Some websites not loading. (Post Office Broadband)

smoker99

Hi, for the past week I've been unable to access certain websites whilst others are loading perfectly normally. For example I can access MSE and the BBC without problems but yet others will not load at all, notably http://www.travelex.co.uk and http://www.nationalexpress.com and some only partially load like facebook.

I'm on a netgear wi-fi connection and I've updated the firmware, tried using a free DNS (which helped but didn't cure the problem) and tried shutting down my antivirus and firewall but nothing gives. I was however able to access the above sites by connecting through proxies in different parts of the world but still cannot connect through my own ISP, even using an ethernet cable.

Without getting too technical I wonder if anyone has any ideas as to what could be the problem and if maybe I'm missing something glaringly obvious? I have three laptops and yet cannot access these websites on any of them. I've phoned the Post Office and now they've escalated the problem and their tech guys should be in touch in a day or two but is there anything else I should be trying?

Thanks in advance.

sho_me_da_money

Weird one.

But by process of elimination - you've proved the issue does not reside on the device. Rather the culprit is the ISP or the configuation of your networking device.

Do you have a spare router, you can exchange the current one with?

smoker99

sho_me_da_money wrote: »

Do you have a spare router, you can exchange the current one with?

Hi, thx for that.

Coincidentally since I began this thread I've tried exchanging the Netgear router for the cheaper looking standard issue Zyxel one that was originally supplied by the P.O. and the same websites remain inaccessible, so I'm almost certain the problem now lies with the ISP.

I've just one more idea and that is to re-format the drive on my netbook and re-install the OS leaving it set up just as it was when it left the factory. I rarely use it anyway but the Norton antivirus package it has installed is common to all three devices and has just been upgraded. I don't hold out much hope that it will cure anything but I'll give it a go just to be sure.

Thanks again for taking the time to reply, it's really appreciated.

steve1980

Sounds like a hosts file problem

Figment

To rule out the laptops find a free public wifi hotspot to log onto and test a couple of the sites you've been unable to access from home.

smoker99

Figment wrote: »

To rule out the laptops find a free public wifi hotspot to log onto and test a couple of the sites you've been unable to access from home.

Hi thx for the suggestion.

Yes, I thought of that and took one of the laptops around to a neighbours house who is with BT and I could connect to the websites without a problem. I know it sounds drastic but I wiped and re-formatted the hard drive on my netbook and restored it to factory condition last night and ran it without any antivirus or firewalls but still no joy so I can completely rule out a software fault. As stated in a previous post I also tried exchanging the netgear router for the standard issue P.O. unit and the websites remained inaccessible. I've even exchanged the adsl filter at the wall socket.

I'm now completely out of ideas and as sure as I can be that the fault is with my ISP.

steve1980 wrote: »

Sounds like a hosts file problem

I'm sorry, I have no idea what that is but I'm going to go and look it up.

Thanks

steve1980

The hosts file is found in \system32\drivers\etc\hosts

Copy and paste anything below:

127.0.0.1 localhost

esuhl

Sounds like it could be a DNS issue. Unless you've modified the hosts file yourself or have installed some malicious software that blocks certain websites, I wouldn't have thought it would be the hosts file... (worth a look, though).

On your router's web interfacem you should be able to specify the DNS servers you use. Presumably you're currently using the ones provided by your ISP. Note down what they are and see if changing to a third-party provider like OpenDNS fixes the issue. The OpenDNS servers are:

208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220

If it works with OpenDNS, then the problem is with your ISP's DNS servers.

EDIT: Before making the changes above, what happens if you go to http://194.73.231.45/home.aspx ? That should take you to the National Express website using the IP address and thus bypassing a DNS lookup (although some scripts don't load for some reason, so the web page will look weird and might not function correctly, but you should see something).

smoker99

Thank you to everyone who has taken the time read this thread and to share their ideas.

As an update I've just had the Post Office on the phone and they're now aware of a fault in my area and are working to fix the problem within the next 24 hours or so.

Shame it took over a week to get them to take the problem seriously but there we are. Hopefully normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.

(

esuhl wrote: »

EDIT: Before making the changes above, what happens if you go to http://194.73.231.45/home.aspx ? That should take you to the National Express website using the IP address and thus bypassing a DNS lookup (although some scripts don't load for some reason, so the web page will look weird and might not function correctly, but you should see something).

It still doesn't load.

I tried using the OpenDNS servers a few days ago and although it helped for a while to access some websites it wasn't a 100% solution.

Thanks)

Deru

I had a call from someone with similar issues. Facebook wasn't loading images and Amazon was being slow... I set it to Google DNS servers and that seemed to resolve it. 8.8.8.8 / 8.8.4.4

I don't see why OpenDNS's servers only worked for a few days for the OP but maybe try Google's? Maybe also do Ctrl + F5 to do a hard refresh.

smoker99

Deru wrote: »

I had a call from someone with similar issues. Facebook wasn't loading images and Amazon was being slow... I set it to Google DNS servers and that seemed to resolve it. 8.8.8.8 / 8.8.4.4

I don't see why OpenDNS's servers only worked for a few days for the OP but maybe try Google's? Maybe also do Ctrl + F5 to do a hard refresh.

Hi Deru.

Yes photos not loading is exactly the problem I'm having with Facebook, and I've just tried accessing Amazon without success. However I reset my router with the free Google DNS settings as you suggested and although I can then access Amazon I still can't access National Express or Travelex. The BBC is down for me today also.

Seems it's now just a case of waiting for the engineers to sort the problem before it drives me completely insane.

Thanks