The reason my web site wasn’t working was…
[drum roll]
I was logged into a Yahoo Messenger client configured with “no
proxies”, on an entirely different machine to the web server on my LAN.
This makes no sense to me, but probably does to someone. Changing
the Yahoo client to use “Firewall with no proxies” or “Use proxies”
and setting an HTTP proxy – and rebooting the Netgear box –
both seem to work. Haven’t tried Yahoo’s “No network detection”
option. (Note that exiting Messenger doesn’t make it magically work –
you have to reboot the Netgear.)
I first thought it must be something to do with the clock on the
Netgear, as rebooting it seemed to let connections through until it
had set its own time from an NTP server. But then I noticed another
possible correlation: being logged into Messenger. When the Netgear
reboots my wireless connection to it drops, naturally, so I get logged
out of Messenger. When I regain the connection, Messenger seems to
eventually notice and log back in automatically. At that point, I
spotted, my test via http://www.websitepulse.com started to fail. Finally,
something deterministic!
And the pattern fits, of course. People have been able to connect
when I’ve not been at my PC – like yesterday
evening, and when I’m asleep, and when Roger first got through
last weekend. (I turned it all off while I was in hospital.)
Splendid!
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