Accessing webpage problems

[accymel]

Appealing on here to detract from the other thread where a few of us are having serious problems accessing the quiz site yet majority of people dont

Temp Accywebbers quiz thread

Basically i get & i've tried 2 browsers so not a browser prob as other people report being able to see & get in on both browsers

Firefox:
Server not found


Firefox can't find the server at my.funtrivia.com.

IE7:
Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage

Despite trying various links to the site, even to other quizes on that site no matter what i do i get ^^^, i've cleared my cache, cleared my temp folder & cookies, re-booted & all to no avail I was able to get on there at 1am this morning but today - not a thing! All other sites open fine except this particular one [aka link in the my signature]. Im sure the few that are having same difficulties will post what they have tried & see if we can sort the problem out with a bit of help

Has anyone techy minded have any other suggestions we can try or have an idea of what could be causing it

Reason im asking is because im admin to the above quiz & cant monitor atm so really need some ideas guys & gals if at all possible - please its getting desperate & the few thats having the problems also are worried theres a conspiracy against them hehehehe strange how theres a few that cant get on to the majority that can so is it a prob with us, the server or other external force????? ran out of causes & solutions now

Can anyone help - please

TIA

[Tinkerbelle]

Originally Posted by accymel

Despite trying various links to the site, even to other quizes on that site no matter what i do i get ^^^, i've cleared my cache, cleared my temp folder & cookies, re-booted & all to no avail

I too have tried all that.

4 of us that we know of can't get on the quiz but there's no similar factor between us. It can't be a local area problem because Spuggie is in chilly Jocko land. It's not an ISP problem as Gayle is on a different one.

A person at another pc that can access the quiz can also do so in my username, so we've ruled that one out.

Mick has suggested changing LAN settings, I'll try this tomorrow as a last resort.

[entwisi]

Can you try the following link

http://75.126.68.186/private/main.cfm?tid=60213

If this brings you the front page its a problem called DNS. ( basically computers don't understand letters for domain names so we have these massive 'phone books'(Called DNS servers) who convert my.trivia.com into whatever its IP address is and then your browser does the request using its IP.

If you can't see what I've done in the link I've replaced the words with teh IP address. This will probably only get you the front page i.e. you won't be able to actually do the quiz as the link to it will still use DNS to resolve the next page.

PS, nowt to do with LAN settings!

[accymel]

Whooooooooooooohoooooooooooooooooooo - that worked cheers

So what was our problem then? lol

[Tinkerbelle]

Entwisi you are a star!! I owe you some karma when it's up and working.

[accymel]

Originally Posted by Tinkerbelle

Entwisi you are a star!! I owe you some karma when it's up and working.

I owe u some too but have to spread it around 1st

[entwisi]

OK, I'll try my best to explain in absolute english

When you click a link or type address into your browser a few things happen,

1) your broswer takes the address and initalli does a Domain Name service lookup(DNS), this takes teh domain name (www.accringtonweb.com) and translates it into an IP address(PCs don't understand text remember)

2) your browser then makes a request to the IP address that has been returned, passing the extra bits of the URL(/private/main.cfm? etc)

3) to cut it short teh browser returns the web page as text (HTML)



The problem is that if your DNS is failing (BTW , this is a ISP issue) your access to teh internet will be sporadic at best. As you have found some sites work, other don't. You can try putting another ISPs DNS servers in your internet settings. I can give you details of this but it is a bit 'involved' for a webpage

[Tinkerbelle]

Originally Posted by entwisi

The problem is that if your DNS is failing (BTW , this is a ISP issue) your access to teh internet will be sporadic at best. As you have found some sites work, other don't. You can try putting another ISPs DNS servers in your internet settings. I can give you details of this but it is a bit 'involved' for a webpage

With the ISP issue it was Gayle that was throwing me, I knew 3 of us were BT broadband but Gayles on Pipex?

If I change the bookmark for the link you've put up entwisi, will that be problem over?

[accymel]

Originally Posted by entwisi

The problem is that if your DNS is failing (BTW , this is a ISP issue) your access to teh internet will be sporadic at best. As you have found some sites work, other don't. You can try putting another ISPs DNS servers in your internet settings. I can give you details of this but it is a bit 'involved' for a webpage

Ah right it was only the quiz one that didnt work will see how it goes if the ^^ is easy enough should i have anymore probs in the future [hope roy keeps this thread lol

[accymel]

Originally Posted by Tinkerbelle

With the ISP issue it was Gayle that was throwing me, I knew 3 of us were BT broadband but Gayles on Pipex?

If I change the bookmark for the link you've put up entwisi, will that be problem over?

Yeh thats a point, also cherokee has same prob too, i've re-bookmarked too

[entwisi]

You could try the following

On YOUR PC, look in c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc for a file called hosts

open it in Notepad and add the following line

75.126.68.186 my.funtrivia.com

(PS, its important that you use eithe a good few spaces or at least one <TAB> between teh numbers and teh text)
Save it and you should find that you don't have any issues anymore

This should only be used until your ISP sorts its problems out.

[accymel]

Cool will do that least its a backup if any probs like today occur - cheers entwisi

Yup done that now

[entwisi]

There are loads of tweaks that you can do with the hosts file, ad blocking is one, speeding up site access is another.

Ask if you want details!!!!!

[accymel]

Originally Posted by entwisi

There are loads of tweaks that you can do with the hosts file, ad blocking is one, speeding up site access is another.

Ask if you want details!!!!!

I didnt know that they sound intersting all the stuff u can do eh lol - luckily have been familiar with winsys32 & know how to get to them easy enough doing tweaks in 98 so doing that wasnt so bad LOL sounds good

[accymel]

Re done my signature link to quiz in the DNS format as done in bookmark so shouldn't occur any problems from now on [i so hope]