Very odd behavior!

I can't figure this one out. Please help!

[JCKline]

This is my first time in this part of the forums, so I hope my issue fits here. I have a Mac OSX and since yesterday my website won't load, yet every other site I visit does. It won't load in FF and Safari? When I try a PC with IE and FF, it loads fine. What could the issue be? I thought it was the server and contacted support. They loaded it fine in several browsers. I can't figure it out. Please, any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Also, I can view it with a proxy server, not directly?

[SteveWh]

Some ideas:

Restart your computer, in case a configuration setting somewhere has gotten messed up.

At least in Windows, I believe that if a site is inaccessible more than a few times (or a few minutes or longer), that situation is remembered, and the system quits trying until the TTL (time to live) of the last response has expired (about a day). I've encountered that, and a system restart fixed it. Clearing the local DNS cache probably also would, but I don't remember how, and not on OSX.

It's also possible that browsers might do the same thing. It might be worth clearing your browser cache, even though that wouldn't directly address this "remembered inaccessibility" thing.

Then, if still a problem:

Check your "hosts" file for entries mentioning your website name.

If you have a ping or tracert (trace route) tool, try tracing the route to the IP address directly to check the path.

Try changing your DNS service provider, such as to something like OpenDNS.


Some of the underlying questions are:

Are you getting a correct IP address in response to DNS queries for your site?
Is your computer (and firewall, and ISP, and antivirus, if any) permitting traffic between you and that IP?
Are your browsers blocking traffic to/from your site for some reason?

[JCKline]

Thank you for the response. I will look into these. Also, I'm having the same problem from work on a PC, so I don't think it's the computer. Some I've tested work, others don't?

[JCKline]

You mentioned changing DNS. This may be the issue. I had changed the DNS to CloudFlare for two days, then back to the old DNS after having issues. Corrupt DNS cache perhaps? What can be done if anything?

[SteveWh]

In Windows, a system restart completely clears the local DNS cache for a fresh start.

If CloudFlare didn't return a response for your site, I think that might be able to cause an issue that could last a little while, but a restart should have fixed it.

Maybe try accessing your site by its IP address instead of its name, avoiding DNS lookup: hxxp://nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn/ .

[JCKline]

Thanks SteveWh. I can access it now on my Mac. I'll try this on the PC.