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Can't reach one particular website/domain

  • Asking for a friend: Despite not having changed hard- or software, my friend can't access a website that is up and running normally. He can access it (and his account) from other locations (i.e. friend's place), just not from home. What's going on and how does he fix it? Website: US/California based server, regular website with forum, private message, social network functions; and a live chat client. Friend: Also in the US, can neither load the website nor log in the chat client since roughly a week, but only from his (unchanged) home computer. Every other website and things like Skype work fine. He can also reach the website and log in his account/chat from other places/computers. I first suspected the last Windows update or a firewall update was responsible, but apparently a system reset to before the problem started did nothing. http://en.kioskea.net/forum/affich-92145-one-certain-site-will-not-load-help seems to be the next thing to try, however, he'd rather not depend on a proxy for a page he uses daily, especially for no good reason. Any ideas what caused this problem and how to permanently fix it are welcome. (A new router is a last option though.)

  • Answer:

    The people who run the website might have banned him by IP address or banned a group of IP addresses and his just happened to be in the mix. Things to check: Does it work if he uses a different computer, laptop, or cellphone connected to his internet? If it does, then my suggestion above is not the case. If it doesn't work, then it's likey tied to the address or the router. To check the router: If he has an (wireless or wired) router and a internet provider's modem set up, unhook the router and hook the computer directly to the modem and see if it works. If it works, it's the router that's messing things up. Try to reset it. (google the router's model number and "reset") If it doesn't work then it's probably the address: See #1. You might try this stuff anyways, regardless: 1. Contact the site admins and see if you can find out if he's been blocked or banned. 2. Perform a http://www.wikihow.com/Flush-DNS. 3. Try running http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner. 4. Try a different browser, such as firefox or chrome. 5. Reset the modem by either unplugging it or calling his provider.

MinusCelsius at Ask.Metafilter.Com Visit the source

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DarlingBri

Just to be clear: Can other computers/devices reach the website from his home? Has this been tried? It would help in narrowing down whether its their computer or their network/router. It's not clear from your question.

vacapinta

Does your friend run adblock or other types of add-ons such as Disconnect or no-track software? It could be blocking it.

JohnnyGunn

Can other computers/devices reach the website from his home? Has this been tried? It would help in narrowing down whether its their computer or their network/router. No computer/laptop in his house connects to this website. I think he runs Adblock, but hasn't changed any settings. The only change was the Windows update (Win 7).

MinusCelsius

I've had something similar happen. In my case, it was one of my own domains that I couldn't reach from my home. It seems there was a DNS issue with my home ISP that magically resolved itself later that day. I was able to reach the domain via various proxies, I confirmed with several other people not using my ISP that my domain was reachable for them. I was also able to reach my domain over my mobile Internet connection. Furthermore, I confirmed with others I knew who used the same ISP as I did that they were also unable to reach the domain. I also called my ISP's tech support and they confirmed that they were unable to reach the domain. For a temporary solution, since I knew the IP address of my domain, I simply added an entry to my hosts file that pointed the domain name to the correct IP address. By the next day, things were working fine again. Don't know the root cause, but it may just be a temporary DNS glitch. Your friend should try to ping the domain name to see whether the name resolves to an IP.

syzygy

Sounds like he's been IP blocked. This is a common practice for forum admins to use on members who have either started spamming or become antagonistic or rules violators.

Thorzdad

To clarify: He is not IP banned or blocked. Troublemarkers get their accounts disabled; this page does not use IP blocks.

MinusCelsius

No computer/laptop in his house connects to this website. It's not his computer, then, but either the router or the modem/internet provider. Something about his internet connection is blocking this website. Try resetting the router and modem and see if that helps.

royalsong

Use trace route from the command line to see what is happening. tracert in windows . You will be able to see if the problem is at the router or further upstream by what servers fail.

srboisvert

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