[Ste]

Hi, I think this is probably simple but I have never had the problem before. I have been unable for some time to access a website on which I have an account and presumed it was having problems (7dayshop). I usually buy some materials from them but have been going elsewhere because I just couldn't get in, not just with the link I had saved but new ones from a search. Today I bought something from another site where I have an account and later couldn't access that also. I have just been able to order from 7day shop after accessing on another computer so what I need to know of course is what is happening with mine. I am presuming that I have some setting wrong somewhere can you help?

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Hi

When you say that you can now longer access the sites, do you mean that when you either type in the address of go there from a link that it just comes back with a 'page not found' error?

If you are getting page not found errors on sites that you previously could access, there could be several causes, it has been known for ISP's to have problems forwarding on some addresses in which case there isn't a lot you can do other than contact them directly with details of sites you were trying to access, time of access, your ip address etc and asking them to see if it was a problem at their end.

If this comes back as no, it could be spyware or somesuch on your machine, do you have any anti spyware stuff installed? If not it may be a good time to download someting like Adaware - http://www.lavasoftu...ftware/adaware/ or Microsofts own Antispyware software - http://www.microsoft...re/default.mspx Both of these have the ability to scan your machine and check to see if there are any nasties lurking!!

[Hutchy]

Hi

When you say that you can now longer access the sites, do you mean that when you either type in the address of go there from a link that it just comes back with a 'page not found' error?

If you are getting page not found errors on sites that you previously could access, there could be several causes, it has been known for ISP's to have problems forwarding on some addresses in which case there isn't a lot you can do other than contact them directly with details of sites you were trying to access, time of access, your ip address etc and asking them to see if it was a problem at their end.

If this comes back as no, it could be spyware or somesuch on your machine, do you have any anti spyware stuff installed? If not it may be a good time to download someting like Adaware - http://www.lavasoftu...ftware/adaware/ or Microsofts own Antispyware software - http://www.microsoft...re/default.mspx Both of these have the ability to scan your machine and check to see if there are any nasties lurking!!

[Ste]

Hi Hutchy, Yes you are right about the 'page cannot be displayed' message, I am still unable to access the two sites I mentioned. I do have Adaware on my system so I updated it and found a few things which I deleted but still no difference. The computer I am able to access the two sites on is in the same house and on the same ISP. It seems like my system has blacklisted these sites or could there be something that Adaware might not find?

[TogTogTogTog]

What Internet browser are you using(eg. Internet Explorer, Firefox, Netscape)
Because with Firefox sometimes when i open multiple tabs at the same time really quickly the webpages don't load and i need to clear/delete all but my saved passwords and restart the computer to view these sites.

[Ste]

I am using Internet Explorer with Windows XPpro.

[Hutchy]

Hi again

Probably best if we do some basic checks and confirm connections etc. If you open a command line window ( start/run then type cmd.exe) and type in ping then the address of the site e.g ping www.geekstogo.com this should come back with 4 replies indicating that you have a physical connection to the website in question, if it times out or comes back with another kind of error that may give an indication of where the problem lies.

If it does successfully 'ping' the sites in question, it may be indicative of a problem with your system resolving the ip address of the site to the actual dns name of the site.

What this means without getting to involved, is that every website has an ip address which is a very user unfriendly way of getting to sites, so the net 'links' the ip address of the site to a friendly name e.g ip address 212.58.224.81 is linked to www.bbc.co.uk so if you open internet explorer and input the ip address into the address bar it should still take you to www.bbc.co.uk. It isn't uncommon for virus writers to block users from accessing sites, mainly this tends to be sites that would help you fix a problem typically places like microsft.com or symantec.com etc so blocking the odd shopping site wouldn't be typical behaviour...but who knows?

One of the things that I have known to cause a problem is that there is a file in your windows directory (I think) called LMHOSTS this is basically a list of ip addresses and the corresponding friendly name of the site, perhaps a search for this file and opening it would find that your shopping sites are shown in there, if so, just delete this file. It isn't usually required under XP but can be generated by your system automatically under certain cirmcumstances.

Sorry if some of the above is teaching grandmother to suck eggs, but it could be so many different things that it is difficult to pin it down to an exact cause!

Simon

Edited by Hutchy, 05 July 2005 - 03:21 PM.

[Ste]

Hi Simon thanks for the info. When you mentioned IP addresses that got me thinking. I have never found time to really study the firewall I have installed. It is a McAfee version 4.2.6000.0 (In case someone has the same problem) and has always seemed to do the job pretty well. I remembered having seen something about blocking IP addresses and so I checked it out. It is found under ‘Advanced Tasks’ then ‘Block IP Addresses’. I found there a list of IP addresses which had been put there without my knowledge the setting being ‘Auto detect’. I removed them all and I can now access the two sites which I couldn’t before. This was not something I would have expected as these sites are blocked under ‘Intrusion Detection’ and set to ‘Indefinitely’. I don’t understand how the sites in questioned could have caused this response by the Firewall but I know what to keep an eye on now. Thanks for your advice I’ll keep that, I did try pinging one of the sites as you said but got a negative result. I suppose that’s another story.

Steve

[Hutchy]

Hi Steve

Glad you got it sorted ok

I must admit I hadn't considered the possibility of firewall issues....the joys of computing LOL

Good luck

Simon