briarwood | Update on my BIZARRE website issues

Current Mood: frustrated

Update on my BIZARRE website issues

Well...I am confused as hell, and technology doesn't stump me very often.

A HUGE Thank-you to everyone who responded to my post yesterday. I still can't get into my own website which is irritating as I know there's stuff that needs fixing sharpish (some parts of the site that rely on PHP are broken).

But apparently the rest of you can see the unbroken parts of the site just fine. I am the only one who cannot get in.

Here's what I know:

Everyone who replied to my post yesterday had no trouble getting into the website.

I can access the site from work with no difficulty.

From my own PC, at home, I can't get in.

I normally use Firefox. However, I use Opera for that site because it's easier for my web design/testing purposes. The browser isn't the problem, though because I've tried IE and even Chrome. My RSS reader and FTP Client are also unable to access the site.

Last night I plugged Sis's laptop into my cable modem and could get into the site just fine.

Turning off my firewall made no difference.

Oddly, the website of the web hosting company likewise appears to be blocked by my home PC, but available from everywhere else. However, the rest of the internet is working just like it's supposed to!

Conclusion: Well, it's obviously my PC that's at fault. But I'm buggered if I know what could have done this. I guess my next step is to try a system restore to a couple of weeks ago and see if that helps.

Conclusion 2: I don't like it!

I am open to suggestions at this point.

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My friend

ashism had something similer happen. Bare with me and I'll ask how she fixed it today.

Oh! Wow, it's good to know I'm not alone :-)

Yes, please, any help will be much appreciated!

*bouces hopefully*

I'll ask to my son. He's a net developer and maybe had any idea about why this is happening.

At this point, I'd believe it if you told me the PC is possessed and I should try an exorcism. But my Latin is awful...

Seriously, any help will be most gratefully received!

Well, he thinks is really weird. Which, I know, is not very helpful.
But he looking at it right now, and if he comes up with anything, I let you know

Ok, he said you could try creating a new user in Windows, because it changes system configurations. He's principal bet is a trojan, the kind that stole data to siteowners. If that doesn't works, he's totally clueless., at least with the data he already had.
Keep us updated about this, ok. I'll be doing some research, too, in some forums, and if I find something useful, I let you know

Thanks, sweetheart.

I have no idea how, but it seems to have spontaneously repaired itself. Creating a new profile is a really good idea, though; if it happens again I'm going to try that.

Spontaneous repair is ok with me. And kind of fitting, if you think about the whole issue *laughs* You should call Winchester' brothers to be sure there is no spirits or ghost or poltergeist playing in your place ;)
I'm happy everything is working right now =D

Well...next time I buy a new PC (not that this is likely to be soon) I think I'm going to salt and burn this one, just to be sure :)

Thanks again for all your help!

You're welcome =D
And now, I'm happily traveling all around your galleries. There are some astounding art there. Right now, I'm in love with What Lurks In The Shadows? =D

Thanks.

Does your antivirus have anything in it that could be blocking it? Have any parental controls been turned on that could be blocking it?

Thanks for the suggestions, but...no.

I use ZoneLabs security for both firewall and anti-virus. The same control panel turns them both on and off. I tried disabling it and it had no effect. I ran a full system scan and it found nothing wrong.

I also went through the firewall logs for the past few days; if ZA was blocking the site or its IP address, it wasn't logged.

Parental controls? ROTFL! Me? No. Not installed, never enabled. I wouldn't have 'em near my PC.

No. 'Tis a mystery...

Parental controls? ROTFL! Me? No. Not installed, never enabled. I wouldn't have 'em near my PC.

*snicker* I couldn't imagine it, but thought I'd throw it out there anyway. Just in case.

Seriously, I got nuffin. This is completely mystifying. The only thing I can think of is your ISP blocking the site, which is just ridiculous.

The only thing I can think of is your ISP blocking the site, which is just ridiculous.

It's not even that. It wouldn't surprise me. I worked for VirginMedia when it was NTL and some of the fic on my site might prompt them to block it if a specific complaint were made. Though I can't imagine that happening it was a feasible possibility. And it does seem to be the site IP address that's blocked, as FTP is affected as well as the web.

But I hooked Sis's laptop up to my cable modem and accessed the site with no trouble.

On the one hand - that's good news for the site. On the other, it narrows the problem down specifically to my PC and leaves me with no clue how to fix it.

Tonight I'm going to try a system restore and cleanup. And go from there, I guess.

Bah, that's right. I'd forgotten.

Erm. Good luck?

Your use of a question mark scares me.

Would you feel better if I offered you a yummy cookie? ;-)

Totally mystifying!

There's a tiny thought at the back of my head, that there's a file (probably optional) that you can have on your PC called the Hosts file (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosts_file) that basically overrides the usual DNS [1] for specific sites.

Some software, like some of the AdBlocker software, will put entries into your hosts file so that a request to get an ad from, say, doubleclick.com doesn't actually go to that site, and so you get no ads displayed (that would have come from there). Also some viruses write entries to the hosts file to redirect your browser to their versions of, say, ebay or Bank of America.

[1] DNS. Every "machine" on the web has an address, like 208.80.152.2 (an IP address) but you don't want to have to remember that number, so there are big tables held centrally that map a name (like www.wikipedia.org) to those IP addresses. That's the Domain Name System (DNS). The Hosts file holds similar information but on your own PC.

Holy...you really had me excited for a moment 'cause that makes total sense. But the only entry in that file for me is the localhost IP, which is fine.

I worked in internet tech support back in the dark ages of Win95 when V92 modems were super-cool, so I know how the DNS and TCP/IP systems work. Seems like that's the problem, somehow, as my FTP log shows me the request for an IP address for the server (and what that IP is, so I know it's getting an answer) which it then tells me has not responded to the request. But I know it's not the server at fault, since I'm the only one having trouble.

Thanks for the suggestion though! It's another path for research if nothing else.

Huh. There was a security update from Microsoft a while back that had something to do with the DNS system, didn't it? I remember it buggered up my ZoneAlarm so I uninstalled it and maybe didn't reinstall when Zonelabs released the fix. I wonder if that's somehow related...?

just to continue to clarify the problem ... it fails to your site and to your ISPs site in all webbrowsers and for ftp too? Does ping work ok? what happens when you try a traceroute? none of these are answers, but they might give another clue ... and that microsoft patch is as good an idea as any I can think of!

Oh, another thought ... totally clear out your browser cache and internet temporary file folders ... just wondering if there's some cached file that windows won't let go of/is corrupted and so when you try to get to your page the browser b0rks in trying to retrieve the cached image or overwrite it with the downloaded one ... probably won't help, but it is straw-clutching time!

All browsers. FTP, too. Just two sites in the entire internet I can't reach: creative-imperative.net and the web host that serves it.

Ping just times out.

Traceroute:

Target Name: creative-imperative.net
IP: 209.59.180.249
Date/Time: 17/09/2008 18:07:16

1 95 ms 6 ms 9 ms [10.130.184.1]
2 8 ms 6 ms 6 ms cdif-t2cam1-b-v121.network.virginmedia.net [62.254.254.213]
3 9 ms 7 ms 27 ms cdif-t3core-1b-ae1-0.network.virginmedia.net [195.182.175.205]
4 74 ms 11 ms 12 ms bre-bb-b-so-400-0.network.virginmedia.net [212.43.164.1]
5 101 ms 12 ms 16 ms [195.50.91.129]
6 18 ms -32764 ms 15 ms ae-31-51.ebr1.London2.Level3.net [4.68.117.30]
7 102 ms 29 ms 17 ms ae-2.ebr1.London1.Level3.net [4.69.132.146]
8 15 ms -32764 ms 24 ms ae-2.ebr1.London1.Level3.net [4.69.132.146]
9 -32764 ms 45 ms 16 ms ae-1-100.ebr2.London1.Level3.net [4.69.132.118]
10 124 ms 91 ms 85 ms ae-71-71.csw2.NewYork1.Level3.net [4.69.134.70]
11 179 ms 96 ms 122 ms ae-71-71.csw2.NewYork1.Level3.net [4.69.134.70]
12 106 ms -32764 ms 109 ms ae-2.ebr1.Chicago1.Level3.net [4.69.132.65]
13 192 ms 104 ms 117 ms ae-11-55.car1.Chicago1.Level3.net [4.68.101.130]
14 105 ms -32764 ms 106 ms ae-11-55.car1.Chicago1.Level3.net [4.68.101.130]
15 149 ms 112 ms 115 ms lw-core3-ge9.rtr.liquidweb.com [209.59.157.10]
16 191 ms * 332 ms lw-core3-ge9.rtr.liquidweb.com [209.59.157.10]
17 -32764 ms -32764 ms 142 ms lw-core2-ge7.rtr.liquidweb.com [209.59.157.89]
18 -32764 ms 614 ms * lw-dc1-dist4-ge2.rtr.liquidweb.com [209.59.157.54]
19 * * * [-]
20 * * * [-]

isn't telling me much I didn't already know :-(

just wondering if there's some cached file that windows won't let go of/is corrupted and so when you try to get to your page the browser b0rks in trying to retrieve the cached image or overwrite it with the downloaded one

Yeah, I've had that happen before but that wouldn't affect all browsers equally. I even downloaded a new one (Chrome) to see if that would help. Still no joy.

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