Help, I can't go to this one website

My situation is similar to a problem Fred just posted about, except it's not limited to one computer, and there are one or two other differences as well. Simply put, I cannot go to www.sparkpeople.com from any computer in my home.

It worked this morning, but now I get "The server at www.sparkpeople.com is taking too long to respond." from Firefox. I have tried IE7. I have tried Firefox on my Linux laptop. I tried to ping the site, but my requests timed out.

To make matters worse, it worked this morning. I was unable to get to the site for a couple of days, and then this morning it was working again, and I was very happy. I had no difficulties accessing it from work during lunch, but this evening... no luck at all. In the past the time of day, morning or late night has been irrelevant, the connection times out regardless. I have emailed the site's tech support, and they are telling me that no other members are reporting a similar problem.

Help! :cry

 

Yep, that would be my problem.

 

Sorry Mims it must be your end it loaded fine for me .64 seconds

 

I know... it's extremely frustrating, especially since I have gotten used to use the site tools several times a day.

So here then is the million dollar question: What is it that is wrong on my end?

 

Routing through the ISP and/or backbone. Something is down. A tracert might give you a better idea where.

 

So I did a tracert, but I'm not sure how to interpret the results... When I do the tracert, it tells me www.sparkpeople.com is at 209.173.135.120. The time-out happens at 209.173.128.70.

What does that mean?

 

Okay, I called my ISP and they helped me with trouble-shooting. We went over a few things that I have already tried, and a few new things, but no change. I did find out something interesting, though... the tech I was talking to told me that he was able to surf to the website www.sparkpeople.com; but when he tried to ping it the connection timed out. Very odd.

Next step in the trouble-shooting process is supposedly to reset my router to factory default. At that point the call ended, since I really don't want to do that if I don't have to. I have a desktop, two laptops, and four gaming consoles connected through this router, with port forwarding set up on nearly all of them. The thought of having to redo all of that literally makes me want to cry.

Next step for me now is to contact the web site tech support people and give them a run-down of everything I've tried so far, and see what they say.

 

Thanks for the suggestion... sadly, it didn't work. I tried that last night (Colemanguy was nice and gave me a list of things to try), and again today on the phone with the ISP tech. No dice

 

I also had her try to browse by IP.

Its not a DNS issue.

Mims, remove your router and connect directly to your modem.

 

The router is built into the modem.

 

Oh.

Could the ISP tech connect to the site?

 

However, it works for me.

As you can see, there are some issues on the web today.

http://www.internetpulse.net/

 

Yes, he could, when surfing to it. He seemed very surprised that he could go to the website in IE7 but couldn't ping it from a command prompt.

So if the issues on the internet are what is causing this, is there anything i can do, or do I just wait it out?

 

Shouldnt be a surprise.

Its pretty common, as a security measure.

 

I was hoping you would say something like that.

So now I wait then...?

 

Maybe. Did you ever try SafeMode w/ Networking?

 

Yes, I did, but I still couldn't get to the site.

 

I have now emailed the website tech support, and described in detail all the trouble-shooting I've done, and what the outcome was, and asked them for help. Still not reply, but it's only been a couple of hours.

If they can't help me, what do I do now? Would I need to switch ISP to access the web site, or is this a problem on their end, and I'm just going to have to accept this as a loss?

 

Mims...go ahead and post your tracert. A screenshot is fine.

 

Hang on...

There we go. Tracert:

 

I am going to go with the problem being on their end, regardless of what they say.

The IP address that you are trying to get too and the IP address where you are getting a failure, are both part of the same Domain. It seems they are having issues.

 

Posting to subscribe to thread. I can go to www.sparkpeople.com, but I can't ping them. I did a tracert and got the same time out as Mimsy.

:confused

E

 

I get time outs in the same area. They have turned off pring requests at some point. She can access sparkpeople.com through a proxy, which imo still means there is a routing issue, yet her ISP tech can get through?

Unless he is lying, or not on the same backbone as Mims...

 

The tech said he could surf there. It took me five minutes to through the "I know it's online and yes, I have tried a different browser and a different computer"-part of the call. Oh, and the tech support call center is not in my area, he is in a different state.

I can't log in through the proxy though, which means that even though I can see it I can't actually use the site.

I'm starting to think maybe I should just email them the posts in this thread and see what they say.

 

A different state will route differently. You need to use your mean face and stomp your feet till they open a trouble ticket with their backbone provider, imo.

I could be wrong, of course.

 

"They" being my ISP, or the website...?

 

your ISP, but it is a moot point now

 

Tahnk you.

Thank you for using the word 'moot' correctly.

People saying 'the point is mute' is akin to nails on a chalkboard.

 

It is now a moot point, yes. Unplugging the modem (that has a built-in router) and plugging it back in after a few minutes seems to have solved the problem. Thank you everyone who helped me trouble-shoot this situation and figure it out.

I have one more question though. When this problem started, the first thing I did was to unplug the modem for a couple of minutes. Why did it work this time, but not the first time I tried?

 

Magic, I say!

 

:confusedI don't know.

 

Could it have reassigned a new IP that also was routed wrong?

 

Well, if the ISP is multi-homed, it uses multiple backbones, which could have to do with it...or it could be like BM had said earlier, that IP was banned from their site.

Or maybe the router is retarded.

 

I can believe that. LOL