are they blocking some sites?

halfrican · 02-10-2008, 09:00

I was on a website a little earlier then all of a sudden I couldn't connect anymore!
Tried to ping...unkown host. Tried nslookup....no server entry. Found ip adress from external nslookup.....failed to connect.

It was around about 8am when the site disappeared. Is it possible that virgin are blocking some sites during peak times?

I know it's not the site cos i can connect through other isp, but that is no good cos my other connection is v. slow.

Can anyone shed any light on this?

Gary L · 02-10-2008, 09:05

I'm checking some sites now to see if they are being blocked. if you want to tell me the site you tried I could add that to the list to try

Raistlin · 02-10-2008, 09:05

If you reboot your router/modem you should find that the site comes back.

I get this quite often after prolonged periods online, I think it's a DNS issue.

halfrican · 02-10-2008, 09:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gary L

I'm checking some sites now to see if they are being blocked. if you want to tell me the site you tried I could add that to the list to try

Wouldn't want to draw attention to the site if it is being blocked.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rob M

If you reboot your router/modem you should find that the site comes back.

I get this quite often after prolonged periods online, I think it's a DNS issue.

Tried rebooting...still no joy.
Need to get a proxy methinks.

Russ · 02-10-2008, 09:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by halfrican

Wouldn't want to draw attention to the site if it is being blocked.

Ahhhh....one of 'those'

sites eh?

Gary L · 02-10-2008, 09:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by halfrican

Wouldn't want to draw attention to the site if it is being blocked.

This one?

http://www.sky.com/portal/site/skyco...roducts/getsky

halfrican · 02-10-2008, 09:36

It's a perfectly legit site IMO but other people's opinions differ. That's not really the issue though. I pay a not insignificant amount for my internet connection and I'd like to have access to the entire network and not be subject to any sort of censorship. If the other ISPs don't have an issue with said site then why should Virgin be blocking it? If that is infact what they are doing I would like some sort of explanation.
Just to clarify, the site I'm going on about is not one of those "dodgy" sites that some people use to get hold of copyright music and films.

Sirius · 02-10-2008, 09:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by halfrican

It's a perfectly legit site IMO but other people's opinions differ. That's not really the issue though. I pay a not insignificant amount for my internet connection and I'd like to have access to the entire network and not be subject to any sort of censorship. If the other ISPs don't have an issue with said site then why should Virgin be blocking it? If that is infact what they are doing I would like some sort of explanation.
Just to clarify, the site I'm going on about is not one of those "dodgy" sites that some people use to get hold of copyright music and films.

Unfortunately unless we know the site address then there is not much we can do to help.

Raistlin · 02-10-2008, 09:57

As has been said above, not a great deal anybody can do/recommend unless they know what the site is.

I've seen OpenDNS block some sites, delivering nothing more than a blank page in response to any request. I've also seen PlusNet's connection exhibit different behaviour, but for different sites.

I've also seen the sort of behaviour that you're describing when sites are failing for some reason, or when the connection to them is breaking down somewhere along the line, it may well be that part of your route to the connection is damaged/faulty and that's why you're not even getting a response (although, admittedly, you should be getting something even if it's just a failure code/response).

Beyond that I don't know what to suggest.

halfrican · 02-10-2008, 09:58

UPDATE:

nslookup returns a SERVFAIL. Could this be a legitimate fault with the DNS server as apposed to some kind of domain blocking?

Raistlin · 02-10-2008, 10:00

Could be. Suppose it could be a problem with the name servers for Virgin, or with the authoritative ones for the domain (although the fact that you can connect from a different ISP suggests it's the former rather than the latter).

Are you currently using the standard Virgin DNS servers? Have you tried different servers?

You might want to give the OpenDNS ones a go and see if they work.

halfrican · 02-10-2008, 10:07

Tried OpenDNS and it works....bit of a pain though, cos now I have to hack around with my router's DNS settings, or change DNS settings on every computer. I wish Virgin's servers would just work. Ah well, it's about time I got to grips with my router properly. Well at least now I can get back to what I was doing. Thanks for your comments guys.

Raistlin · 02-10-2008, 10:17

Why not set your systems up to use Virgin as the primary DNS and OpenDNS as a secondary one, that way when one fails you should still have the other as a backup.

Glad you're sorted in any case

---------- Post added at 10:17 ---------- Previous post was at 10:17 ----------

Oh, and

to Cable Forum by the way

smeagoly1 · 02-10-2008, 10:48

Iv'e got The Vm as primary, and added OpenDNS, not had any page load errors since.

Some sites can go offline for various reasons, their host server going down etc.

As yet i have never come across any sites blocked, unless it's trigegred one of my PC Software filters to prevent unknown code being executed.