Internet question "Network Error (dns_server_failure)"

[The Seeker of Good Songs]

I'm experiencing an odd problem.

There are a couple of sites that I sometimes go to that I was always able to access. For the last couple of days I am getting "Network Error (dns_server_failure)"

If I go though an anonymous proxy server, for instance YOUHIDE.COM, I can access it.

I used to have the same problem with another website but then after some months it was agian accessible with no problem and still is.

I know there has been no network changes, so what could be causing this.
I checked a couple other computers on the network we have and none of them can access the websites in question.

any ideas?

 

[Not Right in the Head]

Yes. This has happened to quite a few people here who couldn't get onto SoLow. The problem is with your ISP; what they need to do is bounce (restart) their nameserver, because it's blocking certain ranges of IP addresses, and those sites are in that range. And good luck convincing them to do this; most tech support jackasses will have no idea what you're talking about and will tell you to fiddle with a bunch of shit on your end. Just do it to humor them, then ask to talk to someone a little less idiotic.

Disclaimer: I worked in computer tech support a long time ago, so I'm allowed to call tech support reps jackasses.

 

[Zelda Zonk]

[YOUTUBE]gt9j80Jkc_A&NR=1[/YOUTUBE]

 

[The Seeker of Good Songs]

I emailed my ISP and was surprised they emailed back within minutes.
Their response was this:

"Thank you for your recent inquiry with us. The most likely cause of the problem that you are having is that the DNS servers have recently updated or the IP addresses for the website may have changed recently. Normally, this will automatically resolve itself within a week and everything should be working again once the servers have completely updated with the new information. The best thing I can suggest at this time is to wait for the servers to finish the updates. In the meantime, if you know the IP address for the site you want to go to, you can enter that in the address bar instead and it should still pull up normally."


My question is: are the dns servers in question my ISP's or the website I am attempting to access.

How do I convert the website www.website.com into 12.123.123.123 etc?

 

[Not Right in the Head]

My question is: are the dns servers in question my ISP's or the website I am attempting to access.

They're telling you that it's the DNS servers of the website you're attempting to access, but that's unlikely. It's almost certainly a problem in their routers. I'd bet $100 that if you found the IP addresses of the sites that don't work, they'd be pretty similar, because they're in that range of addresses that's hosed on your ISP's DNS servers.

How do I convert the website www.website.com into 12.123.123.123 etc?

You can't, unless the DNS is working properly. But the easiest way is to open a command prompt (you use Windoze, I presume?), and type ping www.website.com. It'll show you the IP address. (FYI, ping just tries to build the list of "hops" that it takes to get from your machine to the requested server.)

Or Google "whois", and check in a WHOIS lookup service.

 

[chica]

I don't know what "ping" is, but it does sound racist to me.

 

[Not Right in the Head]

I don't know what "ping" is, but it does sound racist to me.

Depends on where you're from.

 

[chica]

Depends on where you're from.

You mean what my website's IP address is?

 

[The Seeker of Good Songs]

They're telling you that it's the DNS servers of the website you're attempting to access, but that's unlikely. It's almost certainly a problem in their routers. I'd bet $100 that if you found the IP addresses of the sites that don't work, they'd be pretty similar, because they're in that range of addresses that's hosed on your ISP's DNS servers.



You can't, unless the DNS is working properly. But the easiest way is to open a command prompt (you use Windoze, I presume?), and type ping www.website.com. It'll show you the IP address. (FYI, ping just tries to build the list of "hops" that it takes to get from your machine to the requested server.)

Or Google "whois", and check in a WHOIS lookup service.

I did the ping and and it replied "could not find host"

I will email my ISP again.

 

[nugz]

I don't know what "ping" is, but it does sound racist to me.

i have to say that word about 47 times every night at work.

 

[Not Right in the Head]

You mean what my website's IP address is?

And whether your OS lets you take screenshots.

 

[chica]

Oh Nugzy, are you

tech support jackasses

one of those?

 

[Dave]

I don't know what "ping" is, but it does sound racist to me.

But your whole point was that you have to be a racist to see the racism, wasn't it?

 

[Flax]

i have to say that word about 47 times every night at work.

Is this what you do for work?:

 

[The Seeker of Good Songs]

the latest reply from my ISP:

Thank you for contacting us back. In my previous message to you, I did mention that the most likely problem was that the DNS servers had either recently updated, or the IP address of the websites may have recently changed. This was not saying that the website's DNS servers were the cause, this was referring to the DNS servers that you currently are using. If you did not configure them yourself, then you are most likely using our DNS servers. As the other person had told you, using the ping command would show the IP address of the website you are trying to ping. However, this would only work if you are able to get to the website using the regular address. Since the DNS server has not updated yet, using that would also not find www.website.com just as your web browser cannot locate it. In order to get the IP address now, you would need to get it from another website, that uses a different DNS server.

http://whatismyipaddress.com/staticpages/index.php/tools-hostname-to-ip-address-lookup

That website will allow you to enter a website name in the box and it will give you the corresponding IP address. As mentioned previously, the best thing to do in the meantime is either just wait until the DNS servers have fully updated with the correct information so that it can point to the websites properly, or use the website's IP address to access the site for now. Although not recommended, you also have the option of changing your DNS servers to one of your preference to use in the meantime. Keep in mind though that doing so is not supported by us and may cause a performance decrease or other problems.



----

looked up the address with the link they provided and when entering it it still errored but a different one.

Network Error (tcp_error)

A communication error occurred: "Operation timed out" The Web Server may be down, too busy, or experiencing other problems preventing it from responding to requests. You may wish to try again at a later time.
For assistance, contact your network support team.

the previous error was:

Network Error (dns_server_failure)

Your request could not be processed because an error occurred contacting the DNS server. The DNS server may be temporarily unavailable, or there could be a network problem.
For assistance, contact your network support team