I installed my app on a Windows 2000 Pro machine and upon running, IsConnected() could not find an internet connection. I could browse the web just fine with Internet Explorer which told me the connection was indeed available. I've noticed that on some freshly booted machines I need to let it sit for awhile before the connection gets properly recognized by IsConnected(). So I let this machine sit for about 10 machines and still no connection was found. There was no firewall software or anything else out of the ordinary running in the background.
I did manage to get around this problem by toying around with the Connections settings. What ended up doing the trick was Internet Option -> Connections -> LAN Settings -> (and checking) Automatically detect settings. I have a number of systems that don't have this option checked and work fine. I don't like this solution as most of my users won't be knowledgeable enough to troubleshoot the problem like I did.
Has anyone else expierenced this or know why I had this problem? Searching the forums, I've seen that people have had similar problems in the past... but I haven't found any recent posting. Is there a known work-around or other recommended technique?
I had a similar problem where my users had a proxy server that prevented the connection from being detected correctly. The user could use IE6.0 to browse the internet successfully, but IsConnected returned false. I plan to research it more when I have time.
Thanks for looking into this. To provide more information, the test scenario I experienced this in did not involve a proxy server. I have not had a chance yet to test using 4.5.
If you gain any insight, please let me know. Thanks!!
For me, my favorite tool to debug connecion errors is the program Ethereal. It can capture all packets coming into and out of any network connection. It can also combine html transmissions (Update Service runs over html), so you can view an entire html socket session in one window.
I've found that when my Update Service is giving me grief, it is nice to narrow down if it's the client's computer at fault, or Update Service's servers at fault. This tool will let you see if that computer is even sending out a request in the first place (I thnk IsConnected() requests a page called file.bin).
