[Heed]

Discussion began here:

http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/12...-page-264.html

EDIT: Discussion summary:

Originally Posted by Heed

Hey all.

I've noticed something weird tonight. I'm having real problems connecting to most websites when I have phorm.com and associated IP's blocked via my firewall (Comodo). If I unblock them I get normal operation.

It looks like a DNS issue and that's what I thought it was (hangs on "looking up hostname"), but unblocking the phorm addresses solves it.

Anyone else seeing this?

I should add that if I unblock the addresses and visit a site which was unreachable with the addresses blocked, then after visiting I can visit again no problem with the addresses blocked.

I have the following blocked:

88.208.248.102 - 88.208.250.85
phorm.com

Hmm, I can't even get to my modem configuration page (192.168.100.1) with those blocks.

Not just http, but ftp as well.

Originally Posted by Heed

I'm still seeing this behaviour today.

I've narrowed it down to the blocking of phorm.com.

Is no one else seeing this?

Does no one else have phorm.com blocked?

Seriously, no internet connectivity unless phorm.com is not blocked -- what else can that mean but all my internet activity is passing through, or relying upon a response from, phorm.com at some point?

Tracert to bbc.co.uk:

Without phorm.com blocked

Tracing route to bbc.co.uk [212.58.224.131]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 6 ms 5 ms 6 ms 10.157.4.1
2 8 ms 7 ms 5 ms midd-t2cam1-b-ge914.inet.ntl.com [213.106.239.20
9]
3 7 ms 6 ms 5 ms midd-t3core-1b-ge-010-0.inet.ntl.com [195.182.17
6.113]
4 16 ms 10 ms 11 ms ren-bb-b-so-300-0.inet.ntl.com [213.105.75.49]
5 11 ms 11 ms 11 ms man-bb-a-so-010-0.inet.ntl.com [62.253.185.170]

6 18 ms 17 ms 17 ms gfd-bb-b-so-200-0.inet.ntl.com [62.252.192.94]
7 18 ms 19 ms 20 ms redb-ic-1-as0-0.inet.ntl.com [62.253.185.78]
8 172 ms 223 ms 31 ms 212.58.238.189
9 20 ms 19 ms 17 ms 212.58.238.133
10 20 ms 20 ms 20 ms rdirwww-vip.thdo.bbc.co.uk [212.58.224.131]

Trace complete.

With phorm.com blocked

Tracing route to bbc.co.uk [212.58.224.131]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 5 ms 5 ms 6 ms 10.157.4.1
2 6 ms 5 ms 5 ms midd-t2cam1-b-ge914.inet.ntl.com [213.106.239.20
9]
3 * * * Request timed out.
4 12 ms 49 ms 11 ms ren-bb-b-so-300-0.inet.ntl.com [213.105.75.49]
5 13 ms 12 ms 11 ms man-bb-a-so-010-0.inet.ntl.com [62.253.185.170]

6 18 ms 17 ms 18 ms gfd-bb-b-so-200-0.inet.ntl.com [62.252.192.94]
7 20 ms 20 ms 20 ms redb-ic-1-as0-0.inet.ntl.com [62.253.185.78]
8 20 ms 19 ms 20 ms 212.58.238.189
9 18 ms 19 ms 17 ms 212.58.238.133
10 20 ms 20 ms 20 ms rdirwww-vip.thdo.bbc.co.uk [212.58.224.131]

Trace complete.

The third hop seems to be the culprit. Times out on:

midd-t3core-1b-ge-010-0.inet.ntl.com

Originally Posted by Heed

I should add that I've had those blocks up for over a week with no problem until about 10 pm last night when I noticed some sites were unreachable. I shutdown the computer after poking around for a few minutes and when I booted up about an hour and a half later there was no connectivity. That's when I decided to unblock those addresses just to see -- to my surprise, all connectivity returned