Windows XP SP3 Causing Router Crashes

KrispyBytes writes "Windows XP SP3 has been named as the culprit causing home routers to go into a crash and reboot cycle. One router maker has released firmware updates to fix the problem, but has not yet revealed what is actually different about XP SP3's networking stack or UPnP behaviour that causes the problem. Router maker Billion Managing Director Raaj Menon said "as Microsoft plans to make Windows XP SP3 an automatic upgrade this month, the number of affected routers may increase significantly.""

Not surprising

Windows XP SP3 has been named as the culprit causing home routers to go into a crash and reboot cycle.

Not surprising Windows causes that when installed on a router, considering it also makes PCs go into a crash and reboot cycle when installed on them.

Re:Not surprising

Lets not jump to blame this on Windows. It could be that Windows isn't doing anything wrong, just something the router should be able to handle, but can't. We can point fingers when we know what the actual issue causing the router problems is.

Before anyone goes on a MS rant

A computer on the network should not be able to crash the router. This is a problem with the manufacturing of the routers, not anything in particular with SP3. This problem could have arisen in any OS. The fact that it appeared with SP3 is irrelevant. I return you to your MS bashing.

maybe, maybe not

I agree that no router should crash based just on packets it passes. But there are a few issues here. If SP3 is causing something akin to a DOS, and a router's tables are filling up due to bad packets, it might very reasonably decide that things are so bad that the best thing for it to do is a reset. We don't blame the router maker when an external DOS attack interrupts Internet access, why blame it if the DOS is from Microsoft software on the inside?

And there is also the potential issue of this being UPNP related. UPNP is a completely bogus thing, but Microsoft strong armed the industry to support it and it's in most routers and many users don't know to disable it. UPNP could certainly give ways to cause this issue, and I only hold the router itself responsible to the extent that it supports this blasphemy.

Re:Before anyone goes on a MS rant

> It is the manufactures fault that thier crashing, but this bug wouldnt be seen if xp was
> behaving correctly.

Nonsense. Any router that can be crashed by anything that a computer connected to it does has a critical bug and should be recalled immediately.

Re:Before anyone goes on a MS rant

However... If they find out what causes the router to crash with SP3 then all it will take is someone to duplicate the information sent and crash the router again and again. If the router crashes is has to be the fault of the router not of the OS, as other routers don't crash. As well as a poorly designed website. If your web browser crashes from a badly made website then it is the web browsers faults. Your argument only really holds true in cases of custom designed software where the sender of the data will need to agree to send the data in the correct format as well the receiver agrees to get the data in the correct format. And still even in that case a good program will be able to atleast say something is wrong, vs. it crashing.

Blaming the wrong programmers

Shouldn't the title of this post be "Shitty router programming causing router crashes"? It should matter what type of garbage come off the wire, the router must be able to handle it all without error.

Re:Blaming the wrong programmers

Agreed. If SP3 can do this unintentionally, imagine what the series of communicated data with the routers can do if a malicious writer now reverse-engineer whatever SP3 is doing, and would spread a time-triggered virus, for example. These kind of hardware issues are never good.

Re:Blaming the wrong programmers

The "article" is just a reprinted press release from Billion. Of course they blame SP3, since the alternative is admitting their products are buggy pieces of junk.

What if I was the other way around?

If an upgrade to a router caused Windows to enter a reboot cycle would we be blaming the router manufacturer or Microsoft?

So...

Windows is a DOS?

Works for me, and probably for you

It only affects the "Billion BiPAC 5200" series.

I've never used one, never seen one, never heard of one, and you haven't either. Odd how the summary fails to mention that the problem is only with this obscure model...

Same as Vista

SP3 borrows a Vista feature (presumably the same code) to detect "Router Black Holes".

From http://www.winsupersite.com/faq/xp_sp3.asp [winsupersite.com]

"Black hole" router detection algorithm. XP gains the ability to ignore network routers that incorrectly drop certain kinds of network packets. This, too, is a feature of Windows Vista.

Buggy Routers

Any router that can be crashed by anything that any of the computers connected to it do is seriously buggy. This is not Microsoft's fault.

Since I use Vista

I don't have this problem.

Re:Since I use Vista

You however have other problems I'm guessing. ;-)

Router Trouble.

As some have said, if a machine on the network can crash the router(short of violating physical specs for things like ethernet voltage and polarity), then the router has Issues.

What I don't understand is why so many of your basic 4 ports lan, one port wan, and an antenna type routers have such lousy firmware. I understand that the hardware is built right down to price, and isn't going to be exciting; but software is a different matter. There are really only a few chipset variations in general use, OpenWRT supports most of them and provides a solid and extensible foundation. ddWRT is less extensible and flashier, still solid. Tomatoe is out there as well. In a world where people are literally giving high quality router firmware away, how can anybody ship a router with bad firmware?

Crappy router.

Billion makes crappy knock-off routers, that were crashing or not working long before XP SP3 was released. Perhaps XPSP3 does do something different with uPNP, but that's not where the blame needs to be assigned. As an aside, uPNP is a crappy idea. Do you really want your OS and any programs (malware included) to have the ability to change your external firewall?

I installed SP3

and now women won't go out on dates with me anymore. ....ok, they wouldn't with Service Pack 1 or 2 either, so I'm now trying Vista.

Re:I installed SP3

Judging by most of the people here, you won't have any better success with Ubuntu or SuSe either.

You might try Mac OS. Or at the least, get an iPhone and use it liberally while in public.

Here's the technical reason

Quote from their website:

"After detail analysis, we found that Windows XP SP3 sent out the DHCP packet with the Option 43 data (include Microsoft's 'Vendor Specific Information'), but Windows XP SP2 sent out the DHCP packet without the Option 43 data. However, the Option 43 data is not compatible with Billion's original definition, so it will cause this problem. The affected firmware versions of BiPAC 5200 series are 2.9.8.x and 2.11.0.x~2.11.33.x. There is no impact to BiPAC 5200 series if the firmware is 2.10.x.x. Please check Appendix A for checking your current firmware version."

http://au.billion.com/downloads/Notice-Billion-5200-series-via-Windows-SP3.pdf [billion.com]

Not MS to blame

As much as I hate defending the Redmond Computer Virus (tm), that's the router's fault.

Now, if SP3 created nonstandard packets that most routers still swallow but a router drops because they don't work to spec, blame MS. If the router replied with a bogus message to said nonstandard packet that locked up XP, blame MS. But a router HAS TO be able to accept a bogus packet. It may drop it, report it or if it feels like it send it on a roundtrip in hope that some machine can figure out what it's about, but it may NEVER crash due to it.

I hope I don't have to mention the security implications of this.

Re:Maker?

One router maker has

I think you meant manufacture

i think YOU meant manufacturer

Re:Other Glitches?

I have to agree.

I updated to SP3 yesterday, and now my microwave stopped working.

Coincidence? I think not!

Re:Oh brother...

is a coincidence, or just completely made up

Unlikely, given that the OP mentions that at least one manufacturer has fixed the problem with a firmware update. You can't really write software to fix a problem until you've figured out what the problem is.

You're right though, a properly hardened router will keep ticking regardless of what's plugged into it. Mostly. [fiftythree.org]