Cant Access Specific Websites

  • Thread starter Thread starter Glen
  • Start date Start date
G

Glen

I'm running Windows ME with an Earthlink DSL connection
and IE 6.0.2800.1106. I can access the vast majority of
websites. My homepage is google, I use weather.com every
day. However, there are several sites that I simply
cannot access: www.adobe.com, www.lexmark.com,
www.bmw.com. For example, when I try www.adobe.com I get
this error message:

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

I assume there are more, but these are the ones I know
about.

Why can I get to 99.9% of sites, but not these?

Glen
 
Glen said:
I'm running Windows ME with an Earthlink DSL connection
and IE 6.0.2800.1106. I can access the vast majority of
websites. My homepage is google, I use weather.com every
day. However, there are several sites that I simply
cannot access: www.adobe.com, www.lexmark.com,
www.bmw.com. For example, when I try www.adobe.com I get
this error message:

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

I assume there are more, but these are the ones I know
about.

Why can I get to 99.9% of sites, but not these?

Glen
Click to expand...

Check for a file named HOSTS with no extension (not Hosts.sam). It may be a
hidden file. Open it with Notepad and remove any line referencing the site.
Or, rename HOSTS to OLDHOSTS
 
I've been experiencing this myself but with different sites --
www.jcpenney.com, www.shopping.hp.com are a couple of examples. I've been
watching related threads on this subject for about a week and trying
everything that everyone has recommended, including this one, but have had
no success whatsoever.

The only thing that I have been able to figure out [I think] so far is that
the sites I am having trouble with seem to be being re-directed. In the
case of www.jcpenney.com, my machines that are working properly actually end
up on ww1.jcpenney.com. On the machine I'm having trouble with I can access
www1.jcpenney.com ok but when I type in www.jcpenney.com I get a "We can't
find www.jcpenney.com/" error. In the case of of www.hpshopping.com, the
machines that are working properly end up on www.shopping.hp.com. However,
when I type the latter URL into this machine I get an error "Unable to find
www.shopping.hp.com/cgi-bin/hpdirect/shopping/scripts/product_detail/product
_detail_view.jsp?product_code=Q2114A%23ABA&AOID=85&c".

I suspect that it has something to do with either re-directs or scrips but
can't find any difference in the way my different machines are set up.

This really is driving me nuts...

Howard
==============================
 
I've been experiencing this myself but with different sites -- www.jcpenney.com, www.shopping.hp.com are a couple of examples. I've been
watching related threads on this subject for about a week and trying everything that everyone has recommended, including this one, but have had
no success whatsoever.

The only thing that I have been able to figure out [I think] so far is that the sites I am having trouble with seem to be being re-directed. In the
case of www.jcpenney.com, my machines that are working properly actually end up on ww1.jcpenney.com. On the machine I'm having trouble with I can access www1.jcpenney.com ok but when I type in www.jcpenney.com I get a "We can't find www.jcpenney.com/" error. In the case of of www.hpshopping.com, the machines that are working properly end up on www.shopping.hp.com. However, when I type the latter URL into this machine I get an error "Unable to find www.shopping.hp.com/cgi-bin/hpdirect/shopping/scripts/product_detail/product_detail_view.jsp?product_code=Q2114A%23ABA&AOID=85&c".

I suspect that it has something to do with either authentication, re-directs or scrips but can't find any difference in the way my different machines are set up.

This really is driving me nuts...

Howard
==============================
 
Frank,

I opened the file HOSTS and there are no references to any
websites in it.

Any other thoughts?

Glen
 
Glen said:
Frank,

I opened the file HOSTS and there are no references to any
websites in it.

Any other thoughts?

Glen
Click to expand...

Sorry, but no.
I can't think of what else would cause that.
 
when I try www.adobe.com I get this error message:
http://search.msn.com/dnserror.aspx?
FORM=DNSAS&q=www.adobe.com
Click to expand...

This suggests to me that you are trying to enter the URL without the
protocol prefix and apparently for some reason then falling into
AutoSearch mode.

As Howard suggested that domain name appears to be an alias.
If your DNS is not storing aliases IE might be timing out the lookup
request and then issuing the AutoSearch request you are seeing
as an "error message". (I don't know that there is such a "timeout";
it just happens to be a useful hypothesis.)

FWIW here is what my nslookup shows for that name:
<example>
Non-authoritative answer:
Name: www.wip3.adobe.com
Addresses: 192.150.18.61, 192.150.19.60, 192.150.19.61, 192.150.14.120
192.150.18.60
Aliases: www.adobe.com
</example>

In case your DNS caches its lookups for at least a few seconds
see what happens if you first ping the site (not for the ping reply
but for the DNS lookup it does.)

ping www.adobe.com -n 1

You might be lucky and find then that the lookup that IE tries to do
wouldn't "time out".

An alternative would be as Howard suggests to use the real name
(or one of the IP addresses) instead. But prefix it with a protocol
in case IE tries to time it out too.

At least I would hope that that could prevent your "error message".
However, depending on how the page is coded you might see other
symptoms like Red-X if the same problem occurs trying to load
image files, etc.


Good luck

Robert Aldwinckle
 
Frank Saunders said:
Sorry, but no.
I can't think of what else would cause that.
Click to expand...

Well - this has bemused me for ages too...same sites,
www.hpshopping.com - but if anyone is interested then I accidentally
stumbled on a workaround. If you have the google search bar in IE6 -
type the url into that - it takes you staight to the correct site !!!.

Regards
Dave
 
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