# internet connection curiosity



## Saffron (May 24, 2006)

This morning, with coffee in hand, I sit down at my computer to commence my morning ritual of internet surfing. Hit the home page button and the 4 tabs (Firefox) come up with my 4 home pages. Three tabs soon read "Page Load Error". However, one tab - Homesteading Today is up and running.
I place a call in to my ISP to inquire about the servers and I am told that a server has been down for several hours and is being repaired and that I should have internet within 1-2 hours.
I mention that I thought it was odd that I could still access one website, upon which they immediately inquired the name, and then promptly informed me that it must be cached within my computer.
I am not an idiot, I do know that I am seeing fresh threads as yet unviewed and I am able to make posts as well. The employee is baffled because, according to him, that isn't possible.

So - in the interest of educating my ISP employees, could anyone explain how it is possible so that I may forward the information to them when my email is back online?

Thank you very much.


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

You were seeing a cached copy of the page.


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## Saffron (May 24, 2006)

My internet is still "DOWN" and yet here I am posting away


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## Saffron (May 24, 2006)

This is the ONLY website that I am able to visit right now


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## QuiltingLady2 (Jan 3, 2007)

I've had this happen with my computer to. I continue to get fresh pages. The min. are accurate. 

Could we have jumped to another main server? Is that possible?


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## Saffron (May 24, 2006)

That is my theory. That somehow, even though the main server at my ISP is down, my connection has found a way through to another server - one that only carries certain sites, but still...


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## Saffron (May 24, 2006)

I probably should also mention that the connection to load the pages on HT is slow - but it is still there.

My internet is still "DOWN" and I still can not visit any website that I normally do except for HT.


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

Saffron said:


> I probably should also mention that the connection to load the pages on HT is slow - but it is still there.
> 
> My internet is still "DOWN" and I still can not visit any website that I normally do except for HT.


Hmmm, let's try an experiment. Go to the Command Prompt. At the prompt type:

ping homesteadingtoday.com

Press Enter and report what happened here. Now type:

ping 74.208.173.198

Press Enter and report what happened here. Now do the same thing for:

ping yahoo.com

and then this one:

ping 209.191.122.70

That should tell us a lot.


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## Windy in Kansas (Jun 16, 2002)

Sonar? lol No, have done pings myself.


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## Saffron (May 24, 2006)

I called my ISP again - as of this post - I still don't have internet and they have a recording that they are still experiencing difficulties and the internet service will be restored asap.

I can still reach ht and do anything I want on this site - but I can not reach any other site


Ping results:

Ping request could not find host homesteadingtoday.com.Please check name and try again



Pinging 74.208.173.198 with 32 bytes of data:

Pinging 74.208.173.198: bytes=32 time=123ms TTL=48
Pinging 74.208.173.198: bytes=32 time=119ms TTL=48
Pinging 74.208.173.198: bytes=32 time=80ms TTL=48
Pinging 74.208.173.198: bytes=32 time=78ms TTL=48

Ping statistics for 74.208.173.198:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 78ms, Maximum = 123 ms, Average - 100ms



Ping request could not find host yahoo.com.Please check name and try again



Pinging 209.191.122.70 with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 209.191.122.70: bytes=32 time=111ms TTL=50
Reply from 209.191.122.70: bytes=32 time=66ms TTL=50
Reply from 209.191.122.70: bytes=32 time=69ms TTL=50
Reply from 209.191.122.70: bytes=32 time=90ms TTL=50

Ping statistics for 209.191.122.70:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 66ms, Maximum = 111ms, Average = 84ms


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

Your problem is with your DNS server. Your connection reaches IP addresses just fine, but you can't resolve host names (domain names) into their corresponding IP addresses. To solve this problem you can use the OpenDNS servers in your TCP/IP settings. Here are the OpenDNS server addresses:

208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220

Here is a help file that will guide you through the process of changing your DNS settings using various operating systems. 

http://support.hubris.net/knowledge_base/023.html

In the DNS settings, instead of telling it to obtain the DNS settings automatically, change that to the OpenDNS addresses above.

Depending on your operating system, you may need to reboot after changing the TCP/IP settings in order to have the new network settings take effect.


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## HermitJohn (May 10, 2002)

Just as point of info, there are several public dns servers you can use, not just open dns. I had lot problem with my isp's dns server and tried Open DNS server which was only marginally better. Did google for public dns servers and just started going down list until I found one that worked well for me.


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## Saffron (May 24, 2006)

Really?!

I was of the understanding that imy service had to go through the ISP server before it reached the "www" - and if their service was down, I was sol.

So I can set it up to bypass them?


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

Saffron said:


> Really?!
> 
> I was of the understanding that imy service had to go through the ISP server before it reached the "www" - and if their service was down, I was sol.
> 
> So I can set it up to bypass them?


You're just going to use an alternate DNS server to resolve host names to IP addresses for you. You're still using your ISP for everything else. ISPs normally don't block the DNS port, so an alternate DNS server should work fine.

Their service isn't really down. It's just that their DNS server isn't working. Just follow the instructions in post #11 and you'll be surfing in no time.


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## Saffron (May 24, 2006)

Good to know! Thank you for the information.

They did get their issues resolved and running about 10pm last night - 125 hours after their issues started. I did find out that the day before they had changed IP addresses, but they said that shouldn't have anything to do with the outage, but they weren't sure.

Who knows with them. I would drop the landline in a heartbeat if I could afford something else.

Thanks you - I will be resetiing for a new dns server.


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