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| Thread ID: 53942 | 2005-01-31 20:06:00 | Cannot reach some websites | Atreides (7000) | Press F1 |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 319824 | 2005-01-31 20:06:00 | For some reason one of my computers cannot reach some websites. It just hangs on "Waiting for <something>..." Normally it's waiting for an ad server. It can't reach HowStuffWorks or pcworld, for example. I'm using my other computer to post this, because it can't get to PressF1. It is a 2.8 GHz P4 with 1GB of RAM running Windows XP Home. I have 2 Mbps TelstraClear broadband (Though I'm lucky if it runs at half that speed normally, unrelated issue.) I have Norton Systemworks, ZoneAlarm (Free), Spybot S&D, Ad-aware SE. I normally use Firefox for internet browsing, but IE can't reach these sites either. Heh, IE just says "Waiting...", while Firefox provides the more useful message of just what server it is that it's waiting for. Because it gets stuck on ad servers, I assumed that it was going to be one of the Anti-virus / Anti-spyware / Firewall programs. But all except Norton are on this computer too and it can get to the sites fine. And I close down all the programs and it still gets stuck. Before I discovered that those sites work on this computer I'd thought that it could be Telstra's broadband failing. But this computer works. It's not the DSE router, cos this computer works. Seems it must be something that is only on the affected computer. I'll have another go at turning Norton off - even when you turn "Auto-protect" off it's still running, so I might do a bit of Ctrl-Alt-Deleting. Atreides |
Atreides (7000) | ||
| 319825 | 2005-01-31 20:19:00 | Check hosts file. Read through a few pages as this problem has been brought up a few times in the last few days. | ninja (1671) | ||
| 319826 | 2005-01-31 20:28:00 | Hosts....file? What is hosts... file? Nah, I've heard of it, but never used it. Where is it? And what kind of pie should I feed it to make it like me? |
Atreides (7000) | ||
| 319827 | 2005-01-31 20:34:00 | You can find your Hosts file in C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc Drag the file into Notepad (or "Open With" Notepad) and remove all entries below this line: 127.0.0.1 localhost Save the file but ensure that you use the drop-down box in Save As Type and choose All Files otherwise it will add a .txt extension. The Hosts file does not have an extension. Let us know how you get on. |
FoxyMX (5) | ||
| 319828 | 2005-01-31 20:40:00 | Start --> Search --> Hosts Post the contents of the file. |
ninja (1671) | ||
| 319829 | 2005-01-31 23:38:00 | Yeap, in hosts there were hundreds of 127.0.0.1 addresses stuck in by Spybot S&D (there was a comment that said so). So while having those adservers blocked is in theory a good idea, saving bandwidth, it was obviously causing trouble with reaching some sites. I removed all of Spybot's stuff (after backing it up, of course) and now the sites which I previously could not reach work fine. Thanks for your help. |
Atreides (7000) | ||
| 319830 | 2005-02-01 01:13:00 | What you could have done is found out the addresses of the sites preventing your web access and deleted just those entries from your Hosts file. | FoxyMX (5) | ||
| 319831 | 2005-02-01 19:42:00 | That's true, and I may still do that - I didn't entirely delete all the blocked entries. Just copied the hosts file and cleared one of 'em out. ad.doubleclick.net has to be allowed, and so does at least one more. PCWorld.co.nz uses ad.doubleclick.net for something.... I installed Windows 98 SE on a craptacular old computer my brother recently got. It's so old it struggles to run 98. Really. It's like running XP on a 400MHz. I'm not sure quite how slow it actually is, but it's slow. I reformatted C before installing 98 - the computer had an original install of 95 on it so I figured it would probably be best to start from clean. Isn't it just FUN typing "format c:" at a command line?! We'd been trying to set up networking (for broadband internet) on the thing while it was still in 95-land. Bought a network card and stuck it in, but couldn't get the thing to go. 10 minutes after 98 finishes installing, everything's sweet. 95 is just baaad. They might look the same, but 95 is useless. Anyway, none of this is a problem, I just thought I'd say it. The computer goes fine. My computer goes fine. All the computers go fine! ********************* ...well actually... has anyone else had trouble accessing Gmail in Firefox recently? It works in IE but Firefox gives the error in a dialog box: "The file /gmail?view=page&name=js&ver=7329c7a0c16cfe06 cannot be found. Please check the location and try again." It's been doing that on my computer since yesterday morning. ********************* |
Atreides (7000) | ||
| 319832 | 2005-02-01 20:10:00 | Did the ads.doubleclick entry in your hosts file come from Spybot S&D? AFAIK I have the Spybot entries and that isn't one of them. | PaulD (232) | ||
| 319833 | 2005-02-01 20:14:00 | I'm not entirely sure what ordering method Spybot used, but do a Find in the hosts file for "ad.doubleclick.net". It's way down below other doubleclick.net entries. Though, if you can access this site, it probably isn't there. It was definitely part of the Spybot S&D files because it was in the section with the Spybot comments, and also it was simply in the middle of the Spybot list. Different version maybe? |
Atreides (7000) | ||
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