Some internet works, some doesn't???

[cougar4u]

Cheers linux community,

I am new here and have been using ubuntu 8.10 for about 6 months now. Most every problem I encounterd was solved via google, however, this one has me pulling my hair out.

I am connecting at home on a wireless router.

Right now, when I open firefox, my home page will load perfectly, however none of my add-ons connect (foxmarks, forecastfox, etc...). Moreover, I can go to any website from the address bar..for example google.com, however, once there, I cannot submit a query in any way.

Same goes for applications, Pigdin does not connect properly nor does gFTP.

The last thing I did before this started was attempt to install a VPN client my university requires to connect on campus.

Has anyone experienced this or have an idea of what's going ?!?

Any help would be much appriciated.

Regards,
Travis from Chicago
SIU '10
Information Systems & Technology


P.S. I'm using wireless internet on a Dell Inspiron 1520 with a dual-boot on xp & ubuntu 8.10. xp works fine, only ubuntu is giving me issues.

[MikeTbob]

Hello and Welcome to Linuxforums.
I do not know much about VPN so about all I can tell you there is to make sure your settings are correct, then make sure they are correct again.
I think you could try a few things to maybe get an idea of what''s going on here. After you get your network up and try connecting to a few pages, check the output of the dmesg command in a terminal window. There may be nothing there, just try anyway. Are you using DHCP to aquire IP/DNS settings? check your /etc/resolv.conf file, make sure your DNS are listed. What exactly do you mean you can't submit a query at google, is the search bar not present? Is it grayed out or something?
If you go to the university website, they might have a help FAQ for Windows, it may be of use to you anyways. Can you find that?

[cougar4u]

Sorry I wasn't too clear on the other details.

I am connected to my wireless network at home, not on campus. All I did was install the VPN client they require so I have it next time I connect there. It boils down to my internet functioning properly one minute, and the next barley working.

As far as google goes, I can type something in the search box, but when i hit enter or click search, nothing happens. I can click links no problem, but every search engine i go to will not let me send through a search. Even the google bar up top doesnt let me. I'm perplexed, to say the least. And like I said, my add-ons are loading either, nor does Pidgin.

When I ping a website, it returns 100%.

This happened once before but I really don't remember how I fixed it. It wasn't anything significant, just a simple reboot or update fixed it. I ran dmesg in terminal and it returned a long set of details about my connection. What exactly am I looking for?

[MikeTbob]

Sorry I wasn't too clear on the other details.

I am connected to my wireless network at home, not on campus. All I did was install the VPN client they require so I have it next time I connect there. It boils down to my internet functioning properly one minute, and the next barley working.

As far as google goes, I can type something in the search box, but when i hit enter or click search, nothing happens. I can click links no problem, but every search engine i go to will not let me send through a search. Even the google bar up top doesnt let me. I'm perplexed, to say the least. And like I said, my add-ons are loading either, nor does Pidgin.

When I ping a website, it returns 100%.

This happened once before but I really don't remember how I fixed it. It wasn't anything significant, just a simple reboot or update fixed it. I ran dmesg in terminal and it returned a long set of details about my connection. What exactly am I looking for?

You are looking for any kind of errors pertaining to the Internet connection....could you perhaps copy n paste those errors here and maybe someone will be able to solve this problem for you.
Does Ubuntu have SELinux installed?
What exactly did you do when you "install the VPN client", did that include installing VPN software or anything? Have you tried to remove/undo the VPN to see if this helps?

EDIT: Do you have another browser to test things with? Does that also have the same problem?

[jayd512]

I don't know much about VPN's, either. But as far as connectivity, are you able to get a consistent ping response from Google or Yahoo?