Hatrack River Forum: How come my computer can get Hatrack but not anything else?

This is topic How come my computer can get Hatrack but not anything else? in forum Books, Films, Food and Culture at Hatrack River Forum.

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Posted by PSI Teleport (Member # 5545) on :

I can't go to Weather.com, MSN, google, or anything!

Nor can I click on any of the links here at Hatrack.

[ August 04, 2004, 04:46 PM: Message edited by: PSI Teleport ]

Posted by Corwin (Member # 5705) on :

Jane, stop messing with PSI's computer ! [Wink]

Posted by Papa Moose (Member # 1992) on :

Well, if you're only gonna have one site available, I'd say you hit the jackpot.

Posted by Little_Doctor (Member # 6635) on :

Amen

Posted by Richard Berg (Member # 133) on :

Browser? OS? Error message?

Posted by PSI Teleport (Member # 5545) on :

Firefox, XP, "Could not connect to www.weather.com" or "Attempt failed" or similar. It's as if I have no connection at all, like I'm not online. But the modem looks normal and I can still get Hatrack.

Posted by Richard Berg (Member # 133) on :

Chances are a DNS server is down but Hatrack is cached. Try using a "spare" -- I'm at work, but I think 152.3.150.1/2 are Duke's (unrestricted [Cool]

) servers which I always use in a pinch.

If that doesn't help, start pinging things from inside out until something fails. Your loopback? Your gateway? One of your ISP's routers? Google?

Posted by PSI Teleport (Member # 5545) on :

If it were cached, should my responses still be getting recorded?

And I don't know what it means to "ping things from the inside out."

Unless, I DO know what you're talking about, in which case: [Eek!]

Dude, you work at Duke? My friend did/is doing TIP this year and it's his last year. He's sad. [Frown]

I did TIP when I was in seventh grade, and it was so cool. I wanted to go to Duke.

[ August 04, 2004, 05:30 PM: Message edited by: PSI Teleport ]

Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :

Try this little test: from a dos window, type "ping google.com", then try "ping 216.239.39.99"

Do you get different results fro the two?

Posted by PSI Teleport (Member # 5545) on :

ARGH! It's all working again, and I wanted to try it! [Mad]

Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :

Poor baby. Her compter's working correctly. [Razz]

Posted by PSI Teleport (Member # 5545) on :

But now I'll never know WHY it was messed up! What if it happens again and it was something I could prevent! It's not fair.

Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :

You probably had the Hatrack Filter set too high. Anything non-Hatrackian couldn't get through.

Either that, or your computer decided that you really needed to see something here.

Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :

God was telling you something....what it was i have no idea, but you could always ask Bob...he's marrying into God's family, you know..... [Big Grin]

Kwea

Posted by TMedina (Member # 6649) on :

PSI - it was a sign. God valued your presence on HatCrack. You had something to accomplish and He needed to ensure your task was complete. [Big Grin]

-Trevor

Posted by PSI Teleport (Member # 5545) on :

Hmm, I wonder which world changing thing I did during that time? *looks at past posts*

Posted by Richard Berg (Member # 133) on :

Sorry, I assumed I could be overly terse with a Firefox user. Better explanation:

In addition to the big machines that actually route your packets, ISPs have additional servers in place to translate URLs like "hatrack.com" into IP addresses like "123.123.123.123." If this so-called DNS translation isn't working, your browser won't be able to turn names into numbers aside from any mappings it's stored locally, even though your actual packets are getting through ok.

Aside from being typically run by ISPs, there's nothing special about a DNS server; you communicate by ordinary TCP/IP. Thus, if your connection is up, any one will do -- some geeks even run their own. I memorized Duke's while I was an inquisitive undergrad there and still use them when I need a backup.

Pinging is a more general troubleshooting tool to see whether you can reach a host machine at all (not 100% reliable recently since many admins turn off ICMP, but anyway...). If you're a nerd like me you've probably memorized the IP addresses of the first few routers between you and the rest of the world. For example, a test sequence might look something like this:

127.0.0.1 (loopback address, aka yourself -- failure here means a bad/misconfigured IP stack)
192.168.1.1 (internal IP of your broadband router -- your PC will call it its gateway)
209.42.198.141 (internet-routable IP of Time Warner's local DSL hub -- your router will call it its gateway)
...
216.239.37.99 (one of Google's webservers)

Posted by PSI Teleport (Member # 5545) on :

Okay, thank you. I'll admit that I only use Firefox because Fugu suggested it and I love it. I'm only an intermediate computer user.

Posted by Shigosei (Member # 3831) on :

Well, the same thing has just happened to me. I can get on Hatrack, but I can't click on links. I tried the pinging from the outside, and I couldn't ping the 192.168.1.1 address, nor could I ping google.

[ August 26, 2004, 10:09 PM: Message edited by: Shigosei ]

Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :

Try putting some tinfoil on the rabbit ears; that usually does the trick.

Posted by Shigosei (Member # 3831) on :

I discovered the girls next door could use the internet, so I did ipconfig /release and ipconfig /renew, then restarted my computer. Everything seems to be working now.

Posted by Bekenn (Member # 6602) on :

It certainly sounds like a (temporarily) mis-configured DNS issue to me. Glad it's all working again.