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Thanks for taking the time.

My problem- I am a Canadian (with Canadian laptop) presently in Berlin. For some reason I am having repeated connectivity problems --

At my flat I cannot connect via WIFI, although I was able to originally. Phone company said it was a problem with IP numbers (that my roommate and myself were being assigned the same IP), and had me manually change my IP address. This seemed to solve the problem a few times but has ceased to work as a workaround. I can now only connect with cable. The phone company wont help so much as I am on Mac.

(Incidentally.. my roommate also con only connect though cable now which is causing stress as we constantly haggle over it.)

Weirder - I now also cannot connect to FTP on my sites. I connect through Forklift and I keep getting "connection refused". I also cannot connect to cPanel through a browser, although I can land on the sites.

I contacted my host (HostGator) and after 2 hours I got nowhere..

I ran a trace-route from the server to your IP and the connection appears 
to be timing out after this hop: 88.79.29.62 (88.79.29.62) 129.603 ms 
132.748 ms 129.159 ms It looks like there could be a network problem   
between the server and your IP. Unfortunately, this is out of HostGator's 
control. However, these types of issues generally resolve quickly 
and I can assure you that the server is working correctly and the 
site is loading for me.
(1:32:23pm) Kristan This has been an ongoing problem over the past week or so.. 
I thought it might resolve but it has not. I am also accessing from multiple locations 
- my apartment + cafes + girlfriends place with no luck .. And the site *is* loading 
for me.. that was not the problem. 

So I don't know what is going on. I can land on my pages, but I cannot reach them with FTP. I have turned off my Firewall, and I am not connecting with a proxy. HostGator gave me this link

http://cpanel.one4ward.com 

Which works .. but I'll die if I have to work through the cPanel File Manager instead of Forklift/Coda.

HostGator also said this

Karen M. Your firewall is limiting the ports that the cpanel and whm are using. This will make them timeout or fail to connect.

(After I had turned my Firewall off)

(2:14:16pm) Karen M. You will need to allow the ports access in the firewall.  You may need to contact your ISP and ensure they are not blocking these ports as well.

(Although I am moving between multiple ISPs)

(2:23:30pm) Karen M. Specifically these will be, 2082, 2083, 2086, 2087, 2095, 2096  

But I cannot negotiate.. I have no private ISP. And this is happening in multiple locations, so I somehow doubt the explanation.

Also - I had been able to connect previously without problem, even when my firewall was on.. so I'm not sure about the whole firewall explanation. This problem appeared slowly (with wifi problems at home) and increased over the last two months until I am at the point I am now (with the whole FTP thing)

So.. does anyone have any ideas what may be going on or how I can troubleshoot it/fix it?

Thank you in advance / Danke schoen im voraus!

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    Is it possible those multiple locations all have the same provider who is blocking ports? I can go to any house in my neighborhood and the odds are there are only 2 providers. Your host can be anywhere in the world, but your provider might be a monopoly in your town. following that logic, have you checked to ensure those ports aren't blocked?
    – horatio
    Nov 23, 2011 at 15:59
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    If you change the FTP server to a non-standard port, can you access it? Nov 23, 2011 at 16:02
  • Horatio - I hear you.. but I am in Berlin and we are talking about spots on different sides of the city. Also there is the fact that it used to work. But is there any way I can check what ports a provider blocks without calling them? (I am not "the cardholder" on any of these accounts.) Nov 23, 2011 at 16:44
  • techie007 - I have never done that before. Through cpanel I can access FTP options and view the port#, but there doesn't seem to be a way to manually change the port. I can change it on Forklift of course, but I assume I would have to change it on the server too, yes? Sorry for my inexperience, is there something I am missing? I would like to try this as a troubleshoot -- Nov 23, 2011 at 16:58
  • my roommate also con only connect though cable now, then I assume it's not related to your computer having been used in Canada? Or is (s)he from Canada too?
    – Arjan
    Dec 3, 2011 at 9:05

1 Answer 1

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The transatlantic connections are rather slow for the amount of traffic they carry. If you can tell your FTP software to wait longer to timeouts, that might help.

Also, I've found that some sites in Germany use this database for what sites to block access to, so you may want to check if the site you are trying to reach is listed there, and if so try to get this changed:

http://rfc-ignorant.org/

Some computer stores sell equipment for allowing multiple computers to share one internet connection - I forget the proper name for it. You probably want a home version rather than the more expensive versions for commercial use. Some ADSL modems and cable modems come with such equipment built in - you may want to look at the back of the modem to tell if yours has multiple cable sockets of the same kind to allow connecting multiple computers. You could always call the local cable company to see if they offer such modems.

Some of the newer IP addresses are the new 6-byte type instead of the older 4-byte type, and not all internet providers are ready to handle connections to or from those yet. I suspect that some FTP software isn't ready to handle them either. Is your new IP address of the 6-byte type?

IPv4 means the 4-byte type. IPv6 means the 6-byte type.

Yes, a router.

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    "Some computer stores sell equipment for allowing multiple computers to share one internet connection - I forget the proper name for it " you mean a router
    – Journeyman Geek
    Dec 3, 2011 at 10:17
  • We have a router. There have been multiple laptops on wifi before. Also at the apartment there were no problems originally .. only after 1-2 months. I think my IP is the 4-byte type. It is listed as IPv4 (as opposed to IPv6), correct? Thanks for your help. Dec 5, 2011 at 12:45
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    IPv6 addresses are 128 bits long. 128 bits divided by 8 bits per byte = 16 bytes, not 6.
    – LawrenceC
    Dec 14, 2011 at 2:43

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