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Large File Transfer fails on VPN connection

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timby

Occasional Visitor
Since this crowd seems to be a variable cornucopia of info, I thought I would query and find out if anyone has any ideas as to why the following happens:

We have FIOS at home running 15/5. The network seems to work fine however, my wife's experiencing some difficulties with some operations over VPN. She is using her work laptop at home and is able to connect (VPN Cisco Client) to her work fine. She is able to open her mail (Outlook) and gain access to her office's shared drives and applications. However, when she tries to transfer large files either from her laptop to the company drive or from the company drive to her laptop she has intermittent problems. It takes a ton of time to upload or download the file. It sometimes times out and loses connectivity to that drive and the file process fails. However, she hasn't lost connectivity to the domain/company network. :confused:

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.... :)

Thanks
 
I think Scotty or YeOlde have more experience in this area. But it could be an MTU issue. VPN's often require futzing with the router MTU to get then running smoothly.

I would have her ask her company IT folks if they have any wisdom on the subject. After all, that's what they get paid for!
 
Have her contact the onsite IT team and let them check out her system for problems in the OS or hardware issues on the laptop first before ruling out connection to the company network domain through Cisco VPN client. What you describe shouldn't be happening. As you have told us that she can access her Outlook mail and do other task just can't do large file transfers.

Another issue could be the permission set to her profile in active directory for share folder access. Does she have full or limited access? Does the company have quota on file large transfers. These are the things she needs to ask with either the help desk put in ticket in and get the desktop team to look over her laptop. They'll test out the connection either wire or wireless to determine the problem.
 
Tim & Tipster

Thanks for the input. The IT folks at her work are near to worthless. They give her the excuse that they don't support VPN even though it's part of the PC roll-down. I fiddled with the MTU several times and have gotten the connection mostly stable. It use to drop several times a session. Now it will stay connected over night.:)

However, we still have the pesky problem of the file not transferring properly or for it to take several hours to move or upload the file. :mad:

I never get the easy ones. She only has to perform this file transfer once a month as it part of a reconciliation process. Once SAP creates the file it has to be transfered to another location for processing. Some time she just gives up and goes into work and does it as it only takes a few minutes to transfer once there. It's a real pain for her to spend an hour driving to transfer a file that could be done over the VPN.

Any ideas of a work around .....:confused:

Thanks
 
I would try other ways of transferring the file and/or zipping it before sending.
Or emailing it?
 
I would try other ways of transferring the file and/or zipping it before sending.
Or emailing it?

I wish we could. The file is used on the other end for a SAP process. I would think we would still have a problem as the file would have to be unzip before use. It seems most of the time we try to transfer files in the meg range it screws up. Most other applications and processes seem to work. It's like the server on the other end is timing out waiting for some sort of protocol to tell it that another packet is being sent. The files don't fail in the same place.

Sometimes, if we are persistent, the files will transfer. However, it may take 2 hours to do it.

I've tried telling my wife what to say to the IT folks but they won't listen as they don't want to do anything beyond password setup. I've had to help her department with other issues to get them up for a crucial month end.

They tell her that her department uses to much bandwidth month end and quarter end and that if they would quit running so much stuff they wouldn't have so many problems with servers. It's really funny since these are booking and billing functions so that the company can bill and make payroll.:mad:

I think if they could get someone with more clout than her manager to go ask maybe some of these issues would get resolved.;)

What do I know ....:p
 
I've seen MTU and RWIN affect VPN tunnel transfers. Both on the client PC side..and on the router side of things.

I've not have the opportunity to wrap my hands around fiber yet....nor those Actiontec devices they send you, so I don't know what options you have in there. Question for you though...are you plugging your own router into the Actiontec device they sent you? If so, this could introduce some wonkiness with double NAT issues.

I've also seen rebuildng the TCP stack fix issues...as well as "tweaking it" fix issues.

First..a word of caution, normally these don't create problems, but...a possibility exists, so backup your system first, and keep an updated version of your VPN software client handy incase you need to reiinstall it. As sometimes running the below tools can get your VPN client to not behave correctly, requiring a reinstall.

First...rebuild your TCP/IP stack/winsock to original defaults...
http://www.snapfiles.com/reviews/WinSock_XP_Fix/winsockxpfix.html
See if that helps. I've run that above tool hundreds and hundreds of times, all it basically does rebuild the files to original condition, sort of like uninstalling TCP/IP and reinstalling it again from the CABs files like back in the earlier days of Windows.

Next....try tweaking your system. Over time, as various things are installed/uninstalled, etc etc...sometimes the TCP stack gets a bit...weird..in values. Running the above tool usually resets to defaults, but sometimes, with faster internet speeds...tweaking can help.
http://www.speedguide.net/downloads.php
 
To keep this thread going.....

I'd consider updating the drivers for the NIC (network card). Whether its wireless or wired, check to see if you have the latest drivers. Also, run Windows Update and get all the latest critical, recommended and hardware patches. Surprisingly, sometimes unsuspecting patches fix problems...

Last, make sure your Cisco VPN client is fully patched. I've seen some seriously odd issues with the Cisco client. it can be very quirky!

If you want to test with another VPN client, try http://www.thegreenbow.com client under their 30 days free trial. I've used it with a lot of success for the past 3+ years.


Since this crowd seems to be a variable cornucopia of info, I thought I would query and find out if anyone has any ideas as to why the following happens:

We have FIOS at home running 15/5. The network seems to work fine however, my wife's experiencing some difficulties with some operations over VPN. She is using her work laptop at home and is able to connect (VPN Cisco Client) to her work fine. She is able to open her mail (Outlook) and gain access to her office's shared drives and applications. However, when she tries to transfer large files either from her laptop to the company drive or from the company drive to her laptop she has intermittent problems. It takes a ton of time to upload or download the file. It sometimes times out and loses connectivity to that drive and the file process fails. However, she hasn't lost connectivity to the domain/company network. :confused:

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.... :)

Thanks
 
timby, since you mentioned she is using outlook, I presume a Windows machine is in use. Just for kicks, have you considered using ftp apps (eg: coreftp, ftpnavigator, or others) which are more robust against time-outs in the sense that it will allow you to resume file transfer these big files if interruptions do occurr?

I have had my frustrations in transfering large files due to connection time out, and ftp programs do help.

just my $0.02 (worth even less nowadays)
 

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