<ot> Another gmail question

[David A. Bandel]

On Sat, Aug 9, 2008 at 9:37 PM, Dog Walker <thudfoo at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Aug 9, 2008 at 4:08 PM, Collins Richey <crichey at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Just a bit of trivia to fill the void.
>>
>> I'm on cable, so there should be no problem with speeds, but from time
>> to time gmail refuses to start in standard mode, requiring reversion
>> to basic mode, complaining about "slow connection speed".
>>
>> Has anyone else encountered this?

Usually it's because something has grabbed your bandwidth.  When this
happens quickly fire up tcptrack and take a look.  Likely you have
little bandwidth available at that particular instant.

Note that an overloaded proxy (like squid) could also cause this on
initial connect, but subsequent connects should run as expected.  If
you're not running a proxy, perhaps your provider is?

Those are about the only two variables that would cause this (although
a flakey connection w/ packet loss would cause this intermittently --
run mtr to gmail.com to check this, I would suggest -s 1460 as well to
send big packets which are more likely to be dropped).

>>
>> Sometimes, I can resume standard mode after starting in basic mode.
>>
>
> I am on diallup and get the same. I  just go away and let it stew for
> awhile and usually all is well. If not, I let it start in in htmlmode,
> then switch back after it is up and running.

see above, but connection setup on dialup is more expensive.  Dialup
pings will almost always be high (> 300 ms) even on small packets.

Ciao,

David A. Bandel
-- 
Focus on the dream, not the competition.
 - Nemesis Air Racing Team motto