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Firefox, XP, "Could not connect to www.weather.com" or "Attempt failed" or similar. It's as if I have no connection at all, like I'm not online. But the modem looks normal and I can still get Hatrack.
Posts: 6367 | Registered: Aug 2003
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Chances are a DNS server is down but Hatrack is cached. Try using a "spare" -- I'm at work, but I think 152.3.150.1/2 are Duke's (unrestricted ) servers which I always use in a pinch.
If that doesn't help, start pinging things from inside out until something fails. Your loopback? Your gateway? One of your ISP's routers? Google?
Posts: 1839 | Registered: May 1999
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If it were cached, should my responses still be getting recorded?
And I don't know what it means to "ping things from the inside out."
Unless, I DO know what you're talking about, in which case:
Dude, you work at Duke? My friend did/is doing TIP this year and it's his last year. He's sad. I did TIP when I was in seventh grade, and it was so cool. I wanted to go to Duke.
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But now I'll never know WHY it was messed up! What if it happens again and it was something I could prevent! It's not fair.
Posts: 6367 | Registered: Aug 2003
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Sorry, I assumed I could be overly terse with a Firefox user. Better explanation:
In addition to the big machines that actually route your packets, ISPs have additional servers in place to translate URLs like "hatrack.com" into IP addresses like "123.123.123.123." If this so-called DNS translation isn't working, your browser won't be able to turn names into numbers aside from any mappings it's stored locally, even though your actual packets are getting through ok.
Aside from being typically run by ISPs, there's nothing special about a DNS server; you communicate by ordinary TCP/IP. Thus, if your connection is up, any one will do -- some geeks even run their own. I memorized Duke's while I was an inquisitive undergrad there and still use them when I need a backup.
Pinging is a more general troubleshooting tool to see whether you can reach a host machine at all (not 100% reliable recently since many admins turn off ICMP, but anyway...). If you're a nerd like me you've probably memorized the IP addresses of the first few routers between you and the rest of the world. For example, a test sequence might look something like this:
127.0.0.1 (loopback address, aka yourself -- failure here means a bad/misconfigured IP stack) 192.168.1.1 (internal IP of your broadband router -- your PC will call it its gateway) 209.42.198.141 (internet-routable IP of Time Warner's local DSL hub -- your router will call it its gateway) ... 216.239.37.99 (one of Google's webservers)
Posts: 1839 | Registered: May 1999
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Okay, thank you. I'll admit that I only use Firefox because Fugu suggested it and I love it. I'm only an intermediate computer user.
Posts: 6367 | Registered: Aug 2003
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Well, the same thing has just happened to me. I can get on Hatrack, but I can't click on links. I tried the pinging from the outside, and I couldn't ping the 192.168.1.1 address, nor could I ping google.
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I discovered the girls next door could use the internet, so I did ipconfig /release and ipconfig /renew, then restarted my computer. Everything seems to be working now.
Posts: 3546 | Registered: Jul 2002
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It certainly sounds like a (temporarily) mis-configured DNS issue to me. Glad it's all working again.
Posts: 293 | Registered: Jun 2004
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) servers which I always use in a pinch.![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
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I did TIP when I was in seventh grade, and it was so cool. I wanted to go to Duke.![[Mad]](mad.gif)
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