Unable to access sites

I had a problem with the site www.ibest.com.br, for a few months the site did not appear at all in IE, or any other browser. Even with SP2 installed. Now, since last 19/09, I am not able to access www.orkut.com and www.pop.com.br, all I get is the bellow. But the Ibest site, is working fine now, I have tried everything in the help page, but nothing worked.
Can you help?

The page cannot be displayed
The page you are looking for is currently unavailable. The Web site might be experiencing
technical difficulties,
or you may need to adjust your browser settings

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://search.msn.com/dnserror.aspx?FORM=DNSAS&q=www.orkut.com

We can't find "www.orkut.com"

You can try again by typing the URL in the address bar above.
Or, search the Web:

Go to MSN Search to see complete results for "www.orkut.com".

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Did you intend to go to one of these similar Web addresses?
www.orckit.com
www.okit.com
www.oru.com

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You can also visit one of these related Web sites.
Orkut
Check availability or register the domain name 'www.orkut.com'.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Hi ricardo...

I just went to all links fine, no probs at all for me.

Now, there are a couple of things you can do.

1: Empty all your TIFS [temp internet files, cookies, etc] sometimes a link can be corrupted via something in there.

2: Check your Restricted Sites, make sure they are not listed, that may interfere, as I see by the links you have to log in.

3: Check your HOSTS files.... make sure [this is really wild last guess here] that for some reason they were not added to this file, rendering the sites useless to access.

Cheers, TAS

 

Hi Tassi,
Well, it is very wierd whats happening here. I always empty all the temp files before shutting down my pc, run anti spywares/adwares/trojans at least twice a day. The Restricted Sites are ok, only the ones that must be there. Now, about the Hosts files, what should I do about them?
Thanks for your reaply

Ricardo

 

Hi Ricardo.

OK, this, as I said would be a verrry long shot and I highly doubt it's the cause.

Navigate to:

C:/WINDOWS/system 32/drivers/etc

Inside the 'etc' folder you will see a file called 'hosts' no extension.

Right click, Select Open with...... choose Notepad if that's an option.
If you do not have an 'Open with.......' option, just choose Open.
A window will pop up telling you cannot open this file.
But at bottom there is Option to 'Select the program from a list'.
Check that and hit OK.
A list will open, scroll and find Notepad, then hit OK.

Now, look in there, and see if you can find any sites listed may look like:

127.0.01 http://www.orkut.com/

and any other sites you are having trouble with.

IF they are listed, highlight the lines and delete the entries, and ONLY those entries.

Once you have done that [if only those are there] click on the X in Notepad, a warning will ask to 'Save Changes', select YES/OK.

Then you should be right.

See screenshot, important you do not delete highlighted entry I have marked.
Those other entries I have listed block bad sites.
If you have never used a HOSTS file, then yours will look a lot different to mine, don't worry.

As I said, this is a looooong shot.

Cheers, TAS

 

Ay Tas mate, was waiting for you to make it back.
I recall awhile ago I modified this to avoid the nasties, localhost loop thing.

Question : Were the entries I see added by you (to speed things up)?

GF

 

Hi GF

Many people here run HOSTS to stop unwanted ads/parasites getting thru, or completely blocking the main domain of very bad sites themselves... or blocking unsavoury sites from being viewable as in porn sites.

eg: ads from doubleclick.. if you add 127.0.0.1 ad.doubleclick.net, any ads from dc will be blocked from view on the web page you are on as per explanation in link I gave below.

I could go onto a long spiel about it, but your best bet is to read a site's description about HOSTS yourself.

TRY THIS SITE GF

Actually, you can also in Google type [without quotes] 'what+are+hosts+files' and get heaps of sites with hosts files and explanations.

Have fun.

Cheers, TAS

 

ANOTHER GOOD SITE

TAS

PS.... yes, forgot, it will help speed up surfing if a page you go to has blockable items in it.

 

Sorry 'bout that, I only took a quick look at your screenie. I didn't notice those sites to be foul .

I've googled all those others you mentioned as I was in the process of a reply (ricardo). I'm running IE-SpyADs myself,
and am sure thats the visual difference (spyad in IE). Besides, I rename my HOSTS file (RenHosts.bat assist) on the fly.

Thanks for your time and follow-up. Didn't mean to promote CTS .
(Love those screenies lol).

GF

 

Hi Tassie,
I took a look at it, but it did not have the sites there, so thats not the problem. This is really weird. And like I said, I have no access to this sites in any browser.

Brgds
Ricardo

 

i use a big hosts file and ive heard that a large hosts file can, but probably will not, slow down pages loading in xp, and to correct this you should disable DNS caching. i disabled DNS client in services, im fairly sure this is correct, do you know about this? i was going to ask about this as i just did this after my recent reinstall

 

Hi Ricardo, have a look at the bottom of this page.

ICE, you read correctly. You can "stop" DNS services from running and set to manual. Do some surfing and check,
most likely it will NOT be running...

GF

 

Hi GF

Locking the HOSTS File, it's not a bad ideia, now that I know what's for.
But, like I said, the sites I am not able to access, are not there, and when I ask
my friends to access them, they can whithout any problem. And also, my HOSTS file is small, just 22Kb.
Thanks for your sugestion.

Brgds
Ricardo

 

Hang in there Ricardo, my suspicions grow. Sorry I'm unable to assist to deeply, as I'm a little short on experience.
I noticed that niggling DNSerror in your first post, and am googling a few queries on possible solutions.
Have you recently had any unusual system behavior? Can you reach your email OK?
In the meantime, you might doublecheck your connection configuration.

Again, please don't rush here. I'm hoping someone with knowledge of this will drop in.....

Additional thought, open a command prompt and type : SFC /SCANNOW
If this turns up OK, try one of the online scanners on this excellent page to maybe rule out a possible damaged winsock.

Feel free to check out some of the topics surrounding XP at this "Super Site,"
http://www.theeldergeek.com/

Keep us posted...

GF

 

thanks, GF. but what i did was set it to disable, i checked dependencies, and looked it up at uksecurity and it seems you can safely disable DNS client. anyway, ive had no problems since i did it. thanks

 

Ice, I felt comfortable suggesting that because :

1. I like and trust Black Viper's suggestions. He's direct, and to the point.

2. I have this set to manual (safe bet) and have never found it running.

BV's "Service Configurations"

GF

 

Hi GF,

Well, I know I have to be patient, recently I had a big problem with a trojan netdc.exe, and it took me 3 weeks before I was able to manualy delete the trojan, with the help of forums, so now, I run at least twice a day Xoftspy, Spybot SD, System Mechanic 4, Spy Sweeper, Ad-aware 6, Bazooka Spywarescanner, and I have SpywareBlaster and Spywareguard, so, I don't think as of now, that is a spyware related, but, I'll be running a few online scans just to be on the safe side. Since I am not an expert, I'll keep looking for the advises from the experts here.

Thanks
Ricardo

 

Ricardo, did you ever open your "HOSTS" file in notepad, and if so, was xxx.orkut.com (x used to avoid active link) in there? Excuse me for not getting back sooner, there was another issue. If you tell me it's not there, we'll move along . If it is, carefully remove ONLY that line and try to connect. Keep me updated.....

GF

 

Hi GF,
No problem.
Yes, after Tassie told me to, I opened the HOSTS file, and none of the url were listed there. Also I did some ping/tracert, here are the results:

C:\>tracert www.pop.com.br

Tracing route to www.pop.com.br [200.175.8.151]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 * * * Request timed out.
2 * * * Request timed out.


C:\>tracert www.orkut.com

Tracing route to www.orkut.com [64.233.171.85]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 * * * Request timed out.
2 * * * Request timed out.

Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.

Cing www.pop.com.br

Pinging www.pop.com.br [200.175.8.151] with 32 bytes of data:

Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.

Ping statistics for 200.175.8.151:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4 (100% loss),

C:\>nslookup www.orkut.com
DNS request timed out.
timeout was 2 seconds.
*** Can't find server name for address 10.1.1.1: Timed out
Server: resolver1.telesp.net.br
Address: 200.204.0.10

Non-authoritative answer:
Name: www.orkut.com
Address: 64.233.171.85
==================================


C:\>tracert kallio.cs.hut.fi

Tracing route to kallio.cs.hut.fi [130.233.41.46]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 31 ms 29 ms 29 ms 200-100-11-196.dsl.telesp.net.br [200.100.11.196]
2 29 ms 29 ms 29 ms 200-204-209-1.dsl.telesp.net.br [200.204.209.1]
3 29 ms 29 ms 29 ms 201-0-2-121.dsl.telesp.net.br [201.0.2.121]
4 29 ms 29 ms 29 ms 201-0-2-25.dsl.telesp.net.br [201.0.2.25]
5 860 ms 861 ms 860 ms 200-148-160-173.bbone.tdatabrasil.net.br [200.148.160.173]
6 851 ms 861 ms 860 ms P-9-2-br-spo-co-tg1.bbone.tdatabrasil.net.br [200.153.4.206]
7 891 ms 860 ms 850 ms So5-0-3-0-grtsaoco1.red.telefonica-wholesale.net [213.140.50.181]
8 841 ms 840 ms 851 ms So4-0-0-0-grtsaosi1.red.telefonica-wholesale.net [213.140.37.181]
9 971 ms 981 ms 981 ms P6-3-grtmiabr1.red.telefonica-wholesale.net [213.140.37.150]
10 1001 ms 991 ms 991 ms P14-2-grtwaseq1.red.telefonica-wholesale.net [213.140.37.101]
11 170 ms 180 ms 180 ms ash-bb1-pos7-0-2.telia.net [213.248.88.21]
12 1001 ms 1001 ms 1001 ms 213.248.80.137
13 1101 ms 1091 ms 1111 ms 213.248.64.33
14 299 ms 300 ms 300 ms s-bb2-pos7-0-0.telia.net [213.248.65.30]
15 300 ms 300 ms 290 ms s-b4-pos5-0.telia.net [213.248.66.14]
16 1101 ms 1121 ms 1131 ms nordunet-102720-s-b4.c.telia.net [213.248.101.154]
17 1129 ms 1111 ms 1121 ms 193.10.68.46
18 289 ms 290 ms 290 ms 193.10.68.98
19 300 ms 290 ms 290 ms 193.166.187.181
20 1131 ms 1131 ms 1121 ms gw-2-funet-ge.hut.fi [130.233.231.226]
21 * * * Request timed out.
22 1121 ms 1121 ms 1121 ms wall.niksula.cs.hut.fi [130.233.40.253]
23 301 ms 290 ms 290 ms kallio.cs.hut.fi [130.233.41.46]

Trace complete.

 

Ricardo,

My setup is based on the "safe" settings at this page, recommended by many good sites.
You may want to give this a quick check. Also take a look that your (firewall?) isn't blocking here.

Make sure your DNS settings are correct for your isp, bottom of details tab.
Are you able to ping your ip server address in network connections?

If those checkout, maybe it's related to your DNS cache. When xp looks in the cache and finds a negative entry,
it gives an error message without going to the site. Try this.

Open the command prompt and type : ipconfig /flushdns
(This may not work due to IP configuration).

Then try to connect to those sites.
You can also obtain more info about your IP address like this,

Open that command prompt again and type : ipconfig /all

This will provide still more info : netstat -s
(will display stats for each protocol, use netstat -r to display the routing info).

I also executed a tracert to the kalloi address and received a "timed out" notification (#21). Is this your ISP?
See what you can work with. For security purposes, be careful how you post results!


GF

 

I’ve tried a different approached this weekend, I turn off all security in my PC, win firewall, mcafee internet security and firewall and AVG. Then I try the URL that I was having trouble, and there they were, I had access to them (Orkut and POP), so I started to turn back on, one by one, to see which one would give trouble again, and find out it was the Mcafee firewall. I still don’t know why it was blocking the url, but, after I look everywhere in its settings, and did not find any indication of the sites in it, I decide to get the IPs from the sites by ping, and include them in the Advanced task, Block IP addresses, and them unlocking the IPs. Well, it worked, although I think it is stupid to have to do that, since it was working fine before, but why argue now, it is working. So, thanks to all the help given.

Brgds
Ricardo

 

Well I'm glad someone figured it out I have McAfee on my system too (part of my new pc option ), and I'll be the first
to admit some things aren't too straight-up (find their website difficult to navigate also).

See, your method to resolve is a lot like mine. You were self-sufficient about the problem, systematically eliminating the variables (one by one, and on your own). It's still nice to hear other ideas surrounding a problem, so long as they're genuine. Opens up a few more avenues.....

Like I said earlier, I'm no pro and lacking experience in some areas of pc diagnostics, but this was a really good thread for me to be involved with, learned a bit myself! Prior to you dropping those command line functions on me, really didn't know what to expect.

I'd like to really thank you for coming back with the cause of the issue, and your method of resolve. Most of the time people looking for help just get what they need and we never hear from them again, sad thing for anyone volunteering their time to help out. But for the few who make it back to finish the thread one way or another, there is satisfaction......

Thanks again,
GF

 

Hi GF,

I think it is important to give feed back, if all just as a cortesie, but also,
to let everyone knows how the problem was solved, sometimes I just scrool
here just to see the problems and solutions. Although I am no expert, I
beleive that if it worked for me, it may work for someone else also.
Anyway, it is great to have sites like this to come to find help and solutions,
maybe one day I'll learn enougth to help also.

Brgds
Ricardo

 

Sound's like you already know a lot more than me.
Appreciate your courtesy very much Ricardo.

I feel it's very important to get back to the place one originally asked for help.
It's both common courtesy and helpful for others encountering the same sort of problems...

GF