Thanks for the help and advice.
Indeed, it must have been the firewall.
This PC is @work, where we have 2 subnets - 1 with very strict rules, and another not so restricted.
I usually always set PC in lighter zone if mining, but I saw that wallet is in sync running in stricter zone and said "why bother"
This is still weird IMHO, maybe some kind of "test connectivity" can be implemented, to know that altho syncing wallet works, mining won't?
Mining should always work if you can sync.
well, last night i exchanged few PMs and SPRs with minerpage.
Until that PC was in "strict firewall zone" the wallet (latest version), was indicating "in sync with 4-5 connections to the network" - green checkmark in lower right corner
It had mined 1 block, both me and minerpage had sent small amount of sprs to that wallet - no incoming transactions indicated!
Moved net to "light restricted zone" - bang, mined block dissapeared, both transactions appeared and were confirmed very soon
PS: just checked. While in strict zone, the wallet indication shows in sync&connected, but block count doesn't increase.
After some time moved to "light zone" - in few seconds current block went from 682844 to 682930
it seems the way wallet checks connectivity is broken in environment when there is internet, but almost anything except port 80/443 is blocked. It should at least timeout and give some indication... say when no new block received in... 5min ?
PPS:
another test. In strict zone getpeerinfo IS updated eg:
,
{
"addr" : "186.15.124.36:41678",
"services" : "00000000",
"lastsend" : 1449046141,
"lastrecv" : 0,
"bytessent" : 127,
"bytesrecv" : 0,
"blocksrequested" : 0,
"conntime" : 1449046141,
"version" : 0,
"subver" : "",
"inbound" : false,
"startingheight" : -1,
"banscore" : 0
}
But getblockcount is not increasing - always returns same number , 682939 atm
No idea what else to check... it seems the way weallet checks for connection is going through the firewall, but actual chain-communication is stopped.