Kevin's Watch

I just spent 3 days in general, and the last 6 hours in particular, tearing my hair out (figuratively speaking of course since it's all shaved off again) at the fact that while some sites worked just fine, I couldn't get into google or any page that displayed something from google in any way. Just got a gateway timeout every time.

I did everything I could think of...scans for malware, scans through the registry, downloading/updating progs, going through firewall logs...every bloody thing all day long.

Finally, I resigned myself...two pc's to backup, format, and reload. Days more worth of work.

Phoned a friend to borrow his big external HD, and he asked if I'd checked if my service provider was having DNS resolution issues.

Guess what...

:LOL:

(At least the Watch works. )

--A

You try using your host file, Av?

Ha, thanks. Now that I didn't try.

I did try entering the IP directly, and that worked, the problem was that the search results pages had different IP's, so although I could get the initial page, I still couldn't go further because the ISP couldn't resolve the results either, so I'm not sure it would have worked, since from what I can see, you'd have to have every possible page in that file to prevent the lookup from querying the DNS server for the page you wanted..in the case, the search results page.

I did think of using a public dns gateway, but since, as of today, the ISP's resolution probs seem to have been...resolved, I've stopped worrying about it.

Still...I think I might do a bit of editing to that file anyway...might save a few precious seconds.

This topic was more along the lines of "it's always the last thing you try..."

I'm only grateful that I didn't have to do a reload.

Reminded me of once, years back, I was trying to get somebodies machine online...and no matter what I did, it wouldn't see the modem. Finally as an absolute last resort I opened the box...only to find that the COM port wasn't plugged in to the motherboard.

--A

As someone who has maintained DNS at a known telecom company, I can tell you that it's very picky with regard to syntax. A big problem here is that the original zone files have a certain syntax with its own quirks while the configuration files that came with later versions have a totally different syntax. Generally a syntax error in the configuration file will break the startup or reload, then you know right away something is wrong. But goof a line in the middle of a zone file and it will print a single line in a log file and happily ignore the rest of that file and move on so you get what looks like a successful startup/reload and you don't know what's wrong until people start calling in. Then you go back through the logs and you discover that one little line...