How do I check connection problems?

If you are having trouble accessing BizDiary, or if BizDiary appears slow, the problem could be in a number of places from your computer, to your ISPs network, or with the BizDiary server.

The best way to find out the source of the problem is to run a network trace. That may sound technical, but it's actually very easy to do.

How your computer connects to our server...

Whenever you connect to our site (or any other) the connection occurs across a number of links, from your computer, to your router, to your ISP, across other connecting nodes, and eventually to our server in Melbourne.  If any of those points have a hardware failure, or are congested then your connection will fail or be slow.

Running a network trace can help isolate the problem, which is the first step in solving it.

Running a Trace (on Windows)

Running a trace shows each machine that is used on the route, along with details of how long it takes to make each hop.  Values should normally be between 20-50ms at each point.  Anything much higher than that indicates a possible failure.

This is how you run a trace, and get the results into an email...

1. Hold down the Windows key, and press R (to open the Run dialog).
2. Type in cmd and then hit Enter (to open a command window).
3. Type tracert bizdiary.com.au and hit Enter.
4. Open the menu (top left of window) and choose Edit > Select All.
5. Open the menu and choose Edit > Copy.
6. Paste the text into an email and send it to the Support Department

If you do notice any large numbers showing up, please try running it a second time, just to be sure it wasn't just a temporary congestion.

More about the trace

The first "hop" is from your machine to your router.  If you see large numbers (or asterisks) here, it is likely that your machine is actually using the connection for something other than accessing BizDiary.  If you are downloading a large file, or email, this will slow down your access to BizDiary and other sites.

The second "hop" is from your router to the first connection point in the network.  Large numbers (or asterisks) here, can mean that someone else who is also using the router is using a lot of traffic.

After that, you can usually spot where the problem is occurring.  If the first node that shows large number inlcudes the name of your ISP (e.g. "telstra", "optus", etc) then it is most probably a problem in their network, and you should contact the ISP.