Computer Bleg: Sites Blocked
I can’t pull up Hot Air, Michelle Malkin’s site, Stuart Buck’s blog, or Amazon.com — using either Firefox or IE.
The Internet is working fine, and I load other sites quickly and without problems. But no matter how much I try to load any page on those sites, I can’t.
Any ideas?
P.S. Bleg #2: I have an HP Pavilion laptop and it can’t read my 4GB SanDisk card that I used to take pictures this vacation. Do I need to buy an external card reader or what?
UPDATE: OK, this is really weird. I have the exact same problem pulling up the exact same sites on my desktop as well as my laptop. They can’t have the same virus — can they? (Unless, I suppose, it came through an e-mail that was opened on both computers. But I never open attachments from unknown people, and certainly didn’t do so on both computers.)
I can open all those sites using Mozilla.
DRJ (4725f3) — 9/10/2007 @ 9:26 pmI could open the sites using either Firefox or MSIE. At this pt, Patterico, I’d suspect a routing prob in your area.
Have you tried opening a DOS window (Start->All Programs->Accessories->Command Prompt) and typing tracert amazon.com for instance?
ras (adf382) — 9/10/2007 @ 9:37 pmJust tried that, ras. The request “timed out.”
So what now?
Patterico (2a8eaa) — 9/10/2007 @ 10:00 pmThe first step to trouble-shooting this problem is to determine if this is a routing/connectivity problem or a name resolution problem.
I did a quick check of the DNS servers that are authoritative for patterico.com
ns0.dnsmadeeasy.com. [63.219.151.3]
ns1.dnsmadeeasy.com. [205.234.154.1]
ns2.dnsmadeeasy.com. [66.117.40.198]
ns3.dnsmadeeasy.com. [216.129.109.1]
and it does not appear that they are giving out the correct IP addresses, at least for http://www.michellemalkin.com and http://www.hotair.com.
I am guessing that these are the servers that you are using. Try switching to some other public DNS servers and see if you get different results.
For example, if I try using
bigguy.gte.net 206.124.64.1
I get working IP addresses for the above web sites.
So, the short answer is more than likely you are getting invalid DNS lookups from your ISP. For the short term just switch your computer to use some public DNS server then tomorrow morning call your ISP and have them look into it.
If you don’t want to do the research and just want to do a quick routing/connectivity test then try these links:
http://www.hotair.com ~ http://72.32.51.13/
http://www.michellemalkin.com ~ http://72.32.198.223/
http://www.amazon.com ~ http://72.21.206.5/
Another option would be to try connecting through a proxy server. If you are interested in this option then start here: http://www.publicproxyservers.com/
Regards,
Greg (b5b4ea) — 9/10/2007 @ 10:01 pmGreg
I tried the numbered URLs and couldn’t pull them up either. What now?
Patterico (2a8eaa) — 9/10/2007 @ 10:08 pmIf the IP addresses don’t work then the problem is most likely upstream from you. You will really need to call your ISP at this point because the problem is not with your equipment. It is either with them or further upstream from them (but I doubt this as I and others are not having problems).
Your only other real hope is to try going through a proxy server (not intended to be a permanent solution but may be good enough until the real repairs are complete).
Good Luck,
Greg (b5b4ea) — 9/10/2007 @ 10:18 pmGreg
It’s simplistic and probably futile but try resetting your router. Your ISP will probably ask you to do it anyway as part of its troubleshooting.
DRJ (4725f3) — 9/10/2007 @ 10:40 pmIt’s obviously because you had too much fun on your vacation.
Beldar (bdd5c6) — 9/11/2007 @ 2:21 amlol, oh dear, whatever will you do? its prolly just a router down, stay calm and everything will be o.k in a few hours.
james conrad (7cd809) — 9/11/2007 @ 3:14 amBTW, i normally read MM from the drudge site and i notice lately that once in michelle’s site i hear this clicking noise plus i cant get out when i click the back button to return to drudge, shes holding me captive!!!! actually, she has prolly invested in some anti hacker software as she had issues with hackers awhile back. you might look into this yourself as i notice this blog being posted more an more around the WEB.
james conrad (7cd809) — 9/11/2007 @ 3:35 amI wouldn’t rule out the political opinions of one/some/all ISP employees. I had a similar problem with my broadband connection. I got help fro a savvy guy at the help desk who diagnosed it correctly as a DNS problem in their network. He gave me two public DNS servers: 4.2.2.1, 4.2.2.2, and my problem cleared up.
But it doesn’t have to be DNS. There are a lot of ways of blocking access.
It only affected my connectivity to conservative web sites. Coincidence? Strange planetary alignment? Maybe. But maybe not.
Scott (412f3f) — 9/11/2007 @ 4:05 amRoadrunner once blocked the entire Christmas Islands TLD (*.cx) for quite some time, it was beyond iritating.
Taltos (c99804) — 9/11/2007 @ 4:56 amYour SD card problem: Your 4GB card is probably an SDHC card (Secure Digital High Capacity). The SDHC cards are not always compatible with the older card readers. If you buy a new reader, make sure it is SDHC compatable.
mk (a4242f) — 9/11/2007 @ 5:20 amRe: card reader. I bought one at Fry’s over Labor Day weekend for $5 that supposedly reads 22 different kinds of cards. My cameras and phones only use SD or Micro SD. It works fine with them.
Check to see if you have inadvertently locked the card.
Stu707 (adbb5a) — 9/11/2007 @ 12:29 pmThere were sites I couldn’t get to for a while this PM and I’m in Illinois. The sites are now available. I’m guessing there was a corrupt DNS server.
Laddy (a0fc8e) — 9/11/2007 @ 3:59 pm