Hi Jeff and the group,
There are two possibilities.  The first one is what Lou said.  The server is
configured to terminate any connection that is inactive for a period of
time.  We still do this at work on one server.  The other one is a bit more
difficult to explain.  But, it goes something like this.  Some firewalls are
configured to terminate connections that are made thru them when the
conection has been inactive for a period of time.  The pix firewall is one
such animal.  The connection isn't really terminated, but is dropped from
the internal tables of the firewall.  It is possible that this to free up
memory space in the firewall.  I know that this is a poor explaination.  But
I also know that this happens to me at work a bit if I telenet into a system
that is behind such a firewall.  The best way to avoid this is to hit a key
every 10 minutes or so.  If the connection is dropped, you can hit the
ctrl/] key combination to break the connection and log in again.

73s,
Clarence

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jeff Kenyon" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, November 20, 2005 10:45 AM
Subject: off topic, but need help trouble shooting telnet connection problem


> Hi everyone, I have posted this issue to the blind-l list, and am still
> trying to figure out this problem out.  I currently am getting to this
> E-mail account here via a telnet connection, and I have always found it to
> be very helpful, especially when I am not at my home PC and I want to
> access my mail from some place else.  However, I have had a problem when
> telneting in to this account from home and sometimes when I am in Pine.
> What is happening is is that after a period of inactivity this connection
> will stop responding to my commands, and all of the rest of my Internet
> connections are wroking fine.  I have done a ping and a tracerout to this
> ISP I am posting from now, but with no luck.  I don't have this problem
> from other computers like at work, but this only appears to be a Pine
> issue.  Also, I am telneting into here from Comcast, and I am wondering if
> this may be part of the problem?  Also, does anyone know of other telnet
> cites I could try out and compare to this one?