cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Pings OK only in one direction

penneck
Aspiring Pro
Posts: 1,089
Thanks: 79
Registered: ‎03-08-2007

Pings OK only in one direction

I have just added a PC to my wireless network at home. The network is based on a Netgear Router. The new PC can access the Internet without problems, but now I'm trying to set up some of the folders as "shared". The PC I want to be able to see these files over the network cannot see them, so I've tried pinging from old to new and from new to old.
I can ping from the new PC to the old one, and that works okay, but I cannot ping from the old PC to the new one.
I've checked the Windows Firewall on both machines - in both cases, the Win Firewall is switched off.
I've checked the Zone Alarm on both PCs and cannot see the difference betwen them. I have included the IP addresses of both PCs on both PCs.
What have I forgotten?
Has anyone got any suggestions, please?
12 REPLIES 12
VileReynard
Hero
Posts: 12,616
Thanks: 582
Fixes: 20
Registered: ‎01-09-2007

Re: Pings OK only in one direction

Are both PC's on the same network - e.g. do they both have a address of the form xxx.xxx.xxx.yyy
where the xxx.xxx.xxx bit is common to both PC's?

"In The Beginning Was The Word, And The Word Was Aardvark."

penneck
Aspiring Pro
Posts: 1,089
Thanks: 79
Registered: ‎03-08-2007

Re: Pings OK only in one direction

Hi Axis,
The IP addresses are 192.168.0.etc. The PCs are both on the same network SSID.
It is the Zone Alarm on the new PC which is preventing the old PC accessing it. The new PC sometimes comes up with a Warning window which says that it had blocked an input from the old PC, but I cant be sure whether it is the blocked ping causing that or whether just some blocked pings do it - the Zone Alarm Alerts Log shows some blocked pings but not all blocked pings.
VileReynard
Hero
Posts: 12,616
Thanks: 582
Fixes: 20
Registered: ‎01-09-2007

Re: Pings OK only in one direction

Allowing all pings for a local (192.168 etc) address is safe.

"In The Beginning Was The Word, And The Word Was Aardvark."

penneck
Aspiring Pro
Posts: 1,089
Thanks: 79
Registered: ‎03-08-2007

Re: Pings OK only in one direction

I know its safe. I dont want anything from my local network blocked. Its just that I can't find just what is blocking it.
Zone Alarm on the new PC indicates it is blocking some pings, and it is blocking some attempts at accessing Port 445. All ZA Alert Reports, no matter whether caused by pings or Port 445, were sourced by my old PC.
VileReynard
Hero
Posts: 12,616
Thanks: 582
Fixes: 20
Registered: ‎01-09-2007

Re: Pings OK only in one direction

See http://www.grc.com/port_445.htm
For your shares you want port 445 open locally - else shares won't work but closed to the internet.
Your router's firewall should deal with this - but use the site above to test this.
Try clicking on "Common ports" in http://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?rh1dkyd2

"In The Beginning Was The Word, And The Word Was Aardvark."

jelv
Seasoned Hero
Posts: 26,785
Thanks: 971
Fixes: 10
Registered: ‎10-04-2007

Re: Pings OK only in one direction

In zone alarm go to Firewall, Zones.
Add a new trusted zone, Ip address 192.168.0.0, mask 255.255.255.0, description "Home" or something similar.
Then under Firewall Main make sure Trusted Zone Security is set to off.
jelv (a.k.a Spoon Whittler)
   Why I have left Plusnet (warning: long post!)   
Broadband: Andrews & Arnold Home::1 (FTTC 80/20)
Line rental: Pulse 8 Home Line Rental (£14.40/month)
Mobile: iD mobile (£4/month)
penneck
Aspiring Pro
Posts: 1,089
Thanks: 79
Registered: ‎03-08-2007

Re: Pings OK only in one direction

I'm sorry to say, chaps, that I have just tried your suggestions, and unfortunately they weren't the answer.
I turned off Zone Alarm on the new PC, and then I could ping in both directions, but I couldn't leave it like that so I restarted ZA.
As an extension to the symptoms, I can only ping in one direction between the old PC and my wife's laptop PC.
VileReynard
Hero
Posts: 12,616
Thanks: 582
Fixes: 20
Registered: ‎01-09-2007

Re: Pings OK only in one direction

"ping" doesn't send ordinary TCP packets (with ports).
Normally a ping causes the target PC to issue an acknowledgement - a pong (if you like).
But ping-pong doesn't use ordinary TCP protocol - it uses ICMP packets.
Probably worth consulting with Wikipedia.
ZoneAlarm is obviously interfering with ping in some way.
I will probably be censured for this - but why are you using a flakey software firewall?
It's only purpose can be to offer you limited protection from any viruses presently running on your PC.

"In The Beginning Was The Word, And The Word Was Aardvark."

penneck
Aspiring Pro
Posts: 1,089
Thanks: 79
Registered: ‎03-08-2007

Re: Pings OK only in one direction

Yes I agree with you that ZA is refusing to let ping in so the pc cant pong back, but as for it being flakey, all I can say is I have been using ZA for some years without problem, until this month, so I am reasonably happy with it. Quite why I have this problem now, I dont understand, unless there is a bit of a bug in the most recent issue of ZA. However, the argument against there being a bug in ZA is the fact that all of my PCs have the latest ZA. I have had this network but with two different pcs for 3 or 4 years now. I never had problems adding PCs as and when needed cos I had to do some downloading off the web onto my daughter-in-laws laptop pc just before Xmas so that visited my system.
As for virII and spyware, I also have AVG8, SpyBot and Ad-Aware. I keep these up-to-date, and use them at least weekly. I haven't had any virii for a few years, and only had tracking spareware in recent times
Regards
jelv
Seasoned Hero
Posts: 26,785
Thanks: 971
Fixes: 10
Registered: ‎10-04-2007

Re: Pings OK only in one direction

I'm using ZoneAlarm 8.0.065.000 and there's no pongy problems here!
jelv (a.k.a Spoon Whittler)
   Why I have left Plusnet (warning: long post!)   
Broadband: Andrews & Arnold Home::1 (FTTC 80/20)
Line rental: Pulse 8 Home Line Rental (£14.40/month)
Mobile: iD mobile (£4/month)
samuria
Grafter
Posts: 1,581
Thanks: 3
Registered: ‎13-04-2007

Re: Pings OK only in one direction

Arnt we missing the point here what was needed in the original post was to connect 2 pc's ping is just a red hearing (but may have a bearing on the sharing). If you want to connect to a share open a cmd prompt ie start run type cmd at the prompt type
net use P: \\pcname or ip\c$ passwordon targetpc /user:username on targetpc must be admin. 
So if the target pc is called pc1 and the username is fred and the password is password you would type
Net use p: \\pc1\c$ password /user:fred
You can change the c$ which gives you access to all the c drive to the name of the share if you have one. You can change p: to what ever drive your want this is the drive it will show on your pc. You can save the text as a file like pc1.cmd and then it will run by clicking on it in the future save typing it all again.
It makes it a lot simpler if every pc has the same username and password as admin.
To connect you must have sharing turned on if its xp pro in folder option in explorer untick simple file sharing.
You should all be in the same workgroup pro ad home have by default different workgroup name pro is workgroup and home is xphome
penneck
Aspiring Pro
Posts: 1,089
Thanks: 79
Registered: ‎03-08-2007

Re: Pings OK only in one direction

Solved it. I noticed just by bchance that I had typed 191 instead of 192 in one of the IP Addresses on ZA in that PC that wouldn't accept the ping.
Apologies and thanks to all for your help