Contents

Connecting to Express 56

Communications Problems

Web Browsing Problems

Email Problems

Software Problems

Connecting to Express 56

This category of problems describes the situation where your modem and the modems at the remote site will not connect or stay connected. There can be a number of causes for this, including line quality, modem incompatibility or a problem with the modem or port at the remote end.

Select the description of your problem which best describes your situation.

The dialer complains that the modem is malfunctioning or it is not responding.

If you have an external modem (i.e. one that is not inside the case of your computer) is your modem connected and turned on? Is the cable seated firmly in both the modem and the computer? Is the correct serial port and/or modem selected? Is the modem connected to the correct port on the computer? The connection between the modem and the computer may be faulty, or the connection may have been broken. Check all connections, then check them again. If the serial cable is old and the connections appear suspect, get another and try that.

Turn the modem off, wait 10 seconds, then try again - is the result the same? Some modems will "hang" and fail to respond after a power spike or brown-out; if you are familiar with the modem lights, a hung modem will usually appear to have a different lighting array to one that is functioning normally. Powering the modem off, waiting a little, then powering it back on will normally fix such problems.

If you have an internal modem, is the card seated firmly in the motherboard. You may need to open the case and physically look at the card to ensure that it is. Sometimes cards do "pop" out of their connection to the computer, and will appear to be dead.

Internal modems can get hung too, but there is no way to power them off without turning the computer off as well. Shut down your operating system, power down and - again - wait 10 seconds, then turn it back on.

If you still cannot solve the problem, then it is time to consult the experts. The problem may be the modem itself has malfunctioned and needs to be repaired, all the cables you tried may have been faulty, or the serial port on your computer is not operational. A hardware technician should be able to narrow down the exact problem fairly quickly.

The dialer complains that there is no dial tone.

This message indicates that the modem is functioning, but it cannot detect a dial tone on the phone line. Normally, this means that there is a problem with the connection between the phone line itself and the modem - it is the equivalent of lifting the handset on a standard phone and hearing nothing.

The first thing to check are the connections - that the jack connector on the modem is in the correct connection (some modems have an additional connector usually labeled Phone which are for handsets), and that the cable is firmly plugged into the correct phone outlet on the wall or skirting board.

After the obvious potential causes have been eliminated, it is time to check the phone line itself. Unplug the modem and plug in a standard handset. Lift the receiver. If there is a dial tone, then reconnect the modem and try again. If the same result, then there may well be an incompatibility between your modem and the U.S. dial tone frequencies. Sometimes including "ATX3" or lower values of 'X' will solve this problem because the modem is told not to wait for a dial tone and dial regardless. If this still does not solve the problem, then the modem is probably malfunctioning and needs to be repaired or replaced.

If there is no dial tone on the handset, then the problem is with the telephone line. If you cannot determine what the problem is, then call your phone company for assistance.

The dialer complains there is no answer.

Try to dial again. If the problem keeps recurring then power the modem off then on (or shutdown and turn off your computer briefly if you have an internal modem), then try again. If the problem still is not fixed, continue.

The first thing to do if this problem arises is to determine if there really is no answer or if your modem simply is not connecting. Almost all modems have a speaker, and this should be enabled. Assuming it is not already enabled, you do so by sending the command ATM1L3 to the modem. If you are running Windows 95/98 or Windows NT, go to Control Panel / Modems highlight the modem you're having problems with, click Properties then open the Connection tab and click on the Advanced button. In the Extra settings field, enter ATM1L3.

If for some reason you cannot enable the modem's speakers, or the speaker is too quiet to hear (some internals in particular are almost impossible to hear), then an alternative method is to dial the number with a normal telephone and see if a modem answers the line. Either way, if the line is answered by a modem and you still cannot connect, then your modem has a connection problem. Connection problems may arise from a modem incompatibility; however, these are rare these days with modems manufactured within the last 4-5 years as most of them are based on standard chipsets. Modems on our POPs at Express 56 have been selected for high compatibility and reliability. If your modem consistently cannot connect to them, then your modem may be malfunctioning, may be incorrectly configured or could even require replacement.

If the line does not answer (i.e. it "rings out"), then please contact our technical support. It may be that you have been unlucky to dial in during a maintenance period which requires the POP to have been taken off-line, or some serious power failure in our area has forced us to take the POP off-line. We should be able to provide a reason for the unavailability of our service, and hopefully provide you with an estimated time when we will be back online. Fortunately, this type of event is very rare.

Another cause of this problem is a congested telephone exchange; the engaged tone in such a situation is slightly different from a normal one, and some modems do not detect it and will not return BUSY. If this is the case, see the next section.

The dialer complains that the line is busy.

At Express 56, we monitor our line usage very carefully to ensure that there are sufficient lines to cope with demand even at peak periods. If we find that we have all or most lines in use during peak periods, we will add more lines to cope with the demand. This means that getting an engaged tone because all of our lines are in use should be a very rare occurrence (hopefully never!).

Peak periods at Express 56 are 3pm to 9pm weekdays, and 4pm to midnight on weekends. The possibility of all of our lines being busy outside of those time periods is almost zero. If you find you are getting engaged tones at any time, and redialing still results in busy tones, then it is most likely a telephone exchange problem. Exchange busy occurs because the phone exchange becomes congested. Fortunately, this is rare, but it still can and does occur. Call the technical assistance number for your telephone company (assuming you can get through) - they should be able to assist.

The dialer claims that my username or password is incorrect, or that authorization fails.

This occurs if you are supplying incorrect details for your Express 56 account name and password. Note that both the username and password are case sensitive! For example, the username "bob" is not the same as "Bob". As a standard, usernames on Express 56 are always lower case, contain no punctuation or spaces and are 1 to 15 characters in length - check to make sure the username you are using (on the Connect to Express 56 box) is correct. The username entered there is the same as your email address username@express56.com. Note that your username is not the same as your real name.

Passwords are also case sensitive. Since passwords are not displayed (characters are substituted by '*'), this can be difficult to check. Make sure that your CAPSLOCK key is not on - this is the number one cause of password failures. Be careful to type it correctly.

Asking Windows to save your password is one way to avoid this problem. However, there are security implications in doing so - anyone with physical access to your computer can then use your dialup connection without needing to know the password, and it is also possible to "steal" saved passwords. You will have to decide for yourself whether to save your password or not depending on your situation.

The connection box on Windows NT may also ask for a domain in addition to a username and password. When connecting to Express 56, make sure that this box is blank (empty). Specifying any domain name here will cause your username to be presented to the Express 56 POP as DOMAIN\\username which will not work.

If you think you have entered the correct username and password, and that none of the above applies to your situation, please contact our help desk for assistance.

I can successfully connect, but the connection drops after a few minutes.

Line dropouts can be an extremely frustrating problem to resolve, as there are a variety of possible causes, and some of them are beyond either your or our control. Express 56 connects to the telephone network via a fiber optic, fully digital connection, so we can guarantee consistent good line quality to our local exchange. Line quality elsewhere, however, is an unknown, but fortunately this has improved greatly for metropolitan areas over the last few years, so the incidence of line dropouts due to poor quality phone lines should be rare.

Telephonic equipment and facilities connected to your phone lines can affect your connection. First, make sure that Call Waiting has been disabled. Connect a handset to the line, and using your handset dial * 7 0 . This will prevent incoming calls from interfering with your connection. Next, try disconnecting any other phone equipment attached to the phone line. Some handsets are a major culprit in disrupting data communications, as it will pull current from the line every several minutes, causing the line to either hang up or become unusable. Similarly, some hands-free and cordless stations can cause problems, as can fax machines and similar equipment. If you do not experience the dropout problem after disconnecting all other telephone equipment from the line, try reconnecting them one at a time until the line dropouts start again - this should isolate the piece of equipment that is causing the problem. Many of them can be modified to prevent this from happening.

If you have ruled out the above possibilities, then contact your phone company and see if your line can be examine for line quality problems. Check also for the possibility that your phone company may be carrying out network maintenance on either your exchange or ours - this type of work can be very disruptive to both voice and data communications, but usually only lasts for a few hours.

The possibility also exists that your modem may be overheating or faulty. Older modems are more likely to be subject to this problem than newer equipment, but this is less likely to be the case than general problems with telephone line quality.

When I dial into Express 56, I get the message "Windows is unable to negotiate a compatible set of protocols..."

There are two main causes for this problem; the protocols configured for your Express 56 dialin are incorrect, or there is a communications problem between your computer and modem.

To resolve this, first check the dialup connection settings.

1. Open My Computer by double clicking on it.
2. Double click on Dial-Up Networking.
3. With the right mouse button click once on the Express 56 dialup icon.
4. Select Properties from the popup menu by clicking once with the left mouse button.
5. The Express 56 properties sheet will appear with the tab; General, Server Types and Scripting.
6. Click the Server Types tab. The settings for the items on this sheet should be as follows:

   Type of Dial-Up Server

   PPP: Windows ... Internet (the exact wording will depend on the version of windows you are running)

   Log onto network

   unchecked

   Enable software compression

   checked (you may wish to uncheck this if you typically download mostly files which are already compressed - graphics and zip files, for example)

   Require encrypted password

   unchecked

   Enable data encryption (Windows 98 only)

   unchecked

7. In the Allowed network protocols section, make sure that both NetBEUI and IPX/SPX Compatible are both unchecked, and that TCP/IP is checked.
8. Click on the TCP/IP Settings button next to the TCP/IP checkbox item. The TCP/IP Settings sheet will be displayed.
9. Checking to ensure that the following settings are active:

   Server assigned IP address

   Server assigned name server addresses

   Use IP header compression (on)

   Use default gateway on remote network (on)

10. Click OK to close the TCP/IP Settings box.
11. Click OK to close the Express 56 Properties sheet.

If you did not have to modify anything, or the problem still is not corrected, then the problem is probably a communications problem between your computer and modem, where your computer is not receiving all of the data that the modem is sending or vice versa. Things you may wish to try:

• Check the cable between your computer and modem. Is it fully plugged in at both ends?
• Turn your modem off, leave it off for 10-20 seconds, then back on.
• Replace the cable.
• Change the baud rate to a lower value, if it is set at 115200, then try 57600, if at 57600, try 38400. Baud rate may be modified from the General properties sheet of your Express 56 connection icon, and pressing the Configure button next to the modem selector.

I can connect to Express 56 ok, but as soon as I try to browse the web or collect email the connection hangs up and starts to redial

Many software packages (particularly those from Microsoft) can be "tied" to a specific dialup connection, so that when you require network services, the appropriate dialup connection is established, and the requested task is carried out. However, this causes problems if you have removed a dialup connection, or created multiple connection profiles that connect to Express 56, and use a different one to actually connect than the one that the software is configured to use.

The first thing to do in such cases is to open My Computer / Dial-Up Networking, then remove any and all duplicated connection profiles. For example, you may have an icon labeled Express 56 and another called Connect to Express 56. Remove all except the one you actually use to connect to our server, which, if you set up your system using the Express 56 Setup Disk, will be called Express 56.

Next, you need to adjust your software's configuration so that it will use the correct connection profile, and not attempt to use one of the ones you have just deleted. If the problem occurs with Internet Explorer, then open the Control Panel and double click on the Internet or Internet Options icon, select the Connection tab, and select the correct connection to use.

If this problem arises when you attempt to retrieve or send mail from Outlook or Outlook Express, then open the program, and from the Tools menu, select the item labeled Accounts.... Select the Mail tab on the Internet Accounts window, then double click on the account name. The account properties will be displayed. Click the Connection tab. Now, use the selector to pick the Express 56 dial-up connection (which should be the only one left, unless you have other service providers configured).

Communications Problems

This category describes problems which relate to communicating with remote internet sites. It assumes that you are able to successfully connect to Express 56 and log into our servers, but for one reason or another software on your computer has problems connecting to or receiving data from remote servers on the internet.

I connect to Express 56, but I can't get anywhere!

See next question.

My browser/ICQ/irc/mud/mail program cannot connect to a remote site.

The first thing to determine in this situation is whether the problem is a general one that affects all sites or whether the problem is with the remote server you are attempting to connect to. Try connecting to other sites to see if they can be contacted. If the problem is with web browsing, try http://www.express56.com the Express 56 home page to make sure that is working. If this comes up ok, but nothing outside of Express 56 can be reached, then there is a possibility that Express 56's connection to the internet may be down.

In either case, please contact our help desk immediately. We are probably aware of and in the process of correcting the problem, but at least we are able to verify that this is or is not the problem. We hope that this will never happen at all, but it has happened in the past usually for reasons beyond our control, so be aware of the possibility.

If the problem is with a specific site, then try again later. Servers on the internet do require maintenance periods when they will be unavailable, so a small amount of downtime is normal. If the problem persists, call our helpdesk to see if we can help either explain the problem or help to resolve it.

Network routing can often be an issue that arises with problems like this. Information on the internet is sent as "packets" from client to server and vice versa, and each packet is sent from server to server until it reaches its destination. How and where a packet is forwarded by each host depends on how it is routed, and this being an imperfect world, sometimes packet routing is faulty or just plain wrong.

TRACEROUTE

A useful diagnostic tool that is provided with almost every internet ready system is called traceroute, which can be used to track down problems with network routing, or even just find out whether a server machine is operational or not. On Microsoft Windows systems, this program is called tracert. To use it, open a DOS or Command prompt (via Start / Programs / MSDOS Prompt or Command Prompt) and type tracert <name-of-server-you-are-trying-to-contact>. For example,

tracert www.ibm.com

This displays the path packets will have to travel to reach the remote server, and also reports the response times in milliseconds (thousandths of seconds) - that is, how long it takes for packets to reach a remote server. On a 33.6k connection, a base time to our server (www.express56.com) will be anything from 120ms to 200ms. If you see an asterisk '*' appear instead of a time, it usually indicates some packet loss on the link. Occasional packet loss is normal for very remote sites, and should be rare on close sites. Some internet routing hosts do not respond to traceroute and ping queries, so some will always show asterisks, even in zero packet loss conditions.

If tracert does not respond at all after pressing ENTER on the command line, then you probably have a connection problem to Express 56 itself. If this happens, then try tracing your connection to 204.117.214.10 (one of our DNS servers) to see if you can get any response. If still no success, then hang up, reconnect and try again. Contact our helpdesk if you continue to have problems.

Traceroute may show that it can partially get to a site, but times out after a few 'hops'. This is indicative of a failed route OR a congested link somewhere in the path between your system and the remote server. If multiple attempts always stop at the same host, then it is probably a failed link. Internet backbone routers will normally adapt to this situation and route around failed paths; however, if the route stops at what is the primary gateway for the network you're attempting to reach, then the service may be unavailable until the problem with the gateway has been rectified.

Sometimes tracing the network route to a remote server will work, but the server will still fail to respond. This may mean that the software hosting the service you are trying to connect to is down or not responding, even though the machine on which it runs is operating.

When I try to connect to a remote site, the host name is invalid, cannot be found or cannot be resolved.

This means that the host name you have entered or configured fails to return an IP address when the software attempts to look it up in the DNS (domain name service). To explain: DNS, or Domain Name Service, is the name given to the internet wide database that contains mappings between host and domain names, and their IP addresses. All communications on the internet utilizes IP addresses only, and the DNS makes those IP addresses usable by providing the ability to use host (individual machines) and domain (network) names instead. For example, it is much easier to remember "www.express56.com" than it is to remember "63.160.140.130".

The first thing to check is that you are actually connected to Express 56! If you aren't connected anywhere, then host name lookup failures is not only normal, but entirely expected.

Failure to look up a host or domain name can arise from a number of causes. The simplest one, although most rare, is that the servers on which the master and secondary lists of hosts for a domain may be malfunctioning or down (every domain has at least two servers which will respond as "authoritative" for a domain). A small amount of downtime is usually acceptable in the overall scheme of things, since domain information can still be cached elsewhere on the internet - in other non-authoritative domain name servers - for a limited period of time. Extended downtime can result in complete domains apparently "disappearing" off the internet.

Almost every ISP or network has at least two domain name servers. When you connect to Express 56, your system will automatically use our domain name servers to look up host names and make queries on your behalf. All of this is usually invisible to you, except when it does not work, for whatever reason. It is possible that both of Express 56's domain servers may be down, in which case an attempt to resolve any domain or host name will fail. Fortunately, this event too, is unlikely. Failure of both Express 56 name servers at the same time has not happened ever in our five years of operation except due to a power failure that affected the entire network (but dialing into our service did not work either).

The most common cause of DNS lookup failure is a configuration problem in Windows 95 or Windows 98. This results in failure of any attempt to use host names, whether it be in a browser or any other internet software. If you find that you can ping or tracert to any site from the Command Prompt using an IP number, but you are unable to ping or tracert to any host name, then this is probably the problem.

The cause of this common misconfiguration is usually due to your system being connected to a local area network (LAN), using an ethernet card. Domain Name Service settings for ethernet cards override settings for dialup connections, and unless the DNS servers on your network are functional, host lookups will fail, even when you are connected to Express 56.

Another cause is that you or someone with access to your computer has configured or enabled DNS in the global TCP/IP->Dialup Adaptor item in Control Panel / Network. Windows 98 will alert you with a warning if you attempt to do so, but Windows 95 will not, which is why the problem is most common on Windows 95 systems. TCP/IP settings for the Dial-Up Adaptor will override any settings for individual dial-up networking icons.

The simplest way to resolve this problem is to uninstall, then reinstall the TCP/IP networking component. It may not be enough to simply edit the properties for TCP/IP->Dialup Adaptor, as once it is configured, the settings tend to be "sticky", even when items in it are deactivated.

NOTE: You will require your Windows 95/98 CD-ROM for the following procedure.

To uninstall TCP/IP:

1. Open the Start menu.
2. Click on Settings.
3. Click on Control Panel.
4. Double click on Network.
5. Highlight the TCP/IP->Dialup Adaptor item and press the Remove button.
6. Follow the prompts to complete the removal process.
7. Once back on the Network Properties window, press OK to close the window. You will be prompted to restart the computer. Press OK to restart.

To reinstall TCP/IP:

1. Open the Start menu.
2. Click on Settings.
3. Click on Control Panel.
4. Double click on Network.
5. Click the Add button.
6. The Select Network Component Type window appears.
7. Click once to highlight the Protocol item.
8. Click the Add button.
9. In the Select Network Protocol window, click the Microsoft item in the section on the left called Manufacturers.
10. Click the TCP/IP item in the section on the right called Network Protocols.

11. Click OK.

12. Unless you need them for LAN connectivity, if they are displayed in the "installed network components" list, remove Client for Netware Networks, IPX/SPX-compatible protocol, and NetBEUI, by highlighting each item in turn and clicking the Remove button.
13. Once the installation is complete, click OK in the network box. You will be prompted to restart the computer again - click OK. If not, restart it anyway via Start, Shutdown and Restart the computer.

When the computer comes back up, open My Computer, double click on Dial-Up Networking, and remove any dial-up networking icons by right clicking on them and clicking on Delete.

Now we need to re-create our Express 56 dialup icon.

1. Double click on Make New Connection. This will launch the Dial-Up Connection wizard that asks a few questions.
2. The Make New Connection window appears.

   Type a name for the computer you are dialling

   Enter Express 56

   Select a modem

   If you have only one modem installed, it will already appear in the field. If you have more than one modem, use the selector to choose the modem you wish to use to dial Express 56.

   Click on Next.
3. Windows now requests phone number details.

   Area code

   Unless you are calling from interstate, leave this field blank.

   Telephone number

   Enter the telephone number for a Express 56 POP (point of presence) which has local call access for your area.

   Country code

   Leave this at the default setting. If your system's regional settings have been configured correctly, then United States of America (1) should already be highlighted

   Click Next.
4. You will be informed that you have successfully created a dialup connection.
5. Click on Finish to complete the wizard.
6. You will now have an icon called Express 56 in the Dial-Up Networking window.

Finally, we need to adjust the Express 56 connection properties.

1. With your right mouse button, click once on the newly created Express 56 icon.
2. A popup menu will appear. Highlight the last item called Properties and click once with the left mouse button.
3. The Express 56 properties sheet will appear with three tabs; General, Server Types and Scripting. Earlier versions of Windows may not have the Scripting item, and Windows 98 will have an additional tab. Both of these differences can be ignored as none of these tabs will be used.

4. In the General tab, uncheck the item labeled

   Use country code and area code

5. Click the Server Types tab. The settings for the items on this sheet are as follows:

   Type of Dial-Up Server

   PPP: Windows ... Internet (the exact wording will depend on the version of windows you are running)

   Log onto network

   unchecked

   Enable software compression

   checked (you may wish to uncheck this if you typically download mostly files which are already compressed - graphics and zip files, for example)

   Require encrypted password

   unchecked

   Enable data encryption (Windows 98 only)

   unchecked

6. In the Allowed network protocols section, make sure that both NetBEUI and IPX/SPX Compatible are both unchecked, and that TCP/IP is checked.
7. Click on the TCP/IP Settings button next to the TCP/IP checkbox item. The TCP/IP Settings sheet will be displayed.
8. The default settings are usually correct, however it is worth checking to ensure that the following settings are active:

   Server assigned IP address

   Server assigned name server addresses

   Use IP header compression (on)

   Use default gateway on remote network (on)

9. Click OK to close the TCP/IP Settings box.
10. Click OK to close the Express 56 Properties sheet.

Reinstallation is now completed, and hopefully DNS host and domain lookups will now work when you are next connected to Express 56.

Web Browsing Problems

Problems discussed here are related specifically to web browsing. Some problems manifest themselves in your web browser, but in fact may be a general communications problem, so information in the previous section may be relevant to your problem.

When I press the Search button, I get the message that the URL http:/// is unknown and cannot be displayed.

This is a known problem that is specific to Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.01 that is delivered with some versions of Microsoft Windows 95. Unfortunately, Microsoft do not provide a fix for it any more as IE3 is no longer supported, and recommend updating to a later version of Internet Explorer (We at Express 56 recommend Internet Explorer 5 or Netscape Communicator 4.5 or later for full enjoyment of your web browsing experience, so this is not such a bad idea).

Does this mean that your web browser has no searching capability? No. It just means that this functionality is not accessible via the browser's search button. In the location bar type http://www.express56.com (the Express 56 home page), and select the Search button from the menu at the top of the page. This will present a list of the most popular search engines available on the internet, or you can use the panel on the right for keyword search.

What does URL mean?

Understanding this term is essential if you wish to browse the world wide web. URL is an acronym for Universal Resource Location, often coined as a web address of a page, program or other resource that can be accessed from your web browser. The location or address bar displayed by your browser shows the URL for the page you are viewing, and you can type in a URL that will bring up a page at that location for viewing or download.

While web pages are one type of URL, they are not the only type of URL you will encounter. Most web pages start with the familiar http:// which indicates that the URL is of a type that is transferred to your computer using the HyperText Transfer Protocol, but that is only one type of many possible that are supported by most browsers. Other common URL protocols are ftp:// File Transfer Protocol, news:// Usenet News, https:// Secure HyperText Transfer Protocol and so on.

The URL was invented as a way of unambiguously defining resources available on the internet. It defines not only where that resource is, but how to get it. The format of a URL is protocol://server_hostname/path_to_hostname.

When I click on a link from a page, or enter a URL that a friend gave me into the location bar I get HTTP Error 404 - what does that mean?

Basically, it means that the file or resource you are requesting cannot be found by the remote server. The first thing to do is to check to make sure that you have typed the URL correctly. The smallest mistypings can make a difference between success or failure. Getting 404 errors from links obtained via search engines is unfortunately common, a phenomenon known humorously as link rot, where the search engine is not updated as frequently as page locations, or pages are removed from a server but the search engine links remain until they expire in perhaps 6 months time.

Sometimes a browser will report an HTTP 404 error, when a browser on a different system will bring up a resource at that address. This is particularly common with older browsers, such as Microsoft Explorer version 2 and Netscape Navigator version 2, which do not understand redirections and other new features introduced into later revisions of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol. The "file not found" error reported by these browsers is a fallback, since it does not understand what the remote site is actually asking it to do. Try loading http://www.ibm.com for example using one of these older browsers; you'll see something entirely different from those of us with up to date browsers!

This is why Express 56 recommends strongly that you upgrade your browser software to the latest and greatest offerings. There may be some users, though, who run very old computers, where resources to run these newer programs may not be available. If you are considering upgrading, you do not have to spend megabucks on downloading it from the internet! Many internet and computer magazines, software packages and giveaway CD-ROMs from various sources (such as those supplied with modems) come with reasonably up to date browsers. Each issue of the popular PCWeek magazine is accompanied by a CD-ROM with the latest browser versions for Win32 environments. Various Linux distribution CD-ROMs come with native versions of Netscape and/or Internet Explorer for UNIX.

When I open some URLs, I am asked for a name and password. What should I type?

Some sites require you to "log in" before you can view them. The site may contain sensitive or privileged information, or be an adults only site. Usually you will need to provide credit card details or come to some arrangement with the owners of the site for access.

When I open a site, I get HTTP 401 error - forbidden. Did I do something wrong?

No. You just requested something that the server has been forbidden to send you. Usually this is because automatic directory indexes have been disabled (that is, remote sites are not allowed to view the contents of a directory) when there is no default document for the directory. This is usually a configuration error on the server, or simply that the pages intended for the site have been removed or not yet uploaded.

Email Problems

Problems described here relate to email - both the collection of email to you, and sending email to others. Unfortunately, there is no easy way to define methods of fixing mail problems that relate to problems in configuration of your machine since our users run a variety of mail client or reader software, and they all differ considerably in how they are set up and maintained.

We can, however, describe how to access the configuration area for some of the more popular email packages. Many of these packages, particularly those made by Microsoft, are tied to dial-up networking and will attempt to connect to the internet when you start them up. If you get the option to do so, select Work Off-line when starting these programs. This will allow you to configure the program without having to do so while connected to Express 56.

Netscape Mail

Netscape is a relatively easy package to configure, and the configuration section is within the program itself. All components of the Netscape suite may be configured by starting any of the individual components; mail & newsreader, browser or html editor.

There are two sets of instructions here; which you will use depends on the version of Netscape you are running. Note that if you have Netscape Navigator version 4 or above, you may not have the mail reader component installed. You need to have installed the complete Netscape Communicator package in order to have mail facilities.

For Netscape Communicator version 4 or greater:

1. Open the Navigator (browser), Messenger (mail/news reader) or Composer (html editor).
2. From the main menu at the top of the window, click on Edit.
3. Click on Preferences from the pull down menu.
4. The Preferences window will be displayed. The area you are interested in is labeled Mail & Newsgroups the Categories list on the left.
5. Click on the [+] to the left of Mail & Newsgroups. This should expand all of the sub-categories relating to configuration of the news and mail reader.
6. You can navigate to the various screens available on this section by clicking on the category names in the Categories list.

For Netscape Navigator version 3 or below:

1. Open the Navigator or Netscape Mail component.
2. From the main menu at the top of the window, click on Options.
3. Near the top of the pulldown menu are a list of categories. The one you are interested in here is the one labeled Mail & News.
4. Click on Mail & News. A tabbed dialog is displayed.
5. You ca navigate to the various screens available by clicking on the tabs at the top of the dialog sheet.

Microsoft Internet Mail & News

Internet Mail & News is the default client supplied with all versions of Microsoft Windows 95 and NT. Windows 98 comes with Outlook Express instead (see next section). Internet Mail & News is a reasonably primitive mail and news reading client, but it does the job.

Configuration for this mailer is in the system Control Panel, under an item marked Mail or Mail and Fax.

1. Press the Start button on the task bar.
2. Click on Settings.
3. Click on Control Panel.
4. Double click on the icon marked Mail or Mail and Fax.
5. The item you are interested in is Internet Mail. Double click on it.
6. The Internet Mail properties window is displayed, with two tabs, General and Connection.

Microsoft Outlook Express

Outlook Express is delivered with Internet Explorer 4 (and therefore Windows 98, which comes with Internet Explorer 4) and Internet Explorer 5. The main difference between Outlook Express 4 and 5 is that version 5 has the ability to maintain multiple identities - that is, more than one person can use the program on the one system. Like Netscape Messenger, Outlook Express is a high quality and very capable mail program that works reliably.

Configuration for Outlook Express is contained within the program itself.

1. Start Outlook Express, by either clicking on the desktop or taskbar icon, or by selecting the program from the Start menu.
2. If you are presented with a Dial-Up Connection box, press cancel so that you do not connect to Express 56.
3. Click on the Tools option in the menu at the top of the window.
4. Select Accounts... from the pulldown menu.
5. Click on the Mail tab at the top of the property sheet.
6. There will be an item on the list of accounts that represents your Express 56 mailbox. Double click on it to edit its properties, or highlight it and click on the Properties button.
7. A properties sheet is displayed with several tabs above.

Microsoft Outlook

Microsoft Outlook is part of the Microsoft Office package. It was published with Office95, Office97, and again as a separate package Outlook98. This is the "big brother" to the Outlook Express mailers supplied free of charge with Internet Explorer. It offers a much higher degree of integration with the other Microsoft Office family of modules, including the ability to use Microsoft Word as its integrated mail editor, with its extremely rich formatting capabilities. It also comes with many other integrated modules, including full contact list management and scheduling.

Basic configuration for Microsoft Outlook is in the same location as for Internet Mail & News; that is, in the Mail item in Control Panel. However, you can also access this same area from within Outlook itself.

1. Open Microsoft Outlook, either by selecting the appropriate icon from your desktop or taskbar, or via Start / Programs.
2. On the Outlook main menu, click on the Tools option.
3. Select Services... from the pulldown menu.

Eudora Pro

Eudora Pro and Eudora Lite are internet mail clients which have been in existence for many years now, and are very mature products. On Windows 95, 98 and NT platforms Eudora also offers some integration with the Dial-Up Networking component, and like the Microsoft clients can connect to your mailbox automatically when the client starts up.

Eudora's configuration may be accessed from within the program.

1. Start Eudora using the desktop or taskbar icon, or start it via the Eudora program group via the Start menu.
2. Select the Tools menu item from the main menu.
3. Select Options... from the dropdown menu.

Note that there are many good mail client/reader programs available for the Windows platform, but are not covered here. If you need to locate the configuration area for your particular mailer and cannot find it in any obvious place within the mailer itself, consult the help section and search for "configure" or "settings".

While this list of mailers is specific to the Windows environment, the rest of this section covers problems that you may experience using mail programs running on any operating system.

The mail program complains that my username and password or wrong and is unable to collect my email.

Your mail name and password are identical to your Express 56 login name and password. Both are case sensitive. Make sure that your CAPSLOCK key is not depressed, and be sure to enter your mail username in all lower case. If the password contains mixed case (most do), then ensure that you have typed it correctly.

Do NOT include the @express56.com part in your mail user name. Also, be sure to read the prompts in the incoming mail server configuration area correctly; the phrase mail server name in the Netscape Messenger area, for example, refers to your user name, and not the name of the mail host you wish to collect your mail from (note that this particular prompt has been modified to be less ambiguous in Netscape 4.5 and later).

When I send mail, I am told it failed because relaying is not allowed. What does this mean?

In order to send mail using Express 56's mail server, you must be connected directly to the Express 56 network. You are probably trying to read and write mail from a machine that is connected elsewhere; from your college or university, workplace, or while connected to another internet service provider.

The reason why Express 56 denies relaying (that is, sending mail from outside the network to some address that is also outside of our network) is to prevent our mail server from abuse by spam email senders and attempts to forge mail by attempting to make it appear legitimate by sending via our mail server. SPAM is a general term which, when applied to email, means junk mail; advertising or similar material which are sent in bulk to sometimes up to tens of thousands of individual email addresses. We do not appreciate such abuse of our service, and therefore prevent such use.

You can still read your email from outside of the Express 56 network by configuring your mailer's incoming mail server to pop3.express56.com. However, you will need to send outbound mail via your local intranet mail server, or your other service provider's mail server.

When I try to collect mail, the connection is terminated with the message that the mailbox is currently locked.

This occurs from time to time when you are downloading an unusually large mail item and the connection is terminated abnormally. If you encounter this, contact our helpdesk to remove the mailbox lock and make your mail available again.

When I attempt to download mail, my mail program stops receiving after XX% and it can't retrieve any more.

This problem is specific to older/slower computers and is indicative of a general problem in downloading to your computer. Basically, your computer cannot receive information from your modem at full speed, and loses information. The download gets stuck when your computer asks our server to resend, but the resend requests never reach the server. This problem will also affect downloading any information from the internet, including web graphics and downloading files via ftp.

The long term solution to this problem is to upgrade your computer to a faster, more modern system which will have better capacity for communications.

A short term solution is to reduce the speed of communications between your modem and computer: If it is set at 115200, then try 57600, if at 57600, try 38400. Baud rate may be modified from the General properties sheet of your Express 56 connection icon in My Computer / Dial-Up Networking, and pressing the Configure button next to the modem selector. After making this change, you will need to hang up (if you are still connected) and dial again.

When I receive mail I am told I am receiving it, but my inbox still appears to be empty

This problem arises when your inbox has been corrupted somehow, usually by your system being turned off or losing power while receiving mail, or because your computer has "crashed" during a mailbox operation (some of which happen automatically if you have enabled checking for mail every few minutes while connected).

Microsoft supply a tool to rectify this problem, called the Inbox Repair Tool.

1. Close down your mail reading program if it is currently open.
2. Click on Start on your taskbar.
3. Click on Programs.
4. Click on Accessories.
5. The item you are looking for will be either in the System Tools submenu or Internet Tools. Once you find it, click on it.
6. Enter the path name to your inbox. If you do not know it, then you will have to locate it first:
   • Click on Start.
   • Click on Find.
   • Click on Files or Folders...
   • The Find, All Files dialog should appear.
   • In the Named field, enter *.pst.
   • In the Look in field, use the slider to select My Computer.
   • Click once on Find Now.
   • Your system will be scanned for files ending in .pst and will display the results in the list below.
   • You need to check all of the files found in turn, so repeat the mailbox fix procedure for each file found. The "path" of each file is the folder name, followed by a backslash, followed by the filename. For example, if "mailbox.pst" was found in C:\MSOffice\Mail, then enter C:\MSOffice\Mail\mailbox.pst into the "name of file you want to scan" field in the Inbox Repair Tool.
7. Enter the name of the mailbox file.
8. Press the Start button on the Inbox Repair Tool dialog.
9. Progress should be displayed, and any errors found displayed.
10. Repeat this procedure for each mailbox located via Find in item 6.

When I try to collect my mail, the mail program says that pop3.express56.com cannot be found and has no DNS entry.

This is another manifestation of one of the problems described above in the Communications Problems section. It means that the internet hostname lookup function is malfunctioning on your system. Refer to that section for solutions.

My friend can't send me a file by email. It is returned to him with a message that it is too large or my disk quota is exceeded.

To provide a fair use of our mailbox resource, we limit the amount of mail you can receive in your mailbox to around five megabytes. This ensures that one user cannot fill our mailbox area and cause complete loss of email service to all other users. As sometimes happens on the internet, you may annoy another "internet citizen" so much (for whatever reason) that they attempt to annoy you by transmitting huge files to your mailbox - this safeguard prevents that from happening as well. While this might prevent you receiving further mail from any other user, it will have no impact on other users of our service. This is only fair.

Consequently, the maximum size of any individual mail item you may receive is limited to five megabytes. Bear in mind that email was not really originally designed for transfer of files, and that it is a very inefficient way to do so. You may find yourself in the same situation, trying to send large files to someone else

I have received a cryptic message from MAILER-DAEMON or Postmaster. What do I do with it?

These messages look confusing to a new internet user, but they are actually informing you of something concerning the delivery of your email. If you have mistyped an email address, or attempted to send to a mailbox which has been closed, you will find in the message some indication of what the problem was. Look for user unknown or host unknown, for example. Sometimes mailboxes become full (see previous question) so your message cannot be delivered. Sometimes a remote mail server may be down for an extended period, so you will first get a message from our mail server that your message cannot be delivered after 4 hours of trying (don't worry, it will keep trying for some time yet so don't resend right away), and finally if the remote server either cannot or will not accept your mail after 5 days, then it will be returned to you.

I keep getting messages from Postmaster with the subject DSN: Receipt of Mail.

This is a notification (DSN means "Delivery Service Notification") that your message has been delivered into the destination mailbox by a mail server. This is normal, and believe it or not, it is what you requested.

If you do not want to receive receipts for all mail you send, you need to turn them off. In Netscape Messenger, select the Return Receipts category under Mail & Newsgroups and reconfigure according to your wishes. Other mail programs may have similar options.

While DSN notification messages can be useful in some circumstances, you can only use them as positive notification of delivery when you get a receipt in your mailbox, but you cannot assume that their absence means that the message was not delivered. A lot of mail server software does not support DSN, and many mail readers ignore the receipt request, either because they do not support it or because the user has requested them not to be sent.

When I ask Outlook or Outlook express to get my mail, the modem hangs up and starts to dial again!

This question is answered in full in the Connection Problems section above.

Software Problems

This category of refers to problems you may be having with either your operating system (e.g. Windows 95) or programs which run on it. These problems are by far the most difficult to resolve, especially over the phone; to successfully resolve them, you almost always need someone with some technical expertise to locate the problem and apply a fix. This difficulty arises mainly because of the large number of possible causes.

Technically, problems in this area are out of our (Express 56's) realm, but do not hesitate in calling our help desk for assistance. We may not be able to solve the problem for you (but sometimes we can!), but at least we might be able to offer some guidance as to what course of action you should follow to get it resolved. Certainly we will try to help you as much as we are able.

When I run my browser/mail program or try to send mail, I get a window saying that there has been a General Protection Fault.

An exact cause, and therefore a definite fix, is extremely difficult to diagnose in this case. Usually, this occurs because either a program or its configuration/data files have been corrupted, or because the Windows registry has become corrupted. The causes of this corruption are many, but include not shutting your system down correctly (via Start/Shutdown) or due to a power failure or system crash. Or perhaps your hard disk has developed problems; in which case sometimes the problem cannot be resolved without replacing it.

General Protection Faults are not normal on a well functioning system. They may be caused by badly behaved software packages (be careful about what software you choose to install on your system!), or a problem related to hardware. Anyone who has to diagnose the problem successfully will have to become familiar with your system, and try to track down exactly how to cause it to crash, then determine why it is crashing, and finally apply a fix.

Windows is not alone in experiencing this class of problem, of course. UNIX systems will complain about "segmentation violation" or "illegal instruction" traps, and so on. All computer systems are subject to malfunction from time to time, whether it be due to software or hardware, or a combination of both. Just as with health problems, they can not often be solved by the layman and require an expert to offer advice or fix the problem.

We fully understand any frustration you may feel as a result of this type of problem arising. Anyone who has used computers for a reasonable length of time will have encountered it, so while we may not be able to provide you with a solution to your problem, we do fully sympathize with your situation.