Cannot access www.myfamily.com

For the last month I have been unable to access www.myfamily.com (66.43.25.130). I can access all other sites and I can access myfamily from other computers. The "problem" computer uses Laughlin Wireless through a Microsoft MN-510 usb adaptor. I am running IE6 and Netscape with XP home, and I get the generic "page cannot be found" and "dns error" with the respective browsers.

I have spent more than 22 hours with HP online support, reformatted twice, and added 66.43.25.130 to my Hosts file (drivers/etc), all to no avail.

I have read several threads in this forum from others having similar problems and tried many of the suggested solutions, but I am not a computer expert. I have emailed Laughlin Wireless asking them to check their server but have not received a reply as yet.

Any and all suggestions are much appreciated. My wife has years of data stored at myfamily and we are at risk of losing her account due to inactivity.

Thank you.

From the computer having the problems I want you to do the following tests and show/tell me the results:

C:\>ping www.myfamily.com

Enter that command in dos and paste for me the results.

telnet://66.43.25.130:80

Tell me exactly what happens when you click that link.

pinging my family i got:

Request timed out
Request timed out
Request timed out
Request timed out

With telnet link I got a flash of the black screen (like the cmd/dos prompt screen) which disappeared, then a window in IE with the telnet address in the address bar and nothing on the page.

I had been told that Laughlin Wireless has a firewall that prevents me from pinging addresses (I don't know if that info is correct).

also with the pinging, I had 4 packets sent, 0 received, 4 lost

I said to paste the results. I don't care if ping was successful or not, I just want to see if the domain resolved. You didn't show me the necessary information.

And did the black window disappear almost immediately or did it hang around saying "connecting" for a long time then finally disappear. Or, did the "Connecting" disappear and the window stayed for awhile with a blinking cursor.

C:\>ping www.myfamily.com

Pinging www.myfamily.com [66.43.25.130] with 32 bytes of data:

Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.

Ping statistics for 66.43.25.130:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4 (100% loss),



When I went to telnet, the black screen appeared for less than a second. Then an IE window appeared with telnet://66.43.25.130 in the address bar. There has been no cursor. I saw no message "connecting"

Hi mmrollins,

This is a shot in the dark. Your DNS is resolving properly. The pings time out for everyone because they disabled it on their server. Two things to try:

c:\> telnet www.myfamily.com 80

(don't forget the 80). If the command prompt screen clears and you get stuck and can't figure out how to get out (Ctrl-[ and quit will get you out) then the problem is your browser. If it sits and times out then the problem is your SUBNET MASK.

c:\> ipconfig /all

Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0

If the line doesn't match above, then it's wrong. If that's correct you should go into your wireless router and check it as well. If you have a static IP you had to manually type it in, and having something like 254.255.255.0 will cause problems just like you're seeing. You may also have enabled some sort of filtering on your wireless router thats preventing you from accessing the site. Disable any filters you may have on.

Regards,
Alangrah

My results are as follows:

C:\>telnet www.myfamily.com 80
Connecting To www.myfamily.com...Could not open connection to the host, on port
80: Connect failed


C:\>ipconfig /all


Windows IP Configuration

Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : your-o0kwkw9jwc
Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Hybrid
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

Ethernet adapter Wireless Network Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Microsoft Broadband Networking Wirel
ess USB Adapter
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-50-F2-75-FC-83
Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 216.253.82.108
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 216.253.83.1
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 216.253.82.9
216.253.82.3

the subnet mask is correct on my usb adaptor. I don't know much about filtering, but I will explore my settings.

Went into tcp/ip options and unchecked filtering options; still cannot access myfamily. I'm just puzzled that it is only that one site that gives me trouble.

Thanks for the suggestions though...

I just tried connecting the telnet://66.43.25.130 and I saw "connecting" for about a second in the cmd screen...hadn't seen that before-previously the screen just flashed for a fraction of a second. The IE window with telnet in the addy bar remains the same-blank contents and no cursor.

Yeah, based on your ipconfig I don't think there is anything wrong with your machine. Perhaps for some reason the website itself is blocking you out. I know there are certain monitoring products that may automatically start blocking access to your IP address if you cause too many errors on their site (such as trying to open the site in Frontpage or Word). Maybe sending them some email may get this resolved.

Regards,
Alan

yeah, without the port you probably got a timed out message. With the quick flashing away of the screen it sounds like either an unreachable result or a connection refused result. Now I want to see a traceroute just to be sure.

At the command prompt enter this command and paste the results after it is done.

c:\>tracert 66.43.25.130

Results of tracert:

C:\>tracert 66.43.25.130

Tracing route to www.myfamily.com [66.43.25.130]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 * * * Request timed out.
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 * * * Request timed out.
4 * * * Request timed out.
5 * * * Request timed out.
6 * * * Request timed out.
7 * * * Request timed out.
8 * * * Request timed out.
9 * * * Request timed out.
10 * * * Request timed out.
11 * * * Request timed out.
12 * * * Request timed out.
13 * * * Request timed out.
14 * * * Request timed out.
15 * * * Request timed out.
16 * * * Request timed out.
17 * * * Request timed out.
18 * * * Request timed out.
19 * * * Request timed out.
20 * * * Request timed out.
21 * * * Request timed out.
22 * * * Request timed out.
23 * * * Request timed out.
24 * * * Request timed out.
25 * * * Request timed out.
26 * * * Request timed out.
27 * * * Request timed out.
28 * * * Request timed out.
29 * * * Request timed out.
30 * * * Request timed out.

Trace complete.

that's odd. Let's see if you can do that with yahoo. Try both of the following. You don't need to paste the results, just say if you got anything besides time outs.

ping www.yahoo.com
tracert www.yahoo.com

On both ping and tracert I seem to have gotten good results
(no timeouts)

well that's interesting. I recommend contacting your ISP about the problem. It's not DNS related, it's routing related, and since you got tracert timeouts for that IP from the beginning, I suspect that it could be your ISP's fault.

I finally got a reply from my isp, Laughlin Wireless. When I spoke to them, they said that myfamily.com was a spam site, and they had summarilly blocked it. I informed them otherwise (as politely as I could, having blown three weekends trying to fix the connection, including over 20 hours with hp support, who didn't have a clue.) Laughlin Wireless made the necessary adjustments.

Anyway, myfamily.com is now up and running and there is peace in the valley.

My deepest thanks to DevShed, and to SilentRage and Alangrah in particular, for their informative help and tutorials.

This is BY FAR the best site for non techies (Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor, not an engineer) with problems.

Again, my thanks
mmrollins