OT - this is creepy.

narf poit chez BOOM · #1 October 22nd, 2003, 07:41 PM

i've been trying to access sites and this is what i come up with:

shrapnelgames.com - fine.
PBW - fine.
warcraft.com - nope.
yahoo.com - nope
google.com - nope
cityofheroes.com - nope
omf.com - nope
relic.com - nope
malfador.com - fine.

it's like my computers decided that i can only access space empires related sites. there's probably a rational explanation, but >insert creepy music here< why would all those sites be down at the same time?

Alneyan · #2 October 22nd, 2003, 07:45 PM

Well, the only rational explication I could think of would be an oddity linked to the Cache, if you hadn't visited any of the non-working sites recently. Apart from that... All the sites you mentioned work perfectly fine for me.

Weird to say the least... Did you try visiting a site dedicated to cheese? Such a site should be working!

Fyron · #3 October 22nd, 2003, 07:50 PM

Probably just a server on your way to those sites is down. Try pinging them from the command line (MS Dos Prompt in the Start Menu, or do Run and type cmd). Just type: ping (site url)

If you can ping them, then it might be a problem with your browser. Try clearing the browser Cache.

narf poit chez BOOM · #4 October 22nd, 2003, 07:52 PM

i visited yahoo and cityofheroes yesterday. maybe my computers showing a preference?

or maybe i should just clear my Cache and see what happens. since shrapnelgames is updating i can't be surfing my Cache, but i don't know what all it does with the Cache.

trying to ping now...tried cityofheroes, relic and yahoo. nothing. my firewalls got a trace program, maybe i could try that if clearing the Cache won't work. probably won't, but might as well try. nope. let's see if i can get the trace program working.

would anyone happen to know the IP number of a site i could look up? there's a vague notion running around my head that if i can find the blocked server, i can route around it. if i wait, it'll probably come back, but i want to learn something new.

[ October 22, 2003, 19:02: Message edited by: narf poit chez BOOM ]

Katchoo · #5 October 22nd, 2003, 10:01 PM

You can find out the IP of any website from the using PING command Fyron described earlier. When you run the command the first line in the response will be the FQDN (Fully Qualified Domain Name) followed by the first IP belonging to that website to respond back.

IE:

C:\Documents and Settings\Katchoo>ping www.warcraft.com

Pinging www.warcraft.com [63.236.3.72] with 32 bytes of data:

Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.

Ping statistics for 63.236.3.72:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4 (100% loss)

In this example I didn't get any response from the Warcraft site, most likely because of a Firewall since I can get to the site fine within Mozilla & IE. Aswell most commercial websites will actually have multiple IP's routing to one Domain Name, so if you ping a site 10 times you may get 10 different IP address', but they all connect to the same site (Yahoo is like this).

To find out all the IPs associated to a site, use the NSLOOKUP command:

IE:

C:\Documents and Settings\Katchoo>nslookup www.yahoo.com
Server: nscott6.bellnexxia.net
Address: 198.235.216.115

Non-authoritative answer:
Name: www.yahoo.akadns.net
Addresses: 216.109.118.73, 216.109.118.78, 216.109.118.66, 216.109.118.64
216.109.118.65, 216.109.118.71, 216.109.118.74, 216.109.118.68
Aliases: www.yahoo.com

All the address' at the end are vaild IPs used by Yahoo to direct traffic to themselves.

Narf, this should work for all websites, so if you want IPs, just type any website name and at the very least you should get an IP back, if not a ping response aswell.

Hmm...after posting all this educational gobbeldeegook I feel like I should sew some elbow patches to the outside of my jacket...

narf poit chez BOOM · #6 October 22nd, 2003, 10:48 PM

well, my current plan is to use the IP address of a non-responsive site to find the blocked server. your plan, and thanks for it, requires a responsive one. unfortunatly, a responsive site is probably not using the theoretical non-responsive server.

Katchoo · #7 October 22nd, 2003, 11:48 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by narf poit chez BOOM:
well, my current plan is to use the IP address of a non-responsive site to find the blocked server. your plan, and thanks for it, requires a responsive one. unfortunatly, a responsive site is probably not using the theoretical non-responsive server.

Hmmm.... So you need the full traceroute path to a website that you can't get a response out of in order to see which server along the traceroute is the one causing the problem?

Well, you'll likely need access to a ping or traceroute program not on your ISPs network (since almost everyone on your ISPs network should be experiencing the same problem as you're seeing). You could call your ISPs Tech Support Helpdesk and get them to run a few traceroutes for you and either mail you the results or read some of the server IPs to you over the phone.

Or, you could try an Online ping & traceroute site. Try this one out: network-tools.com . Just enter in your IP/Domain Name in the field in the middle, and hit the radio button next to the type of scan you want to do (ping/trace/dns lookup) and it'll give you back a response.

Doing a search for "Online ping traceroute" on Yahoo or Google will get you other sites too.

What you'll want to do is run a Traceroute on your end first, then the same one Online, and then compare the 2 to see which server the connection stops at.

I'm not sure you'll be able to bypass servers though. Unless you've got something that you can plug IPs into to specifiy a path to use to get to a site, then your other alternative would be to get yourself temporary access onto another network/ISP which would hopefully use a different path to get to the site you want.

Narf, if you're looking for an Everest of a Project to kill time, you're probably on the right path

If it's a case of dead/non-responsive server's on the path to a certain website, then your ISP may be helpless in fixing it. Once a problem is diagnosed outside your ISPs network, the ISP tends to "pass the buck" back onto you to notify whoever it is that runs the dead server. You might aswell start dropping anvils on your own head since you'll get futher that way than trying to track down/contact the operator of a routing server

Jack Simth · #8 October 23rd, 2003, 12:23 AM

You could try them using a proxy in an attempt to get around things, Triumph PC, perhaps.

[ October 22, 2003, 23:25: Message edited by: Jack Simth ]

Jack Simth · #9 October 23rd, 2003, 12:43 AM

... Hmm... can't edit previous to add more info; oh well.

Anyway, a proxy can/will slow things down considerably if you are on a decent connection. I tried TriumphPC for this post, for instance - it adds a little tiny banner up at the top, advertising itself, nothing more, and slows things down.

There's a few odd things - I'm logged in, but the script says I'm not, so logging off requires a small amount of tinkering with the URL to get it to send the logoff variable, but nothing difficult.

narf poit chez BOOM · #10 October 23rd, 2003, 02:37 AM

heh. while someone else was using the computer, the problem got fixed. there goes an interesting project.

but in the interest of curiosity, couldn't i tell my firewall to aviod the theoretical previously blocked server and route around it like that?