Networking DOA: Unidentified Network, Access: Local Only

Upgraded from RC2 to RTM a week or so ago. Networking was working fine for a
week and then after a reboot the network is no longer accessible.

Network adapter reports: "Unidentified Network" and "Access: Local Only".
Trying to renew DHCP fails and the adapter gets assigned a private IP (169).
Disabling/reenabling the adapter makes no difference as does uninstalling and
re-installing it.

Also saw some posts elsewhere suggesting checksum issue (someone else who
had the problem ran a network sniffer and observed all outbound packets had
zero checksum) or power mode issue (Windows powering off the adapter when
entering low power mode and not resuming it) so I tried disabling both TCP/IP
checksum offload and also removing permission for Windows to power off the
adpater when entering sleep mode; neither resolved the issue. Saw another
post saying that putting the PC into sleep mode and then resuming temporarily
(until next reboot) solved the issue but this does not work for me either.

Adpter is a Broadcom NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet, driver is b57xp32.sys,
v9.52.0.0, 15 May 2006.

Hello? Anyone home at Microsoft? There have been at least a dozen posts in this forum from people with the same network issue and not a single response from a Microsoft MVP or the like.

Details on what exactly is serving DHCP (and network topology) would help.Also, anything in event viewer?

First off, thank you for answering. At least now I know my posts aren't going into the proverbial bit bucket!

Everything was just peachy until after the reboot and nothing in my network configuration has changed but to answer your question regarding network configuration.

The PC in question is connected (wired) to a Linksys BEFSR41 router running as a hub. The Linksys hub is in turn connected (wired) to a BT 1800HG DSL router (rebranded 2Wire router) providing DHCP service to the LAN.

There are two other computers connected (wired) to the Linksys hub and two other computers connected to the BT router (1 wired, 1 wireless).

Network access from all of the boxes is fine. Even networking on the box on which I have installed Vista works fine WHEN the box boots Windows XP Professional off a separate partition. When it boots Vista RTM networking is dead.

Note that Vista reports that the router is on but is not responding and suggests checking the firewall, further adding that if it is a Windows firewall then I should check the SymNetDrv Firewall Filter OUTBOUND_TRANSPORT_V4 setting.

Even though I knew it was barking up the wrong try I humored it and disabled the Windows firewall on the Vista box as well as the firewall on the router and was not surprised that this made no difference at all.

I'll post another reply in a minute with any relevant event log entries after i've rebooted the box into Vista. (I'm posting from that box now, booted into Win XP).

I booted the box into Vista again, cleared all of the event logs and then rebooted to get a fresh set of events. The only on-information events in the logs where from NTP failing.

I then opened up System Information and it says that the adapter's driver is stopped. Not much chance of things working if the driver isn't even running I guess. Why it is stopped and how to get it started again I have no idea.
Its start mode is also Manual - not sure if that is normal.

I ran the network diagnosis tool, disabled/re-enabled the adapter but same result. Nothing outstanding in the event logs from this action either.

you posted earlier that the driver was "Adpter is a Broadcom NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet, driver is b57xp32.sys, v9.52.0.0"

seems like that is a fairly old driver. was this in the build? in RTM? have you tried updating the driver?

No, that driver was not part of the RTM image nor available on Windows
Update. I downloaded it separately from Broadcom's web site. (Ditto for
SATA raid drivers). That was the latest driver available at the time (and as
I said, worked fine for Beta 2, RC2 and even RTM for a while before it
suddenly stopped) but I see there is an update (11/01/2006) which i'll pull
down and try now.

I just installed the latest driver from Broadcom's web site ...
xp_2k3_32-9.81d (service=b57w2k, driver=b57xp32.sys), v9.81.0.0, 11/10/2006.
No change ... network still "Unidentified Network" with "Access: Local Only"
after rebooting and System Information still reports that the b57w2k service
is "Stopped".

THE FIX EVERYONE IS LOOKING FOR:
I too had the same problem. Out of the blue one day I could no longer
connect to the Internet. I was locally connected to the router only and
had an unidentified network.

Here's the fix:
You must be sure that your network is Private. Go to Control Panel,
Network and Sharing Center. Find your router and see where it says
(public network)? you must change this to Private. There is blue print
to the far right of the icon for your rounter and it says Customize.
Click on Customize and select Private. Then close out.

Next, go to (same box) in case you closed it out, Control Panel,
Network and Sharing Center. Under the router name, Connection, to the
right of Connection you see Wireless Network Connection (name of
router), then to the right of that you see in blue letters View status.
Click on View status. the Wireless Network Connection Status box
appears. At the bottom of the box there is a box for Properties, click
on it (NOT WIRELESS PROPERTIES). Under the Networking tab highlight
Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) and click on Properties. Under
the General tab, select Obtain an IP address Automatically, Obtain DNS
server address automatically. Select OK and reboot IMMEDIATELY.

When it boots back up you may already have the internet, or you may be
asked to decide on a Private, or Public...select Private.

Just to explain why I mentioned the last above: My computer connected
immediately after reboot, my husbands computer asked if I wanted a
Private or Public.

Best of luck to all with this problem, Elaine

a little late for me but hopefully it will save somebody else the pain of a complete re-install of Vista, which is what I ended up doing after hitting a brick wall here 3 months ago.

if that does not work, I'd recommend replacing that router. In fact, I'd recommend that you replace it anyway as it does not provide you with proper security.

do you have the latest driver for the wireless?
http://support.dell.com/support/down...&fileid=236824

are you broadcasting the SSID ?

you really should replace that router. I don't have any other recommendations.

I tried snnoopy's fix and I am still in a "Local only" state with a (private network). Here is my situation:

Just out of the box Dell Inspiron 1520 laptop with the Dell Wireless 1395 WLAN Mini-Card Rev 2.10. The Access Point is a Linksys BEFW11S4 ver 2.
After four hours today on the phone with Dell and Linksys, I now have the latest driver for the WLAN Mini-Card and the latest firmware for the Linksys access point, but still no connectivity.

I have one desktop and two other laptops, all running XP with good wireless access (for a couple of years). It is the new laptop with Vista that cannot successfully connect.

Any further suggestions?

I tried the unbind but that made no difference. Here is the IPCONFIG for
your comment:

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.0.6000]
Copyright (c) 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Users\Rachelsnana>ipconfig/all

Windows IP Configuration

Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : MMsDellLaptop
Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Hybrid
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
DNS Suffix Search List. . . . . . : sd.cox.net

Wireless LAN adapter Wireless Network Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : sd.cox.net
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Dell Wireless 1395 WLAN
Mini-Card
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-16-44-75-72-6C
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.102(Preferred)
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : Sunday, February 10, 2008
1:44:43 PM
Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : Monday, February 11, 2008
1:44:42 PM
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 68.105.28.11
68.105.29.11
68.105.28.12
NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled

Tunnel adapter Local Area Connection* 6:

Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Teredo Tunneling
Pseudo-Interface
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 02-00-54-55-4E-01
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

Tunnel adapter Local Area Connection* 7:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : sd.cox.net
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Microsoft ISATAP Adapter
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-E0
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . :
fe80::5efe:192.168.1.102%15(Preferred)
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 68.105.28.11
68.105.29.11
68.105.28.12
NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Disabled

C:\Users\Rachelsnana>

I read through and tried everything in this post thread to fix the same issue
on a friend's laptop. Unfortunately none of these suggestions worked. What
finally worked for me was to remove Norton 360 using the Norton Removal Tool
Once that product was removed from the laptop, all networking issues were
resolved. If you're still having an issue with this error in Vista, look at
your Internet Security Software first and if removing that doesn't work then
try the suggestions in this post.

[rbenga]

Had the same problem. I removed McAfee but had no success. Then, I used snoopy's solution above and it worked.

Still, I hate vista; had so many annoying issues like this....

[bsteel67]

I had the same problem with a Compaq Presario. it used to connect to the internet through my wireless router(BT Total) but something changed and all i got was "Unidentified Network" in the network manager and holding the mouse over the network icons in the systray in the bottom right hand of the screen i got "Local Access" only. I tried various tips from forums and eventually downloaded new drivers for the Broadcom wireless card and it now seems to work even after waking the computer up from sleep mode!! Try downloading the most up to date drivers for your wireless card and re-boot. Hopefully this was helpfull!