By-pass the current DNS outages.
 

i just hope this is made sticky for the time being, coz im tired of all the crap connection in the northwest area, i couldnt connect to MSN a huge bunch of websites for days, so i took measures into my own hands.

ive posted this here, because it applies to dialup and cable users.

ok... ive organised this into categories of programs.

1. The WWW internet, if all you want is to connect to webpages, thats simple as hell, goto your web browsers settings, in IE this is located under tools - internet options, goto the connections tab, and click lan settings, tick the "use proxy server for lan" box, and enter this in the bigger box below, without the "", "inktomi2-lee.server.ntl.com" then in the other box, enter "8080". click ok, then restart IE. (if you use opera like me, i guess you're intelligent enough to enter that proxy on your own)

et voila, you can now access all of the web.

2. MSN and other IM programs that arent working, this takes a little more effort and patience than the plain ol internet.
So... you need to find yourself some kind've proxy, i found the ntl ones didnt work with msn, http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=pro...arch&fr=fp-top is a good place to start.
Once found, and hopefully it works, but youll find that out when you try it in MSN, you need to go into Tools - Options in msn's main window, then the connections tab, tick the i use a proxy button, and then choose the type of proxy you've found, generally theres a million and 1 http proxies a few socks 4, and socks 5, you dont really need to know the differences, but that you dont need to enter a username or password. ok, enter the IP address of your proxy and the port it uses usually split up like this IP.Add.ress:port with the : between the ip and port.

then ok it, and try and sign in, if your proxy is working, you're in.

3. Any other web program that doesnt have proxy entry boxes to fill in.

ok... again this is a long winded one so you just gotta bear with me, goto www.sockscap.com and download the 32bit client once you get to that stage, just put crap in for your name and stuff, its freeware so youve no need to worry, just asks rubbish like apple quicktime download does. Once you have that you should get yourself a working SOCKS proxy, this time http ones wont work.
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=pro...arch&fr=fp-top again is a good place to start, once you have one you know/think is working then load up sockscap, and goto the settings option enter the ip and port of the proxy you found.
Then you need to click the "new" button, and add the executable of the program you want to run, if you're not sure what that is, id suggest you either try the file of the same name, "ftpclient.exe" or whatever program you're trying or wait til the DNS problems blow over.

ok, now once you have chosen the exe file, click ok, then highlight your program and click RUN. this will make the program you're using connection through the proxy you have chosen.

4. WARNING! read this regardless which of the above you choose, proxies whilst good for anonymously surfing and routing around problems with NTL are also unsecure, the lists on the net are peoples home computers mostly and in such cases could monitor everything you do. but unless they have programs that look for msn passwords and things in the data stream your safe, and as you have there IP address, you can simply call the police and prove theft, scaremongering aside, i use proxies all the time, depending on where ive been banned from ;-) and whether i want more anonymity or reliability in connection.

oh, and if you really do have problems finding your own working proxy servers i have a select list of working ones, but obviously i dont want everyone using them otherwise they'll disappear from overuse :) and that means i cant use the net... lol

heres a list of all the NTL proxies for HTTP (method 1)

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/robin.d...trancache.html

and heres a list of socks/http proxies that i personally use.

http://www.checker.freeproxy.ru/chec...ed_proxies.php
http://www.atomintersoft.com/product...xy/proxy-list/

I must have tried all those proxies but with no luck i feel like crying why wont it work arrrrrggggghhhhhhh

The good news is i finally got it to work this morning, went thru the proxy settings again and the first one worked, so dupre thanx alot i could hug yer :tu: :wavey:

I hate to be annoying but the methods listed above will not really help with DNS issues.
IIRC, the DNS servers are provided for you when you get an IP from the DHCP server so entering a different proxy will do nothing.

The only reliable method to bypass the NTL DNS is to run your own DNS server which directly queries the root servers and specify that server in your network settings for DNS, instead of "automatically assigned".

Well its worked for me :)

it was the most common terms i found that people were blaming the problem on, im aware its ntl's caching thats gone tits up not DNS but its all part and parcel. so these methods allow you to bypass and connect to IP's you cannot otherwise, therefore DNS problems seemed a good term to use.

I always remember Demon Internet's DNS server's IP addresses if I need to switch DNS lol

am i the ony one that cant access the net at all with a ntl proxy?

The problem seems to have cleared up today.

Had some appalling slowdown problems last night, with some sites refusing to load altogether, some loading at snail's pace and others relatively unaffected. Simply popped Dupre's suggested proxy into my settings and hey presto ... instant hassle-free browsing.

Thanks, Dupre.

Get it sorted, ntl.

well i removed all proxies last night and its all working fine for me, and im glad to see the .co.uk are more attentive than those on .com (MORONS), if you dont want to help yourself and just complain it doesnt work, the FU... but dont expect im gonna post on .com again. (just incase any of em read here)

A huge number of sites are shagged here (Woking, Surrey). It would appear to be some kind of DNS thing as it's on the initial connection to a site that fails randomly, as if it's the "lookup" for the site. Refresh a number of times and it works. The speeds are fine once it gets going so long as the content is all on that site. As soon as it needs to contact another site the page will slow down, as I assume it's making another DNS lookup.

This has been going on for a week now, and is not encouraging me to stay with the 1Meg service I just upgrade to (to "try it out") :(


Changing proxies doesn't help much. Occasionally it does for a short while. Even changing the upstream channel doesn't help.

well why not look at using some of the Telewest proxies? or other ISP's, i know BT ones are usually open for business as UK hosts.

i only put this info up as a guideline, not a be-all end-all.

Well dont know about u lot more its a damn site quicker using the proxy so im sticking with it even tho is seems to work ok without it tho

I have given up on NTL DNS and cache proxies and am now using my own :) If you have an old machine with better than a 486 processor and 64 mb of memory I recommend setting up a linux server. Firewall ESSENTIAL

I wasn't suggesting your info should be "the solution" ;), but it's very useful anyway :).

I knew all about the proxies long ago from past experience. I was really just airing my frustration and my belief that's the current problems are possibly more serious (NTL's fault of course).

I just posted on .com that I didn't know where I was supposed to pass on DNS problems. I agree that this is more serious and I think different from the transparent proxy issue.
I think the above info is great and very helpful, but I still feel that we should be reporting this stuff to ntl. I'm quite sure their network teccies want to sort this out but need the info to be able to do it.

I can understand how your own DNS may help with resolving requests but can you usefully set up your own web proxy?

i.e. If you set up a web proxy/cache it still has to get it's pages from another cache. There's no way around this is there because NTL transparently intercept port 80 traffic? If you specify another port it means having to specify another proxy (be it NTLs, BTs or whoevers), which means relying on someone elses proxy/cache which could potentially "go down" (or slow) at any time.

It depends if the slow down and failures is in the DNS lookups or fetching pages from the cache.

I'm just wondering if a cache may help as I've got the opportunity to set it up. I've already set up a mail server to bypass NTL which is possible as they don't intercept port 25, and could set up DNS (though my router apparently does DNS caching already), and could set up a web cache with something like squid, but if it's just yet another layer of caching it wouldn't be much use?

Re: By-pass the current DNS outages.
 

I've just started having this problem now.

Re: By-pass the current DNS outages.
 

Yep NTL's DNS are dead as a doorpost at the moment

Re: By-pass the current DNS outages.
 

Can you give this in ip addresses - no DNS

Re: By-pass the current DNS outages.
 

changing my proxy to this:

cache1-colc.server.ntli.net

did the trick for me!

Re: By-pass the current DNS outages.
 

I am having problems both getting my online banking homepage on screen and then logging into it if I manage to get it. I have to change proxies quite regularly to be able to use it. What puzzles me though is that I can change proxies and find one that works in IE6 but the same proxy doen't work in Netscape (and vice versa).

Re: By-pass the current DNS outages.
 

DNS is down *again*!!!!!!! :mad:

NTL Server Status Page:

XBox Live has now died on me 'cos of this.

MSN has now stopped working.

The web is still working, it seems (well, nthw.co.uk is) - but only 'cos I've put a different proxy in MSIE (to bypass *another* constant NTL problem!)

GRRRR.

Re: By-pass the current DNS outages.
 

OK... I use a Linux box as my firewall / gateway and DNS server.

Unfortunatly, after a re-install, it only has 194.168.4.100 and 194.168.8.100 as DNS servers .....

Can anyone give me an IP address of another DNS server please? (preferably one of the root DNS servers)

Re: By-pass the current DNS outages.
 

don't know if Freeserve qualifies as a root DNS, but IP's are 195.92.195.94 & 195.92.195.95 (allegedly - not tried it myself).

Re: By-pass the current DNS outages.
 

phew thought it was something I had done! got problems with msn and windows messenger but I suppose thats all linked yeh?

Re: By-pass the current DNS outages.
 

Hmm... added Freeserve's DNS IP's, but still no joy :(

Anyone know a ROOT DNS IP? I can't even use google coz I am getting ZERO DNS resolution :(

Re: By-pass the current DNS outages.
 

Yep.
(Hi Albone :wavey: )

DNS = Domain Name Service which basiclyturns www.whatever.com into an IP address.
As an example, www.nthellworld.co.uk resolves to 216.40.241.59 ;)

Trouble is (for me) NTHW.co.uk is the only site I can go to as it's the only site I know the IP addy for.... I am aware that I can use a proxy for Internet Explorer but I play on-line games and need DNS resolution.

Re: By-pass the current DNS outages.
 

I thank christ that i run my own dns servers. seems loads of peeps are having this grief :( if ya stuck pop this ip in ya primary dns settings 80.3.116.236 thats should getting running again. its for my dns server open the firewall to it so if peeps wanna use it by all means do. of course youll need to remove once the work is done :)

Re: By-pass the current DNS outages.
 

Well, looks like they managed to get it put right without too much delay this time. Many thanks to Fuzznuts for the kind offer. BTW, do the root DNS machines allow access by anyone, or do you have to be someone important?

Re: By-pass the current DNS outages.
 

anyone can access them has to be that way for dns to work if they didnt youd just be pushing the load further up the tree.

Re: By-pass the current DNS outages.
 

I don't know about anybody else, but I am getting sick to death of NTL's second rate service for a premium price. every time they screw up it makes adsl look better and better.

Re: By-pass the current DNS outages.
 

When was the last time ppl had trouble?

Re: By-pass the current DNS outages.
 

Hiya folks...

This isn't isolated to NTL; I've seen it on Blueyonder and on BT. Maybe not as often (they weren't my connections...), but it peaked through the recent virus outbreak and has settled since.

Food for thought maybe... hmm??

invalid_session

Re: By-pass the current DNS outages.
 

Man I am so sick of this, it's still going on and yet when I change my DNS to some other ISP, all websites previously causing a problem magically reappear.

Some other DNS server's which people can manually specify are:

Easynet: (I am using these at the moment and they perform very well compared to ntl's)
195.40.1.250
195.40.0.250

Zen:
212.23.8.1
212.23.8.6

Pipex:
NS0-P.DNS.PIPEX.NET
NS1-P.DNS.PIPEX.NET

BT:
DNS1.BTINTERNET.COM
DNS2.BTINTERNET.COM
DNS4.BTINTERNET.COM
DNS3.BTINTERNET.COM

Re: By-pass the current DNS outages.
 

You cannot specify a domain name in your DNS settings, it must be an IP address. :D

I'm also somewhat puzzled by the people who say specifying a proxy server within their IE is curing their problem, this basically rules out a complete DNS failure as the cause - If DNS was truely screwed then IE would not be able to resolve the address of the proxy you had specified so you still would not be able to browse the net.

Re: By-pass the current DNS outages.
 

Hi All

You need to change the proxy and the dns server at the same time. The ntl proxy servers will try to resolve names using there own dns server.

HTH

Re: By-pass the current DNS outages.
 

Could still do with a couple of ROOT DNS server IP's......

I have my own DNS server, but would love to tie it to the root to solve all the stupid NTL nonsence.

Re: By-pass the current DNS outages.
 

The root servers won't do you any good unless your server is recursive. The root servers don't know the answers, they just refer you to a server that does. That server probably won't know either, so it too will refer you... and so on until you eventually get the answer.

See http://www.ntcanuck.com/ for a recursive server that runs on NT-based Windows. It imagine it is supplied with a "hint" file containing the root server names and IP addresses. But in case not:

E.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 3600000 IN A 192.203.230.10
D.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 3600000 IN A 128.8.10.90
A.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 3600000 IN A 198.41.0.4
H.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 3600000 IN A 128.63.2.53
C.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 3600000 IN A 192.33.4.12
G.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 3600000 IN A 192.112.36.4
F.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 3600000 IN A 192.5.5.241
B.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 3600000 IN A 128.9.0.107
J.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 3600000 IN A 192.58.128.30
K.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 3600000 IN A 193.0.14.129
L.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 3600000 IN A 198.32.64.12
M.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 3600000 IN A 202.12.27.33
I.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 3600000 IN A 192.36.148.17

Re: By-pass the current DNS outages.
 

Re: By-pass the current DNS outages.
 

Yeah, this is exactly what I was wondering too - I really can't figure out what going on really, but I've chnged my DNS and everything now works - I've not bothered with the proxies as in someways I don't think that's the problem, it's just the the proxy has an old copy of the page so it can get you that one, so it doesn't have to use the DNS

Although, the NTL proxies are probably resolved via a host table or something, to save them having to go to DNS

Re: By-pass the current DNS outages.
 

I usually just change my DNS Servers to BTopenworld when this happens.

Primary DNS Server: 194.73.73.94
Secondary DNS Server: 194.73.73.95

Re: By-pass the current DNS outages.
 

I did exactly that. When it got really bad, I switched to a friend's DNS in Europe and viola! lightning fast connection to the World Wide Web.

It has saved my connection now more times than I can remember.

My Network Places-->Properties-->Local AreaConnection-->Properties-->
TCP/IP-->
and tick "use the following DNS server addresses" and put the DNS in there.

Re: By-pass the current DNS outages.
 

The trouble is that slow browsing can be caused by several things.

1. Network latency/lag
2. Poor xparent web cache (NEVER)
3. Slow DNS servers

When I get slow browsing problems (about 20 a week) I change my dns to bt's dns servers and use a proxy server that is out of the area. This allways fixes the problem. I now leave my proxy settings to an out of area proxy as its not worth changing it back.

Latency/lag can be down to an oversubscribed UBR...

HTH

Re: By-pass the current DNS outages.
 

I have had problems for a while now which I am sure are DNS related.
My AV software from Command is set to "AutoUpdate" and until recently it worked OK, updating deffiles and patches seamlessly in the background. I also receive automatic email notification of any updates, and for the past month or so the deffiles have not auto updated until 3 or 4 days after they have been posted on the Command website. If I use the "Update Now" feature it times out. If I go direct to the web site and try to download the deffiles updates manually I get a DNS error.
However if I use my Zen dial up account I can access the deffiles perfectly.

So ( numpty head on) how do I configure my browser to use the Zen DNS servers with my Ntl BB connection, bearing in mind that as far as I am aware the proxies are still turned off in this area.:dunce:

PS I have already added the Zen DNS servers to ZA Pro.

Re: By-pass the current DNS outages.
 

Thanks for those numbers th'eng.. poked around in network settings and found out where to stick them.

Made no difference at first, then I hit Ctr+f5 and the deffiles updated instantly.

cheers Jim.

Re: By-pass the current DNS outages.
 

No problem just rebooted my router and thought i would try NTL DNS again if anyone in the North West is having problems browsing at the moment .

Its simple change your DNS

Re: By-pass the current DNS outages.
 

ctrl - F5- doesn't that just request the proxy server fetch a fresh page?

I am wondering whether the dns settings have made any difference...?

Re: By-pass the current DNS outages.
 

I would guess that it has, I did mention that I could access my AV suppliers website and get the deffiles using my Zen dial up account but got a DNS error every time using Ntl.

Re: By-pass the current DNS outages.
 

when you say dns error - do you mean page cannot be displayed on internet explorer?

Re: By-pass the current DNS outages.
 

Correct. I had no problems accessing Commands website via Ntl BB but trying to access the deffiles produced a timed out, page not displayed/ poss DNS error. However using dial up from Zen allowed access to the deffiles. I receive auto email notification of deffiles updates but the software should, and did auto update itself until recently. In fact it sometimes updated even before the email notifications. If I left the AV software to its own devices I found that it did eventually update automatically 3 or 4 days later, presumably when Ntl's DNS servers had updated.

Re: By-pass the current DNS outages.
 

so if you changed dns servers back and pressed ctrl F5 would that download the defifles? it may just be a proxy problem or even settings on ie - is it set to check for newer version of stored pages every visit?

Re: By-pass the current DNS outages.
 

Proxies have been turned off in the N/West for a long time, and IE is set to automatically check for new pages. There have been no deffiles updates since I changed DNS so I will see if the next auto update proceeds on the same day with the new DNS,and try your suggestion for the subsequent deffiles update.

Re: By-pass the current DNS outages.
 

if the proxies are off then it must be dns as you said...

Re: By-pass the current DNS outages.
 

Dont usually post here but i remember the problems, i just changed my dns servers to Imperial Colleges in London.

155.198.20.20 <-always up and public.