Website cannot be reached - Why?

August 12, 2006 3:14 PM

TechFilter: Why can't I browse/ping/tracert to tikiwiki.org?

Several people have told me (via IM) that they have no troubles reaching tikiwiki.org (84.207.3.18). However, when trying to get there from my home OR work computer...timeouts.

Tracert stops at the same server:
--cont from the route--
pos9-1.mpr2.cdg2.fr.above.net [64.125.23.10]
te1-4.er2b.cdg2.fr.above.net [64.125.23.33]
62.4.73.12
timeouts galore

I do understand basic info about how the net works - so why won't this take another route when it encounters a problem?

I'd really like to install the software as our main wiki, but without access to the support community that seems like an exercise in futility.

Question 1: Why is this happening/why won't another route be explored?
Question 2: How can I reach the website?

Thanks!

posted by TauLepton to computers & internet (6 comments total)

you could try browsing it via coral cache.

As to why it's happening? ask the fine folks at above.net.
posted by roue at 3:33 PM on August 12, 2006

This happens when links between carriers go down. Sometimes, with adaptive routing, the routers will determine that a route is down, and your traffic will be routed through another path. However, it is posisble that it is a solitary route that is down, with no other known route to access tikiwiki. It looks like tikiwiki is in the UK, so it may be a transatlantic route that it doesn't know how to get around.
posted by stovenator at 3:45 PM on August 12, 2006

Err. on second look, it appears to be in France, not the UK. And your traffic is almost reaching all the way there. I get three hops past yours, and am at tikiwiki:

te1-4.er2b.cdg2.fr.above.net [64.125.23.33]
62.4.73.12
edge1-th2-11a1.stratum-ip.net [84.207.0.250]
oxymium-gw.stratum-ip.net [84.207.1.2]
one.neurd.net [84.207.3.18]
posted by stovenator at 3:47 PM on August 12, 2006

In non-technical terms...

Answer 1: You haven't quite given enough info - is that the last IP responding, or the one where it's timing out? If the former, it's stratum-ip.net's problem. If the latter, it's between the above.net gateway and stratum-ip.net.

From here, it's taking the long way there - tikiwiki.org, apparently hosted in Germany, is 25 hops away from me. Above.net or stratum-ip.net may have their TTL set a little low, and they're discarding the packets as "too old". Your profile doesn't say, but I'm guessing you're not in the US or Europe?
posted by Pinback at 3:56 PM on August 12, 2006

This wasn't really your question, but I used tikiwiki for my masters project and I absolutely love it as a software package--however, the community and support is slapdash at best. When I've asked questions about problems I had (tables going corrupt on me, community features not working correctly) I mostly get a "huh. that should work." The documentation on the doc.tikiwiki.org site is spotty at best. I rarely find the documentation I need. I found that I was pretty much on my own with what I could figure out in terms of troubleshooting. There are definitely better wiki packages in terms of community support out there.

Just something to think about.
posted by Kimberly at 5:24 PM on August 12, 2006

If you're using the standard ICMP Windows implementation for ping and traceroute, you may be hitting a link that doesn't echo ICMP type 8 ECHO REQUEST packets any more. Since a couple of years ago, with the problems from the Windows Blaster worm, many routers and gateways are blocking these packet types. So, you may want to download and try alternative tools, which use alternative libraries and calls, to check network connectivity.
posted by paulsc at 8:12 PM on August 12, 2006