Why can I load random websites?

January 3, 2012 11:15 AM

Something is rotten with my Internet settings. Chrome/Firefox/Safari won't load random sites like Facebook or Amazon and it's really frustrating. I'm on a Macbook, OS X 10.5.8.

I've run virus scanners and even a DNS Hijacker detection tool and they've all come back nil. I'm not sure what to do. I've had the issue at multiple houses. Each house has had ATT U-Verse though, not sure if that's an issue.

When the site loading messes up in Chrome it gives me this message:

"Oops! Google Chrome could not find www.facebook.com
Try reloading: www.­facebook.­com"

Reloading does nothing.

Plz hlp I need mah sitez.

posted by PostIronyIsNotaMyth to Computers & Internet (7 answers total)

I ran into something similar a couple years ago, and the problem turned out to be PeerGuardian. Maybe you, too?
posted by rtha at 11:25 AM on January 3, 2012

Crappy DNS servers, maybe? You could try using Google's DNS servers.
posted by The Lamplighter at 11:26 AM on January 3, 2012

Are you directly connected to the web, or are you going through a router?
posted by Thorzdad at 11:39 AM on January 3, 2012

Response by poster: i'm on a wireless network going through a router. I don't have PeerGuardian and it's odd because sometimes it will connect to sites like Facebook or Amazon and sometimes it won't. There's really no rhyme or reason to it.
posted by PostIronyIsNotaMyth at 11:46 AM on January 3, 2012

Best answer: Launch Terminal and issue the following command:
dscacheutil -flushcache
posted by Gungho at 1:21 PM on January 3, 2012 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Wow okay. That worked. Will this issue come back or will I need to do the terminal thing every time I have that issue?
posted by PostIronyIsNotaMyth at 2:19 PM on January 3, 2012

IME it's a recurring issue; I have to do run that command more often than I'd like.
Drat, I came here hoping there was a better answer to this question =/
posted by estherbester at 10:17 PM on January 3, 2012