DNS issue?

[purplelime]

I moved to Virgin Media broadband a few weeks ago and have had no problems. On Sunday evening I tried visiting the forums I run, http://www.couch-potatoes.co.uk/forums but after a minute or so of it trying to load I got ''failed to open page'. At first I thought it was just a server problem but after an hour and no reports of server problems I thought I'd check using the 3G connection on my iPhone and lo-and-behold the site loaded instantly. I have had forum members complain to me in the past that they have been unable to visit the forums either a short-term thing or more infrequently a longterm thing. I had always put the problem down to a DNS issue with their ISP as my forum hosts haven't been able to identify anything that would cause this for a minority of people.

I changed my DNS settings to Google DNS to see if that would make any difference (suggested on Virgin forums) but it hasn't. I can visit any other site I want to visit except my own which is growing frustrating, especially as I am considering moving to a new host - and can't actually get to my cPanel because that's obviously not loading either.

Any suggestions on what may be happening and what I can do?

[JasonD]

DNS issues usually fail quickly. Sounds more like a routing problem from Virgin to wherever the site is hosted. Which should be easy enough to (dis)prove by browsing other sites hosted on the same server. If you cannot access anything on that server then report it to Virgin to investigate.

[purplelime]

Cheers. Sadly I don't know any other sites hosted on the same server.

I'm upgrading to 30mb broadband on Friday and will get a new router (superhub) so I'm just hoping that will sort out the problem? If not then I'll get onto Virgin.

[familychoice]

Have you checked that your host isn't blocking your IP? Sometimes hosts will block IP's for 'suspicious activity' or those that are accessing their sites too frequently.

[robwhizz]

Does it load if you just go to www.couch-potatoes.co.uk without specifying a subdirectory?

Try opening a command prompt and run:

Code:

nslookup

type in www.couch-potatoes.co.uk and hit enter. That should return an IP address found on the DNS server

You can also type

Code:

server 8.8.8.8

to change to google's DNS and check the domain there too.

If you don't get an IP then you have a problem somewhere.
If you get an IP you can check it to make sure it's correct.

type exit to come out of nslookup

Then try pinging the server

Code:

ping www.couch-potatoes.co.uk

If it doesn't ping try a tace with

Code:

tracert www.couch-potatoes.co.uk

That'll tell you about each hop to the server. You may find somewhere along the chain a server/router is is stopping the trace being completed.

[robwhizz]

Just realised, you use a Mac don't you?

Google says that you use traceroute from a terminal. I don't know much about macs, but apparently there is a GUI front-end for traceroute called 'Network Utility' found in the utilities folder.

[purplelime]

familychoice - yes, I'd thought about that actually. Might be worth a try opening a ticket. I know a month or so ago I tried logging into cPanel and used the wrong password a few times so it blocked my IP and my host unblocked me. However, I've not done anything like that recently so didn't immediately think about IP blocking.

Rob - yeah I'm on a Mac. I used Network Utility to ping and these are the results...

Ping has started…

PING couch-potatoes.co.uk (74.54.16.82): 56 data bytes
Request timeout for icmp_seq 0
Request timeout for icmp_seq 1
Request timeout for icmp_seq 2
Request timeout for icmp_seq 3
Request timeout for icmp_seq 4
Request timeout for icmp_seq 5
Request timeout for icmp_seq 6
Request timeout for icmp_seq 7
Request timeout for icmp_seq 8

--- couch-potatoes.co.uk ping statistics ---
10 packets transmitted, 0 packets received, 100.0% packet loss

-----

I don't really understand any of that. Here's also the results of the trace route...

Traceroute has started…

traceroute to couch-potatoes.co.uk (74.54.16.82), 64 hops max, 72 byte packets
 1  10.106.0.1 (10.106.0.1)  34.151 ms  14.887 ms  9.503 ms
 2  jarr-geam-1a-v11.network.virginmedia.net (62.31.144.193)  11.699 ms  9.329 ms  10.276 ms
 3  gate-geam-1b-tenge73.network.virginmedia.net (62.30.245.49)  9.450 ms  8.802 ms  10.271 ms
 4  gate-core-1b-ae0-0.network.virginmedia.net (80.0.144.141)  24.770 ms  19.593 ms  9.645 ms
 5  manc-bb-1b-as2-0.network.virginmedia.net (213.105.175.169)  16.523 ms  16.669 ms  16.837 ms
 6  tele-ic-3-ae0-0.network.virginmedia.net (212.43.163.70)  32.732 ms  23.515 ms  22.740 ms
 7  45-236-228-213.packetexchange.net (213.228.236.45)  112.737 ms  110.001 ms  112.255 ms
 8  be-10-cr01.ashburn.va.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.84.201)  111.122 ms  108.488 ms  107.890 ms
 9  pos-4-2-0-0-cr01.atlanta.ga.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.87.66)  124.025 ms  122.113 ms  121.544 ms
10  pos-1-14-0-0-cr01.dallas.tx.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.85.153)  143.816 ms  146.707 ms  146.653 ms
11  pos-0-1-0-0-pe01.1950stemmons.tx.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.86.94)  148.728 ms  145.656 ms  147.834 ms
12  theplanet-cr01.dallas.tx.ibone.comcast.net (75.149.228.2)  133.310 ms  135.913 ms  135.587 ms
13  te2-2.dsr01.dllstx3.networklayer.com (70.87.255.26)  135.441 ms  139.651 ms  137.942 ms
14  te2-1.dsr01.dllstx2.networklayer.com (70.87.255.66)  136.775 ms  137.958 ms  137.837 ms
15  te1-1.car06.dllstx6.networklayer.com (70.87.254.178)  142.238 ms  136.098 ms  137.556 ms
16  * * *
17  * * *

...and the 3 ***'s keep going on and on until 32 and beyond.

[sarahA]

you're getting blocked by your server host (the planet), as you can see in hop 12 you get to the planet, but then you can't get through their network. most likely their firewall blocking your IP. I would ask them to whitelist you as virgin ip's don't update frequently.

(well not unless you turn your modem off daily, and the it;s every fortnight)

[purplelime]

Cheers Sarah, just had that confirmed by my hosts after emailing them to ask if my IP was blocked. They checked and indeed it was. All is well now and have asked them what I can do about it if it occurs again in the future. Thanks a lot for all your help, just great to finally be able to get to my site

[sarahA]

Tracert is always the best check. Our server is set up similar and we often have clients complaining that the server is down when in fact they've got themselves blocked (which we actually did within days of getting our server and spent 48 hours cursing Virgin over DNS issues!). If you don't think you've tried to log in recently and got the password wrong, double check any email checks on your account in case one of those is wrong

[keri]

one of my domains servername.co.uk is hosted on that server too, so if you have problems again you can see if that loads for you.

[purplelime]

Same thing is happening again - just tried your domain too Keri and it's not loading for me. I've emailed the host again to ask them to unblock me and whitelist me

[purplelime]

Their reply this time was that my IP address was temporarily banned again for too many ftp connections. I haven't used FTP for about 6+ months, this I do know. They said they've unblocked me but I still can't get in. Is there anything I can do about this? I've asked them to whitelist me but they haven't responded. I've also just purchased a new hosting account from another company today where I can host all my sites under the one umbrella, but it's going to make things rather difficult if I can't even get access to my cPanel or FTP to move my database.

[sarahA]

Have you done another tracert just to check? Is there any software that you use that connects to your server, if so check if anything may (in the slightest chance) use FTP.

Finally, if you want I can run your cPanel backups for you and stick them on my site for you to download. You've got my email, feel free to shout if you need help

[purplelime]

No software connecting in the background, just ran another traceroute...

Traceroute has started…

traceroute to couch-potatoes.co.uk (74.54.16.82), 64 hops max, 72 byte packets
 1  cpc5-jarr11-2-0-gw.gate.cable.virginmedia.com (82.39.155.1)  113.870 ms  10.320 ms  8.704 ms
 2  jarr-geam-1a-ge117.network.virginmedia.net (80.0.145.45)  16.292 ms  21.437 ms  7.943 ms
 3  gate-geam-1a-tenge73.network.virginmedia.net (62.30.245.37)  9.744 ms  18.456 ms  8.166 ms
 4  gate-core-1a-ae0-0.network.virginmedia.net (80.0.144.81)  11.583 ms  8.317 ms  8.795 ms
 5  leed-bb-1a-as4-0.network.virginmedia.net (213.105.175.165)  17.079 ms  62.744 ms  11.473 ms
 6  manc-bb-1b-as3-0.network.virginmedia.net (213.105.175.142)  17.812 ms  18.908 ms  20.524 ms
 7  tele-ic-3-ae0-0.network.virginmedia.net (212.43.163.70)  24.258 ms  23.158 ms  23.637 ms
 8  45-236-228-213.packetexchange.net (213.228.236.45)  109.231 ms  107.374 ms  109.014 ms
 9  be-12-cr01.ashburn.va.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.84.209)  106.856 ms  107.259 ms  108.859 ms
10  pos-4-5-0-0-cr01.atlanta.ga.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.87.78)  123.215 ms  123.421 ms  124.125 ms
11  pos-1-9-0-0-cr01.dallas.tx.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.87.233)  144.361 ms  143.142 ms  175.738 ms
12  pos-0-0-0-0-pe01.1950stemmons.tx.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.86.90)  147.453 ms  146.317 ms  148.174 ms
13  theplanet-cr01.dallas.tx.ibone.comcast.net (75.149.228.2)  140.528 ms  144.469 ms  149.010 ms
14  te2-2.dsr01.dllstx3.networklayer.com (70.87.255.26)  132.848 ms  134.682 ms  136.928 ms
15  te2-1.dsr01.dllstx2.networklayer.com (70.87.255.66)  138.226 ms  363.356 ms  140.581 ms
16  te1-1.car06.dllstx6.networklayer.com (70.87.254.178)  140.433 ms  147.236 ms  138.541 ms
17. *

Looks quite similar to the one I ran a few days ago.

Thanks very much for the offer of help, Sarah. I'll wait to hear from the hosts again who have just asked me to confirm my IP address to check that they have unblocked it.

[sarahA]

No problem, hope you get it sorted. If you ever get blocked, send them that tracert (if you don't already) as it'll just prove in an instant where you're getting blocked, along with your IP of course

[keri]

If your new host is cpanel they can do a full migration server to server of all cpanel settings, files and dbs in their WHM

[purplelime]

No problem, hope you get it sorted. If you ever get blocked, send them that tracert (if you don't already) as it'll just prove in an instant where you're getting blocked, along with your IP of course

Cheers Sarah! I sent them a traceroute then I was unblocked again...and hasn't happened again since *touch wood*

If your new host is cpanel they can do a full migration server to server of all cpanel settings, files and dbs in their WHM

Ahhh, that's interesting. I bought an unlimited hosting package at Bluehost.com and have just moved www.fruitbytes.co.uk over yesterday which went painlessly thanks to the Import/Export built into Wordpress. Next up is moving Couch Potatoes across which I am slightly more worried about as it's a bigger and more important database.

[yawner]

Nice to see you sneaking around DDN young Purps. Hope you're all sorted now. 

[purplelime]

'ello Mr Y

I contacted IP.Board to see if they would move my forums to their new place as they do install fresh boards free of charge when you're already a customer. They said they would....for $80! No chance.