode Power Service. KB5129195 addresses all  these regressions. After installation, Windows 11 24H2 machines move to build 26100.9457. Windows 11 25H2 machines land on build 26200.9457. Eventually.

The Upgrade Hit 5 of 8 PCs Here at Chez Tittel

I run eight PCs in my home lab here in Round Rock. Five of them flagged KB5129195 as applicable and pulled it down. The other three were unaffected, likely due to differing configurations. The five affected machines automatically downloaded the update. Microsoft’s documentation puts installation time at roughly ten minutes. That tracked closely with what I observed across my fleet.

Auto-restart systems finished cleanly: Three of my five affected PCs are set to auto-download, install, and reboot via Windows Update. All three finished the update with zero drama. No errors, no failed installs, no post-reboot surprises. That is the experience Windows Update is supposed to deliver. I wish every update went so smoothly.

Manual Restarts on P16 and TSP3Ultra2: Two machines required manual restarts: my Lenovo ThinkPad P16, which I call the P16, and the TSP3Ultra2. Both showed KB5129195 as pending restart in Windows Update. I manually triggered the restart on each machine and waited. Both came back up fine after the reboot.

Then I noticed something off. On the TSP3Ultra2, the LAN network profile had flipped from Private to Public. This is a known side effect that occasionally follows cumulative updates. It matters more than you might think. I fixed it by going to Settings, then Network and Internet, then Ethernet properties, and switching the profile back from Public to Private.

Why the LAN Profile Flip Matters

Windows treats Public and Private network profiles differently. The Public profile blocks most incoming connections and disables network discovery. That can silently break file sharing, remote access, and other local network features. The Private profile enables discovery and sharing, which is what you want on a trusted home or office network. After any significant Windows update, I now make a habit of checking the network profile. Go to Settings, then Network and Internet, then click on Properties. Confirm the profile reads Private. If it says Public, flip it. It takes about thirty seconds.

KB5129195 is a necessary update, and I am glad Microsoft moved quickly to ship it. Most machines handled the install without any fuss. The LAN profile flip on the TSP3Ultra2 was an annoyance, but nothing a quick settings change couldn’t handle. If you apply OOB KB5129195, do yourself a favor: check your network profile afterward. A few seconds of verification can save head-scratching later. That’s a good thing, here in Windows-World where reasons for such behavior pop up all the time!

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Avoiding Excess Laptop Power Drain

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Over the weekend, I transported one of my ThinkPad P16 Mobile workstations to a neighbor’s house. When I unpacked the unit from its knapsack, I noticed that it was pretty warm (and so was the interior of the bag). “What’s up with that?” I wondered. I’d closed the lid, but hadn’t shut the unit down. That was on me, as a little bit of investigating clued me into what’s needed when it comes to avoiding excess laptop power drain. Let me explain…

Power Options Key to Avoiding Excess Laptop Power Drain

Here’s the skinny: by default, my ThinkPad P16 Mobile Workstations go into S0 sleep but maintain network connection. Here’s how the powercfg /a command reports that state:

Basically, the network connection stays up even though the unit itself is mostly idle. Alas, when moving the unit by walking down the street, I’m entering and exiting WiFi domains at a pretty serious clip. Indeed, I’d bet big money that on Arbor Drive, not a single house has less than one active WiFi domain (I’ve got 4, if you count low- and high-bandwidth channels for SSIDs separately). That kept the NIC kinda busy and didn’t really idle the machine at all.

Hence the item shown as the lead-in graphic for this blog post. If you go into Power Options you can change the “Close Lid” setting to hibernate. That means the network connection goes quiet when the lid is closed, and the usual network traffic that might otherwise wake the machine does likewise.

Moving Around Makes Network Connection Iffy

If a laptop is on the move, making or using network connections is a chancy business. My neighbors may have SSIDs galore, but that doesn’t mean they’re sharing passwords with me. And it looks like most of them are smart enough to require WPA3-Personal these days, so guessing isn’t productive, either.

My point is that the network connection doesn’t really do anything except waste battery power when a laptop is on the move. For transport, that means the “Hibernate when lid is closed” setting shown above makes the most sense. That’s why it’s now my preferred move, before I shove the laptop into a knapsack or briefcase from now on.

All I need to do is remember to switch from hibernate to sleep when I get somwhere I plan to be (or work) for a while, and it’s all good. Here in Windows-World, responding to local conditions is a must, especially when it comes to conserving laptop battery life.

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

Power Outages Mung LAN Addressing

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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.

 

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Reverse DNS Lookup Reveals Router Change

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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!

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ASUS Router Triggers Security Review

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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!

 

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Spectrum Router Roadblock Diagnosed

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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!

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Dude! Where’s My Internet?

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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!

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Playing Windows Catch-up Post OOO

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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!

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Chasing Intel esrv_svc.exe

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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!

 

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