SOLUTION: Reduce the MTU setting on my ADSL router
PROBLEM: We had a really weird thing happening from home where wee couldn’t connect to a few web sites. Microsoft was one and SMH (A sydney newspaper) was another. But all others were fine.
Also, Michele and I trouble sending and receiving email from our home account.
I could VPN in to work and browse the sites fine, so it was looking like an ISP issue. But we are with iiNet and I had trouble thinking they were the problem – I mean why would they be blocking sites.
Anyway, after a few days it was clear this wasn’t a temporary issue. So, after a few hours of buggering around I finally jumped on the web and started searching. Yep, had the solution in about 5 minutes.
I had to change the MTU (Max Transfer Unit) setting on our Netgear ADSL router. Ours was set at 1500 (and had been for years :-) but knocking it back to 1400 fixed everything. Microsoft was back on (I’m sure Bill G was relieved) and our email was working again.
My guess is that it was probably a change at our local exchange, or how iiNet dealt with the exchange.
Anyway, just plonking it here as a note to self in case it happens again.
