URL Access Problem

hi

Here is my problem. I have tried troubleshooting both wireless network and wired connection.

The problem is that i am unable to access my favorite website that I always could before.

I am able to access all other web sites.

The only software that I installed recently was: Garmin connection s/w and software to install a smart card reader and the associated software.

As I mentioned, I can access all sites.
Others have been able to access, so it is not the web site itself.

Any ideas????

I am using Windows XP as my operating system.

Please help me with this problem

It sounds like your ISP has blocked the site, probably for security reasons which have nothing to do with the site itself.

Often websites and email addresses are blocked by ISPs because some users on the ISP report receiving spam with return addresses showing those addresses. AOL is the biggest offender here, reblocking the same site again and again each time some user reports spam from the site. AOL also blocks outgoing email to the site, and often doesn't tell an email sender that his email was blocked.

But most of that spam is really spoofed spam, sent for the purpose of phishing through links to phake websites. The problem is that the ISP anti-spam software can't tell the difference, so it blocks the legitimate site. Now eBay has become the most often blocked site, because spoof/spammers are using phake/phishing sites to steal user IDs.

Get on the horn to your ISP administrator and find out if the ISP is blocking the site.

mlfbell: It seems that either your ISP, or the website's ISP, is so overloaded with traffic that it can't handle your request.

One thing to look for is if the status bar says it is waiting for reply from a doubleclick.net site. That is a site which posts those slideshow ads on many web pages. The problem is that they oversubscribe their service. Then, during peak hours (4 pm to 9 pm Eastern time), their site can't handle all of the requests simultaneously. The rejected ones return as either a page not found or a browser timeout.

Also check your anti-virus and anti-spyware software. They may be doing the censoring because they detect real or pseudo viruses. (A pseudo virus is machine code in a legitimate program which matches a template in a virus definition.) And some of them, when they find doubleclick.net, also reject the entire page.

Other possibilities include not having enough internet cache reserved to open the page, and image sizes exceeding the maximim file size your ISP allows.

Start-Run type cmd and press enter
2. At the command prompt try to ping the website URL (e.g. Ping www.yahoo.com)

3. If the ping replies with a public IP address for that website, then DNS is working OK

4. If it responds with a timeout, then your DNS isn't working, which would explain why you cannot access that website

How are you accessing the internet? dialup or broadband?

Are you using a router and if so, is your router properly performing network address translation or assigning your PC a DHCP address on the private network (Usually 192.168.0.x on most home routers)?

if you are not getting a public IP address, then you are somehow not connecting properly to your ISP

Depending on the website, certain viruses block access to window updates, and anti-virus company such as norton or mcAffee...

SO, check your HOSTS file... located in c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc and make sure there is only localhost 127.0.0.1 and other routes

Start by running Start>All Programs>Accessories>System Tools>Disk Cleanup
and see if cleaning out the internet files helps.
or else
go to Start.. run... type cmd and then try to ping the address. Won't work if you have been banned.

then type in tracert domain.com(insert the website you are trying to reach. You should get hops on the way to the website. It will die after serveral if you are banned. If you don't get any hops, there are other issues.

Only one thing to do.To find if my IP address is banned by the webmaster.?Can they actually ban a IP address?

Yes, it is trivial.

But if you are at home, you can usually get anew ip address by releasing the dhcp lease on your modem. since I don't know the specifics of your configuration, I will leave how to do that to you.

> ping the address. Won't work if you have been banned.

If you were banned via the web server sw (Apache e.g.) then you can ping the physical server but not access the web site.

Your own firewall or web site blocking/parental controls (if any) may be blocking you, or there may be a router in between you and the web site that is out for repairs and will be back shortly.

The 3 tests you really need to do are the ping test above, then a traceroute, and maybe telnet on port 80.

The results of that will tell you where the block is if you can interpret them, then you can decide what if anything you can do about it.