Can't access a website

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I'm not sure what the problem is but I'm trying to access a website but both my Laptop and my PC can't seem to access it. I've asked my friends if they can get on and they say everything is fine ...

I can access all other websites with no problems. I've tried System Restore, tried to alter my internet setting options and nothing's changed - I am on the verge of formatting my Laptop to see if that will do the trick, but I'm sure there has to be a more simpler technique ...

Can any of you wonderful chaps give an idiots (step by step) guide to what I can try?

The URL is http://provinces.dragonsfaction.org - It's a LRP game forum - That's another long story :P


Thanks,
Steve

 

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It depends on what you mean when you say you can't access it. Do you get a 404 error message saying that the page can't be found? I got this:

In this case, I can access the site, but I have to have an account and be logged in before I can view the page in question.

 

Try lowering your cookies settings or clearing any existing cookies as well. This will often help solve this kind of problem. It may be a problem with your ISP's DNS cache, but that should be updated every few hours or so, and it's a long shot that that's the cause, but worthy of thought.

 

The problem is a "Cannot find server" problem

I've deleted the cookies, lowered the cookie settings and I'm still getting the "Cannot find server" ...

It's just this one site, I can view all my other regular haunts with no problem whatsoever ...

 

If you're running XP or 2000, open a command prompt and type in (without the quotes) "ipconfig /flushdns". If you happen to have a small lan running a test lab, and are running a dns server that is forwarding requests to your ISP clear the cache on your dns server too.

I'd also go in and manually delete all temporary internet files, and the entire IE cache.

If these things don't work I'd start looking for spyware/malware. In my experience not being able to get to one site is usually a problem created by either dns problems or malware if everyone else can get to the site.

 

One more thing. Take a look at what is in your hosts file. If you don't know where it is just run a file search for hosts. It will find it for you. Open that file and see if there's anything in there other than the reference to localhost, and anything you might have put in there. If there is delete them.

 

Here's one other thing to try. 66.199.181.8 is the IP address for that web site. Just copy and paste it into your browser address bar and hit enter. That should take you to the server, as it did me, It isn't the same site, but it is related. That will tell you for sure if you are having name resolution problems or connection problems.

 

No problem for me Knight. Another thing you could try is the tracert command.
Start....Run.....CMD.....tracert...then the URL you can't reach. It wil stall at the router it can't access. Let us know how far you get.

 

The site is up:

Query: provinces.dragonsfaction.org. Query type: Any record
Recursive query: Yes Authoritative answer: Yes
Query time: 437 ms. Server name: n/a

Answer:
provinces.dragonsfaction.org. 86400 A 66.199.181.8

Authority:
dragonsfaction.org. 86400 NS ns3.ukdnsservers.co.uk.
dragonsfaction.org. 86400 NS ns4.ukdnsservers.co.uk.

Additional:
ns3.ukdnsservers.co.uk. 86400 A 72.1.201.151
ns4.ukdnsservers.co.uk. 86400 A 207.61.90.197

 

Do you have a static IP ? It might be that your IP has been banned for some reason. If none of the above solve your issue, we have to look at something particularly related to your PC, and this may be the next thing to look at.

All the rest of us can hit the url - apart from your good self.

 

I can hit it okay from Australia with the URL or the IP addy.

Good advice guys!!

Pete

 

Following Boyce's advice, I tried the Tracert command ... I get as far as 10 hops, and it times out.

The server details are:- vlan50-0.csr01.prioritycolo.com (204.11.48.217)

I spoke to the Web Monkey for the site and he says my IP isn't banned but thinks that there are server issues which should be resolved in a few hours - funny that, it's been like this for a few days!

 

Okay ... The problem is more complex, the Site Admin claims there are no problems with the servers, no IP's have been banned ... I've deleted the Internet files, cookies, and everything else you great folks have suggested and still no joy.

I've reformatted my PC which doesn't seem to have worked ...

This is now driving me nuts ... Next step? Short of taking a sledge hammer to my computers?

 

What Browser are you using? The site works ok for me using Firefox. Have you tried using a different web browser and seeing what happens?

 

Well this is an odd one
chances are its a simple problem that may well be fixable
lets take a look

Code:

soverign ~ # traceroute provinces.dragonsfaction.org
traceroute to ns1.pa-sy.com (66.199.181.8), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets
 1  [color="red"]xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx[/color] ([color="red"]xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx[/color])  2.308 ms  2.838 ms  1.924 ms
 2  [color="red"]xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx[/color] ([color="red"]xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx[/color])  61.073 ms  28.108 ms  41.306 ms
 3  ge-0-3-0.30.cll-cor-001.bddsl.net (83.146.17.62)  33.476 ms  20.203 ms  25.586 ms
 4  195.50.117.105 (195.50.117.105)  25.606 ms  50.428 ms  43.419 ms
 5  ge-1-2.core1.London1.Level3.net (212.187.131.165)  35.264 ms ge-1-1.core1.London1.Level3.net (212.187.131.133)  18.493 ms ge-1-2.core1.London1.Level3.net (212.187.131.165)  28.470 ms
 6  DTAG-Level3.Level3.net (212.187.131.82)  85.388 ms  203.847 ms  218.598 ms
 7  217.239.40.78 (217.239.40.78)  120.154 ms  97.707 ms  126.012 ms
 8  62.153.203.226 (62.153.203.226)  100.457 ms  101.708 ms  102.352 ms
 9  vlan51.csr01.prioritycolo.com (204.11.48.210)  104.395 ms  117.082 ms  102.392 ms
10  * * *
11  * * *
12  * * *
13  * * *

Ok so someones blocking our trace routes down the line, nothing out of order about that
lets have a closer look at the connection

Code:

soverign ~ # netcat -v provinces.dragonsfaction.org 80
Warning: This host's reverse DNS doesn't match! ns1.pa-sy.com -- provinces.dragonsfaction.org
provinces.dragonsfaction.org [66.199.181.8] 80 (http) open

Aha! connection established? interesting

Code:

soverign ~ # netcat -v provinces.dragonsfaction.org 80
Warning: This host's reverse DNS doesn't match! ns1.pa-sy.com -- provinces.dragonsfaction.org
provinces.dragonsfaction.org [66.199.181.8] 80 (http) open
OPTIONS / HTTP/1.0

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Tue, 09 Aug 2005 20:27:19 GMT
Server: Apache/1.3.33 (Unix) mod_auth_passthrough/1.8 mod_log_bytes/1.2 mod_bwlimited/1.4 PHP/4.3.11 FrontPage/5.0.2.2635 mod_ssl/2.8.22 OpenSSL/0.9.7a
X-Powered-By: PHP/4.3.11
Set-Cookie: PHPSESSID=d7481bbdecc5ba19989dc04d4829e607; path=/
Expires: Thu, 19 Nov 1981 08:52:00 GMT
Cache-Control: no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0
Pragma: no-cache
Connection: close
Content-Type: text/html

All is well, and it trys to pull the index.php page down as expected

Firstly, try and ping the server
what is the outcome? what number does it try and resolve?

Code:

soverign ~ # ping  provinces.dragonsfaction.org
PING provinces.dragonsfaction.org (66.199.181.8) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from ns1.pa-sy.com ([color="red"][b]66.199.181.8[/b][/color]): icmp_seq=1 ttl=47 time=102 ms

ns1 is generally referred to for nameservers, odd that an apparant webserver is responding on that name
the fact the reverse dns is not matching up could be causing issues at your ISP level, as they may well require reverse lookups to be the same, might be worth giving them a call about it?
you have a direct connection to the internet and are not being proxied it would seem, so all should be well
again, check the ping results and stuff


xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx = hidden my IPs

 

Hmm, your not using some stupid browser mod that adds www. infront of an address are you? ive seen these things cause immense hassle for websites that dont actually start 'www' like this one
just another thought
but the result of that ping should yield useful information

 

It's definately not the Web Browser ... Even Firefox times out ...

Pinging the site just gets the "Request timed out"

So it's a phone call to my ISP then?

 

And in a bizarre twist of fate ... I solved the problem!

It seems that I need my ISP's modem connected to the phone line.

All because I set up my wireless network router as per the instruction manual ...

So, onto my next experiment ... Setting up the wireless network via the modem! I'll remember to put this episode on my CV

Thanks for teaching me some new tricks guys, at least I'm getting valuable hands on experience

 

Uh...obviously I missed something. The DSL device (modem) I use has to be connected to my phone line. Is this unusual?

 

That got me too Trip Guessing he has a cable modem then???

Please clarify knightofnuada.

Pete