Internet Dongle Claims Can't Connect To 192.168.1.1 But I Can Still Ping

I have a USB internet dongle, (Huawei E3351, if that's the model number). Sometimes, mostly I think when resources are getting low, it can't connect in a browser window. However, the indicator light on the dongle says I'm still connected, and I can ping. (The 'home' page for the dongle is 192.168.1.1)

In the past I've pinged Google successfully, and in the last couple of days, I've tried pinging addresses I've never heard of but made a guess would be likely to exist, and an address comes up for them and pinging sometimes gets replied to. (I'm fairly sure the times when it doesn't is only because the address I try pinging won't reply to pings.)

In the past I've believed the connection comes back by itself sooner or later (but over twenty-four hours later is getting unacceptable) but I've very recently come to suspect that it's not a resource issue, or else not *just* a resource issue, because sometimes poking around different ways of opening a web page will succeed in reconnecting me. Examples:
- I clicked a link in a program (Notepad++), forgetting I had a connection issue, and expected it to fail - the page was loaded.
- click a 'Next' button on a web page to go to the next one - it worked.
The only thing I can see as a possible pattern is that whatever I'm loading must be something new, as in not in the cache, therefore forcing the browser to take an action that perhaps resets or refreshes something.

It's not just that browser - I have about four on my computer, and I've often tried using a different one and they are all unable to connect to 192.168.1.1 as well.

So my questions are:

- the message saying it can't connect that comes up in my browser window *does* mean the browser can't connect to the dongle, rather than my computer can't connect to the ISP?

- since the light says I'm still connected and pinging proves I'm still connected, is there some way to force a reconnection to the http side of things?

TIA.

 

Do you see your network if you left click the wireless icon in the system tray? Does it say Connected, Secured? (I'm assuming you know the SSID (the name) of your network). Also, you have not mentioned your modem/router at all. It will have status lights - what are they telling you?

 

LOL! I have mentioned my modem/router, and its (only) light - the dongle is the modem. It's one of those ones that looks like a USB stick but connects you directly to the internet, via the cell phone network. And yes, I've confirmed it's a Huawei E3351. So I'm fairly sure it has no SSID, only the phone number attached to the SIM card inside the dongle. The light blinks green twice per second to say it has power, or changes for either of these reasons:
- blinking green, blue or cyan once per second to say what kind of network it's registering/registered to.
- solid green, blue or cyan to say what kind of network it's connected to.

If, for any reason it disconnects, the light will revert to blinking.

As to what the connection icon in the system tray says, I'm not sure if I've ever checked it, but if I have, I'm fairly sure it would have said connected, since I can ping and the light is solid.

I'm not sure if the issue is with the dongle, or unrelated and would occur if I were going through a 'standard' modem/router. The issue boils down to being able to ping but not being able to load webpages and I'm fairly sure that not being able to load webpages is why I can't bring up the dongle's home page.

 

Also, I've tried the service providers support line but they outsourced to an ESL country and the accents and my partial deafness combine to make calls tricky, but more a hassle, they only want to run through their script and delete cookies, reboot, etc., and I want (if possible) a solution that doesn't require EITHER of those, that gets me back within a few seconds.

Or a few minutes, max. I just don't want to have to restart modem and/or computer (and it usually ends up being computer) or wait hours until whatever the problem is disappears by itself.

 

It's not a dongle, it's a mobile modem. And yes, it has an SSID.
Check your data balance.

 

Tim, the driver loads when you plug in the modem for the first time, and I've been using this modem for a couple of years(?), with this annoying problem showing up intermittently.

Eldon, I'll take your word for it that it has an SSID, but I was under the impression that anything like that is also referred to as a dongle - am I wrong? At any rate, thank for giving me the correct term - I wasn't sure if it was correct to call it a modem.

Data balance is fine, but you wouldn't be able to check it under those circumstances anyway because you only get the 'Try again' message, which means you don't have access to the link to check your balance. Think in terms of some bright spark unplugging the router by mistake for a different plug, and the 'can't connect' type situation that would give you in a browser when you tried to access it - of course, here though, I'm clearly still connected because I can ping, and the light says I am, and then sooner or later, without ANY action being taken, web pages might start loading again.

I don't know if it would eventually start working again every time because I get kind of sick of waiting for hours for it to reconnect. I used to think it was some issue between me and the service provider; now I don't, but I'm also not certain it's my computer per se, because I had this problem turn up from time to time on another computer that died.

I'm thinking that perhaps the sort of action that needs taking could be along the lines of renewing an IP address - not that being the correct thing to do, but something like that - some kind of refreshing action for web server requests.

 

You could try opening a command prompt and entering ipconfig /release followed by ipconfig /renew