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You may be affected by a problem which causes loss of Internet communication
for anywhere from 15 to 30 seconds at various times around the clock. The
periods of loss may be separated by hours or by as little as one minute.
During these loss periods no data will be collected and, if the period
happens to coincide with the time when Tradestation checks for a proper
connection, you'll be logged off. (Have you ever left your computer with
Tradestation running and returned later to find a login box displayed on
screen?)
You can check to see if this problem affects you by checking the event log.
The Event Viewer can be found in either the Control Panel or in a folder
named "Administrative Tools". (This terminology - "event log" and "Event
Viewer" - is used in Win NT, Win 2000, and probably Win XP, but it may be
different in Win 95/98.)
In the Event Viewer "System Log" look for a long series of warnings showing
DHCP as the source and with the description "Your computer was not able to
renew its address from the DHCP server". Each of these warnings marks a
connection loss of 15 to 30 seconds.
The cause of this problem is faulty software (something called a "relay
agent" which uses what is called a "Spanning Tree Algorithm" or STA) on one
of the routers between your computer and the DHCP server. Unfortunately,
most people are blissfully unaware that the problem exists because the most
glaring symptom appears only in the event log, something most people are not
familiar with. Consequently, the responsible ISPs are receiving no, or VERY
few, complaints about it and have assigned it a very low priority.
This is a potential problem for anyone using an ISP which configures your
computer for automatic DHCP configuration, such as Cox Communications.
Please check your event log to see if you are a victim of this problem and,
if so, complain to your ISP. Be sure to tell them it is the known IP
address renewal problem described in the MS Knowledge Database.
Carroll Slemaker
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