Road Runner Dial Access Fix

Dec 24th, 2006

I’ve been having trouble using Road Runner’s dial access for the past few months.
They’ve always claimed that it has been a problem on my end, and that because of that, they couldn’t do anything about it.
As I’ve posted before, I recently purchased a MacBook Pro (Macintel). Their dialer didn’t work on that. Totally different machine, 100% different software, different operating system, etc. This time they blamed it on the fact that it has a USB modem.
I’ll explain in this post how I got the dial access to work under OS X with Apple’s USB modem, WITHOUT even having their dialer installed.

First things first, plug in your Apple USB modem (if applicable).
Then open your System Preferences -> Network -> External Modem -> Configure.
For the service provider fill in RR Dial Access (or whatever you want).
The account name is your email address, and the password is the same as your email password. The telephones number you’ll have to get off Road Runner’s website.
Once you have all that filled out, click on the PPP Options button.
In there, check the boxes for

Send PPP echo packets
Connect using a terminal window
Prompt for password after dialing
Use verbose logging

Terminal Script should be set to none.

You can now dial the connection, but wait! You’re not done.
It’ll dial the number, then it will open a terminal window asking for a Login name.
Your login name is: aolnet/ent.yourprimaryemail@city.rr.com
Hit enter, then enter your password again.
Click Continue. It should “think about it” for another 15 sec or so, then you’ll be connected. Finally!

To make it easier to connect and disconnect I always go to the Modem tab and check “Show modem status in menu bar.” Then all you have to do do disconnect is click the phone icon in the menu bar, and click Disconnect. To reconnect click the phone icon, make sure RR Dial Access (or whatever you decided to name it) is checked, and then click Connect.

Tada.

You may be able to do something smiler under Windows and/or Linux but unfortunately I can’t give you specific instructions. Just keep in mind that under OS X I actually had to authenticate twice. I typed in my aolnet/ent. login once in the terminal, then the OS’s dialer used my email address to authenticate after that (which you don’t see it do).
Good luck, and I’ll keep my fingers crossed that Time Warner either releases some better dialing software, or better yet allows us to connect without it more easily.

If anyone has any problem following these instructions, feel free to email me.
I’d also much appreciate comments.

Thank you to the people at Aximsite.com for making this possible.

UPDATE: Check out the post titled Dear Time Warner for updated information. There is a much easier way. Using the new method you no longer have to connect using the terminal window. Yay!

4 Comments

Macmomma

April 26, 2007 at 9:04 am

Thanks so much for this … it’s bad enough to have to buy an external modem to work with my MacBook Pro, but then to have it not work with RoadRunner …! I entered my login name in the terminal window, but then was not able to type in my password. I found that when I hit return, I was connected. Thanks again.
Shawn

August 24, 2007 at 1:28 am

Thank you!! Finally I can dial in from work.
Ben Woodruff

August 24, 2007 at 12:57 pm

Macmomma, You’re welcome. It’s true that the password doesn’t show up while you’re typing it, but this is a security feature, so that if someone is looking over your shoulder they can’t see how many characters your password is.

Shawn, Glad to hear it works from you. No problem.
Jhansen

April 2, 2009 at 11:41 am

Go to the library folder in the top level of your hard drive
Create a folder in library called “Terminal Scripts”
Paste the script below into textedit and save as “script.txt” in Terminal Scripts folder.
Go into Network -> External Modem -> PPP and select “Settings: Configuration”, and select your terminal script. Uncheck using command line. This will automate your connection.

!
@ANSWER
@HANGUP
EXIT 0
!
@ORIGINATE
!
CHRDELAY 1
!
@LABEL 9
MATCHCLR
MATCHSTR 1 19 “Username:”
!MATCHSTR 1 18 “UU.NET”
!MATCHSTR 2 18 “UU.Net”
MATCHSTR 2 16 “ANSNet”
!MATCHSTR 3 10 “Sprint-IP”
!MATCHSTR 4 16 “UQKT1″
!MATCHSTR 5 10 “UQKT2″
!MATCHSTR 6 18 “Saturn.BBN”
MATCHSTR 3 20 “Login:”
MATCHSTR 4 21 “% Username:”

MATCHREAD 127
!
!
NOTE “Did not find a match for script-type”
JUMP 100

@LABEL 10
!NOTE “Sprint-UQKT2″
MATCHCLR
MATCHSTR 1 11 “ogin”
MATCHREAD 127
NOTE “Connect script couldn’t match string \34ogin\34″ 3
JUMP 99
!
@LABEL 11
PAUSE 1
WRITE “aolnet/ent.^11^#twcbiz.com\13″
!
@LABEL 12
MATCHCLR
MATCHSTR 1 13 “word”
MATCHREAD 127
NOTE “Connect script couldn’t match string \34word\34″ 3
JUMP 99
!
@LABEL 13
IFSTR 12 14 “”
PAUSE 1
WRITE “^12\13″
PAUSE 2
JUMP 93
!
@LABEL 14
ASK 1 “Please enter password: ”
WRITE “^*\13″
!
@LABEL 15
MATCHCLR
MATCHSTR 1 90 ” server \39″
MATCHREAD 127
NOTE “Connect script couldn’t match string \34 server \39\34″ 3
JUMP 99
!
@LABEL 16
!NOTE “ANSNet-UQKT1″
MATCHCLR
MATCHSTR 1 17 “ogin”
MATCHREAD 50
NOTE “Connect script couldn’t match string \34ogin\34″ 3
JUMP 99
!
@LABEL 17
WRITE “aolnet/ent.^11\13″
JUMP 93
!
@LABEL 18
!NOTE “UU.Net-Saturn.BBN”
MATCHCLR
MATCHSTR 1 11 “ogin”
MATCHREAD 127
NOTE “Connect script couldn’t match string \34ogin\34″ 3
JUMP 99
!
@LABEL 19
WRITE “aolnet/ent.^11\13″
MATCHCLR
MATCHSTR 1 89 “Password”
MATCHREAD 50
!
@LABEL 20
WRITE “aolnet/ent.^11\13″
MATCHCLR
MATCHSTR 1 94 “Password”
MATCHREAD 50
!
@LABEL 21
MATCHCLR
MATCHSTR 1 81 ” % Username:”
MATCHREAD 200
!
!
@LABEL 81
WRITE “aolnet/ent.^11\13″
MATCHSTR 1 82 “Password”
MATCHREAD 50

@LABEL 82
WRITE “^12\13″
JUMP 93

!
@LABEL 89
WRITE “^12\13″
JUMP 93
!
@LABEL 90
MATCHCLR
MATCHSTR 1 91 “Network User”
MATCHREAD 50
EXIT 0
!
@LABEL 91
WRITE “PPP\13″
PAUSE 10
EXIT 0
!
@LABEL 92
!********this is for ANSNet
MATCHCLR
MATCHSTR 1 93 “\10″
MATCHREAD 300
NOTE “Connect script couldn’t match string \34\10\34″ 3
JUMP 99

@LABEL 93
PAUSE 2
EXIT 0

@LABEL 94
WRITE “^12\13″
MATCHSTR 1 95 “>”
MATCHREAD 50
!
@LABEL 95
WRITE “ppp\13″
JUMP 93
!
@LABEL 99
PAUSE 60
EXIT -6002 “Connection script failed.”

@LABEL 100
PAUSE 10
EXIT -01 “No appropriate script type”