I can't reach one single website from home. no problem using any other connection. what gives?
December 1, 2009 12:54 AM   Subscribe

I can't reach one single website from home. no problem using any other connection. what gives?

whenever using my dsl at home, a particular website is either extremely slow to respond or completely unreachable. (site in question: daringfireball.net - it is, my isp assures me, not blocked, which they don't do anyway.)

I have a t-mobile surfstick here: no problem reaching the site. I have an iphone here: no problem reaching the site as long as it's not connected to my wifi network. I have spoken to the owner: no uptime issues. still I can't ping it and traceroutes get lost around uunet in sf. I called the isp to inquire and they assure me they have no problems reaching the site either. their technical staff called me back twice and even came out to check out the line. they were very confused and so am I.

there is not much else to say about this particular dsl connection. it's pretty solid, all ports seem to be open, only ichat has sometimes disconnected and then right again reconnected. I fixed that by changing my wifi channel. nothing else seems out of whack to me and thus I'm asking you. oh yeah, all browsers. I'm running os x.

so what could it be?
posted by krautland to Computers & Internet (15 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Also on OSX but no problem connecting to it. I note that they are using javascript - do you have that blocked? Have you go it blocked through your hosts file or Adblock?
posted by TheRaven at 1:13 AM on December 1, 2009


Well, if it works at the ISP when they try it there it's probably your router. You should ask them to try a replacement router.
posted by delmoi at 1:19 AM on December 1, 2009


Response by poster: not an adblock issue. the same computer does it no problem when connected via the surfstick.

You should ask them to try a replacement router.
interesting, haven't done that before. makes sense because it is something that I haven't been able to rule out - unlike many other things. but what in the router could be the culprit? perhaps I can influence it?
posted by krautland at 1:36 AM on December 1, 2009


1. Try again with another web browser
2. ping the hostname
ping daringfireball.net
What do you get?
3. telnet
telnet daringfireball.net 80
if you get a response type
GET / HTTP/1.0
what do you get?
posted by devnull at 1:41 AM on December 1, 2009


Response by poster: sadly ping and telnet both got me nothing.
posted by krautland at 2:00 AM on December 1, 2009


can you access the site via its IP 216.92.122.250

if so change your DNS
posted by moochoo at 2:12 AM on December 1, 2009


4.71.165.89 is the IP for the .net the other IP i posted is for the .com

i do however have a little packet loss myself for the 4.71.165.89 IP the 216.92.122.250 [.com] works fine
posted by moochoo at 2:17 AM on December 1, 2009


Response by poster: 216.92.122.250 instantly resolves into daringfireball.net but doesn't load.
4.71.165.89 is asking me for a login/password.
posted by krautland at 2:25 AM on December 1, 2009


I don't think it's your router. I think there's something odd about daringfireball.net.

When I traceroute it from home, ae-5-5.car1.Oakland1.Level3.net is the 14th hop and server.daringfireball.net is the 16th.

When I do it from work, ae-5-5.car1.oakland1.level3.net is the 25th hop and everything after that is * * *.

It might just be that daringfireball.net is using a low TTL on its outgoing packets, and your home connection is too many hops away from it. This is, of course, stupid.
posted by flabdablet at 2:57 AM on December 1, 2009


Response by poster: When I do it from work, ae-5-5.car1.oakland1.level3.net is the 25th hop and everything after that is * * *.
that's exactly what's happening here. weird.
posted by krautland at 3:14 AM on December 1, 2009


92.122.250 instantly resolves into daringfireball.net but doesn't load

that suggests a DNS problem. Change your dns to something from http://www.opendns.com/
posted by DreamerFi at 4:26 AM on December 1, 2009


I had the same problem, but with Google. Changing my DNS servers fixed it.
posted by COD at 5:37 AM on December 1, 2009


if it's not your DNS, it's your routers firmware. try upgrading it, or if supported, one of the fine free/open router firmwares like dd-wrt. Back when I used to work phone support for my companies' website we'd see people with some linksys routers who couldn't get to our site, but could get to everywhere else. Rebooting their router would temporarily fix the issue, a firmware upgrade would fix it for good.
posted by jrishel at 10:58 AM on December 1, 2009


I don't think it's a DNS problem either. Both from work and from home (different DNS servers), daringfireball.net resolves to 4.71.165.89.
posted by flabdablet at 2:09 PM on December 1, 2009


Response by poster: I happened to try connecting to it half an hour ago and the site came up instantly. it's back to not responding now. weird.
posted by krautland at 9:44 PM on December 1, 2009


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