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Even if you allocate all memory in the initialization phase and even if you do not use any dynamic tricks - such as recursion, dynamic function calls or the like - there could still be a problem. If the programmer is a bit sloppy s/he could forget to initialize a variable (for example a pointer variable). If that variable is used only in certain situations that could cause a problem then.
Another common situation is not to handle all exceptions. An given exception may be very rare and thus forgotten about, until that day of doom when a situation occurs that throws the exception. If that one is not handled or handled in the wrong way we also have a problem that will cause the state of the modem into unknown land. Suddenly a variable may have a new value that stopped parsing or whatever.
Communication devices must be designed to deal with any kinds of interrupts at all time. It is complicated to test if the software is stable under all circumstances and the cheaper the device is, the lesser time to test is give the developer. So, lack of testing could also be a problem.
It all leads up to the situation:
1 In the beginning - all is fine
2 In due cause something happens
3 That something changes the state of the modem into uncertainty
4 Now the modem is behaving "strange"
5 So: Reboot it and go back to 1.
That is my take on why you should reboot your hardware from time to time...
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I was told that the best reason to regularly reboot your router is that when glitches happen, the modem negotiates to find a slower speed that would work, but it never tries to negotiate for a faster speed. So as time goes by and glitches occur, it's going slower and slower until you reset it by rebooting it.
Either way, I'm finding weekly reboots are becoming necessary for my router. I should test it to see if a simple software reboot fixes it, or if it truly needs the power off/wait 30 seconds/power on process we've been doing, since I could do the software reboot from anywhere on the wifi, without a trip to the basement.
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RDM Jr wrote: was told that the best reason to regularly reboot your router is that when glitches happen, the modem negotiates to find a slower speed that would work, but it never tries to negotiate for a faster speed. So as time goes by and glitches occur, it's going slower and slower until you reset it by rebooting it.
That is a very interesting point and seems to match the experience.
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I am certainly willing to believe this - but only as the behavior of one specific router (family). It most certainly is not a generic, unavoidable problem with routers in general.
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That's a very good explanation. Thanks.
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Member 14708186 wrote: That is my take on why you should reboot your hardware from time to time...
Tell that to a Linux fan! One fundamental mantra is "I never need to reboot!"
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I kinda like the sentiment from stilldrinking.org
Not a single living person knows how everything in your five-year-old MacBook actually works. Why do we tell you to turn it off and on again? Because we don’t have the slightest clue what’s wrong with it, and it’s really easy to induce coma in computers and have their built-in team of automatic doctors try to figure it out for us. The only reason coders’ computers work better than non-coders’ computers is coders know computers are schizophrenic little children with auto-immune diseases and we don’t beat them when they’re bad.
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ha ha ha... Genius.
I can however.. possibly shed some light on this.
Ok, first thing you have to remember is that all modems (Adsl, Vdsl, whatever) [static or dynamically addressed] are allocated their slot in the switching system using DHCP and similar technologies.
If your on a cheap as chips consumer connection then there's a dead cert that your dynamically addressed, and... on dynamically addressed connections your ISP simply does not ever allocate enough IP leases in their DHCP pool for every individual customer to have one. None of them do....
Why?
Because IP leases that sit unused are expensive.
What they do instead, is they allocate just enough to meet average peak demand on a daily basis, and that usually works well, simply because not everyone is trying to connect all the time.
With many cable modems for example they connect on demand, so if everyone in the household is sleeping, all the computers and phones are off, and nothing is using the connection, the modem will typically release it's lease for someone else to use, and re-request a new one as soon as the first bit of data for the day goes through it.
As I say, this generally works well, as lot's of devices go off as others come online and the amount in the lease pool has enough allocations.
Some ISP's however get it very wrong, or flat out don't care as long as they get to spend only what they want to spend to provide a service, couple that with times of network stress when there is more than the normal average using the system, and more people staying online longer, it means that very quickly the lease pool dries up.
Some ISP's can and do dynamically expand the lease pools to meet demand, many don't because it's all about the $$$ at the end of the day.
Many modems and other devices also have "forced lease" renewals, so for EG: you connect on a morning, you get a 12h lease, the world goes crazy, every one log's on, 12 hours later whether you like it or not, your modem is forced to re-lease it's connection and boom.... no free slots in the pool.
A lot of consumer modems are made in china as cheaply as possible, so even though they might run linux, things like buffer chips and octal drivers are done with as cheap a chip cost as possible, you might only have a couple of K of buffer memory, or the octal line drivers might have a 3ms latch time on them instead of a 1ms latch time.
What you end up with is a device who's hardware performs very, very poorly when it's auto connection starts hammering the ISP line to try and get a new lease, and dare I say it... yes, the bit's do kind of get stuck 
Buffers fill up quickly, overflows happen, the OS starts to get shirty because there's so many hardware fails...
And then you reboot....
Reboots generally work a) Because all the buffers etc get cleared out and b) Since most routers wen they start up have to do a RIP negotiation with the ISP they actually stand a better chance of getting a new lease in the pool.
Static IPs are not too bad, they still have to DHCP and what not, but they are ALWAYS returned the same lease with the same IP, Gateway, Subnet, Masks, AAA+ identifier etc. If the passageways are busy/clogged however, then that might cause blockages too so to speak.
The last thing you have to watch for is your contention ratios.
Many ISPs will happily try to connect 100 customers to a traffic circuit that's only rated for 50, again this is going to lead to line speed problems, pool leasing issues etc.
Again, the thinking is simple "All 100 customers are not ever going to try and be online at exactly the same time, and we can easily manage the overlaps..."
All quite simples really....
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One thing that happens to cable modems is that they lose sync with the incoming signal and cannot ever re-acquire sync. When you reboot, it gets to start the sync process from scratch.
Another thing may be memory fragmentation. Your router is running a small linux O/S and a piece of software written in C that is about 30 years old, with some company-specific patches slapped in there to make it look different from the generic software. With various network handshakes that can be broken in the middle, it's not too hard to believe that cruft builds up in the memory until the router chokes.
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I have never seen any protocol specification were "they lose sync with the incoming signal and cannot ever re-acquire sync". Re-synching has been an integral part of link protocols for something like 40-45 years (SDLC, HDLC).
Of course there may be implementations that is incapable of doing a proper resync, but this is not a general and unavoidable problem.
(A slightly funny, historical note - I believe that this was in the late 1970s: A newspaper transmitted its data to the print shop using a byte oriented protocol over an analog phone line. For some time, they experienced regular "Framing error"s, which is another way to say "Unable to synchronize properly". It was soon discovered that this occurred when a single byte was transmitted - with two or more bytes, the receiver was able to sync properly. Single-byte messages were used in one specific situation: When a positive ACKnowledge was returned. So for quite a while, until the receiver was tuned up, they interpreted a "Framing error" as a positive ACK.)
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Great information, thanks.
SeattleC++ wrote: and a piece of software written in C that is about 30 years old,
Is this some library you are talking about? I know you're extrapolating the information but I'm curious about which library or component or what you are referring to, just because I'm curious.
It is interesting that people take software that works "good enough" and slap another layer onto it. Gotta get 'er dun! 
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I believe that openwrt and dd-wrt are derivatives of the original linux code. I obviously don't know what code any particular router is running, but many of them are running variations on one of these.
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SeattleC++ wrote: I believe that openwrt and dd-wrt are derivatives of the original linux code.
thanks for the general direction on this. without your help I never would've known even a search term to use to look this up. I've begun reading a bit on the dd-wrt already.
I'm just curious about the work that has been done in that realm.
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A bit of background:
A couple of days later the quarantine began in Spain, some people started to go out to the balconies at 20:00h (local) to applaud for the people working in sanitary, security and logistic systems that are keeping the land running and taking care of the people during these times. It went viral pretty fast and now a big part of the land does it everyday to give moral support to all of them.
Now a singer has merged a little home studio (all has been done respeting the #stayathome rules) material with many of the clips of real averge Joes and Janes out there circulating the social media and some material handed over by a cultural association.
All what she gets from the clicks (over 1,3 million in less than a day, so far) in youtube is supposed (I really hope she won't "betray" it) to be donated to the Red Cross. And on top, I think it is a nice melodic song.
Just in case you want to hear / give your click:
Vanesa Martín - Un canto a la vida (Video Oficial) - YouTube[^] (A chant for life)
The messages being shown in the pictures / videos (in order of appearance):
#1 (big paper) - Thanks to all of you
#2 (granny) - We'll get out of this together, don't stop fighting (I think she was the first elder patient getting over corona and allowed to go back home)
#3 (hospital group 1) - We have heard you /// clapping in the balconies /// and it has been very touching /// we all are in this TOGETHER
#4 (hospital group 2) - Today, the claps... /// go for... /// the security forces of the state!
#5 (hospital group 3) - A /// chant /// for /// life!!!
#6 (Credits) - To all our heroes (m / w)... for our elders, that were young and stood up and shielded our homes with love and wisdom
Me again: TO ALL PEOPLE FIGHTING FOR AND HELPING OTHERS. KUDOS AND A BIG THANK YOU
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
modified 31-Mar-20 15:04pm.
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On the topic of the Spanish language (because I know that that's what you were really talking about), the missus put a foreign-language movie on, the other night, while I was busy assembling snacks (it's a tough job, but someone has to do it), and she asked me if she should pause the movie until I'd finished.
"Don't be daft," I replied. "I speak Italian -- although the one woman sounds Spanish."
It was this movie[^].
I don't know what regional accent most of the actors were using, but I could have sworn they were speaking a southern Italian dialect, and I only had to refer to the subtitles when one or two of the characters were speaking.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Didn't saw it, but using the trailer...
The main Actor (the male nurse) is central spanish
The area where it has been filmed is Galicia (north west spain, above Portugal). People living there do have a different melody, it is true that can remind some regions of Italy. But only the melody. The dialect itself is a mix between spanish and portuguese (due to geographical proximity)
M.D.V.
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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Nelek wrote: But only the melody.
That's probably what it is. It made it easier for me to follow, and enough of the words are similar enough that I "translate" them automatically.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Catalonian / Valencian, even french (but in less degree) are so similar that speaking slow we could have basic conversations without having learned anything from the other languages (maybe except of french)
But this mostly is valid for native speakers (or very talented persons regarding foreign languages)
M.D.V.
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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Nelek wrote: But this mostly is valid for native speakers (or very talented persons regarding foreign languages)
I lived in Italy for three years, and was communicating adequately within three months.
I've lived in NL for the better part of 20 years, and still can't speak the language adequately.
Not sure where I should position my talent regarding foreign languages.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Have you heard of Interlingua?[^]
I could survive in French and have a smattering of Italian and Spanish. One day I came across something that looked like a combination of all three and had few problems reading it. I figured it had to be Catalan. Yes siree.
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I speak English, French and German and had no difficulty reading Dutch while attending a games convention in Eindhoven as I could work out what most of the words meant (context helped) - speaking it though was another matter! I could also read a games manual for an RPG in Italian without too much difficulty - once more context (and some Latin from schooldays) helped a lot.
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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I can read italian and portuguese to get the big picture and some details without big problems. There are many false friend that can give funny interpretations, of course.
I can read french with some difficulties but still manage to get the big picture.
I can understand italian pretty good, portuguese if they speak slow, french... no way.
Portuguese people understand spanish better than we understand them.
Never learned any of them.
I speak german and english.
On top I can understand some basic dutch, because (being very simplistic) it can be treated like a variation of german with spanish sounds.
Basics for a pitch elevator in chinese and indian (at least back then). Only spoken, nothing written. It helped me to make a bit of good mood in conversations with professional partners before changing to english.
Anecdote: Being Valencian / Catalonian my second mother language, I haven't use it for so long, that when I am home I can't speak it anymore. If I try, german or english come faster to my mouth. I can still read it perfectly and write it with advanced level though.
M.D.V.
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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I am English and learned French and Latin at school, German when I lived there for seven years, good enough to tell a joke and have the locals laugh at my joke, not at my German (I hope).
Since I have been in the US for twenty-five years I have almost lost all of my French and German language - although I can still read them fairly well - and understand the bits in old war films and such. I even feel I have lost a lot of English since the Americans speak a cut-down version of English with less words in their everyday vocabulary and I have to simplify my speech when speaking with them! The last time I spoke German was with my son's German teacher at a parent's evening (he hated that).
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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Dragging @Member-7989122 into this thread.
I've looked at Dutch in airline magazines and some of the words were very similar to Norwegian after some transformations. Others, to English. And ones for which I had no clue, probably German. It makes sense. Draw a triangle--GB, N, D--and NL is in the middle. Just like Catalan and E, F, I.
I'd guess that the equivalent of Interlingua[^] could be created for Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish. Icelandic hasn't changed much (other than in pronunciation) since Viking days, so it probably wouldn't fit. And to be understood, quite a few Danes would require oral surgery to remove the potato from their mouth.
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Norwegians are generally capable of conversing both Swedes and Danes; we are sort of in the middle between. Generally, Swedes and Danes have greater difficulties understanding each other. (With some exceptions: The Skåne dialects, in south-west Sweden, are far closer to Danish than the east coast Stockholm Swedish - but then again, older people in Skåne may speak an old dialect variant which neither Stockholmers, Danes nor Norwegians understand a word of!)
Sometimes I envy those having English as their mother tongue: You cannot possibly be super-sensitive to "correct" pronunciation, or even spelling: There are so many varieties that even "stiff upper lip" Brits just have to accept that people are different.
To Norwegians, language and how it is pronounced is a serious matter. It was much more so 40-50 years ago; at that time we hadn't seen much immigration, so Norway was essentially a homogenous culture. We had lots of dialects, but until 1984(!) we a single national radio channel which set the standard for "correct" pronunciation. If you moved to a different district, and stuck to your old dialect (and did not switch to the "official" pronunciation), you were guaranteed to be ridiculed, especially among school children.
We have two variants of Norwegian: The "bokmål", which was quite strongly influenced by Danish (we had a common king for 300 years, seated in Copenhagen), and "nynorsk", based on traditional dialects from before the Danish rule. The two variants have been moving closes over they years, but the last book burning of school books in the "wrong" variant was only a few years ago.
So, the strong feelings about our language is still alive. When we still burn books that are in Norwegian (but the wrong variant), I think the chances of creating a single Scandinavian is below epsilon.
I don't think the Swedes have any greater interest in it; there are movements to have some Swedish dialects ("älvdalsmål" in particular) internationally recognized as a distinct language, not as a dialect. With the Danes, I do not know - they've got some very curious dialects on the west coast that I think would be difficult to mold into a common Scandinavian.
If you talk with young people today, you might rather hear: What's the use? Why can't we all switch to English instead?
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