Can't connect to some websites

waterprism

waterprism

Expert Member
Joined
Dec 26, 2007
Messages
1,186
Reaction score
68
Location
α Centauri
Hi guys,

My ADSL is down and so as a fallback, I bought an MTN prepaid data bundle and I've tethered my phone to my computer. I'm noticing that I can't connect to a lot of sites, though, when using MTN's data. This is happening through the phone's browser itself -- 'Web page not available' and through the computer -- 'This page can't be displayed' in IE and 'Unable to connect' in Firefox. Some pages are just white; no error message. I'm able to browse other pages, though, like, for example, I'm here on MyBB okay. So it's strange.

I don't use my phone's internet too often, but I don't remember this happening before. It's just today that it's suddenly happening. Anyone experiencing this?

Thanks.
 
Your antivirus program, ad or peer blocker might be the cause.
Have you tried to disable them and see if you can connect.
 
waterprism said:
Hi. Thanks. I think both. I haven't had a local site give me issues yet, but for international, I can browse some sites fine and others not. Like I can go to LiveLeak and YouTube just fine, but I can't get into http://www.cj.com/ or https://peerfly.com. That latter two just give me error pages.
Click to expand...
Some of the larger international websites are cached locally . the smaller ones are not.
 
LaraC said:
Your antivirus program, ad or peer blocker might be the cause.
Have you tried to disable them and see if you can connect.
Click to expand...

Hi. I just gave that a shot. But no go... Thanks though.

imranpanji said:
Some of the larger international websites are cached locally . the smaller ones are not.
Click to expand...

I'm also able to get into some smaller international websites, ones that likely wouldn't cache locally, so I don't think it's that.

When I was digging around, I noticed that I'm getting "IPv6: No network access" in Network and Sharing for my MTN connection. I don't know if that's related.
 
No its not ip v6,can you do a ping test? Ping 4.2.2.2 and let me know if you get reply, also ping 196.41.124.11
 
Howzit, gfmalan. Thanks. Everything seems to be okay for 4.2.2.2 and 196.41.124.11 -- sent 4 packets, received 4.

Pinging 196.41.124.11 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 196.41.124.11: bytes=32 time=616ms TTL=46
Reply from 196.41.124.11: bytes=32 time=78ms TTL=46
Reply from 196.41.124.11: bytes=32 time=104ms TTL=46
Reply from 196.41.124.11: bytes=32 time=117ms TTL=46

Google.co.za is fine too.

And then it's weird, when I ping the sites I'm having problems with, it either seems to ping localhost at 127.0.0.1 or it shows no problems, even though I still can't browse the site.

Pinging www.cj.com [127.0.0.1] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64

So I don't know. Maybe DNS problems like you say, though it's out of the blue and I'm not sure what settings to check. But thanks a lot for the idea.
 
waterprism said:
Howzit, gfmalan. Thanks. Everything seems to be okay for 4.2.2.2 and 196.41.124.11 -- sent 4 packets, received 4.

Pinging 196.41.124.11 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 196.41.124.11: bytes=32 time=616ms TTL=46
Reply from 196.41.124.11: bytes=32 time=78ms TTL=46
Reply from 196.41.124.11: bytes=32 time=104ms TTL=46
Reply from 196.41.124.11: bytes=32 time=117ms TTL=46

Google.co.za is fine too.

And then it's weird, when I ping the sites I'm having problems with, it either seems to ping localhost at 127.0.0.1 or it shows no problems, even though I still can't browse the site.

Pinging www.cj.com [127.0.0.1] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64

So I don't know. Maybe DNS problems like you say, though it's out of the blue and I'm not sure what settings to check. But thanks a lot for the idea.
Click to expand...

Looks like inaccessible websites somehow got into hosts file, resolving it to localhost and hence it tries to find websites on your computer, which non-existent.
 
Impulse_One said:
Looks like inaccessible websites somehow got into hosts file, resolving it to localhost and hence it tries to find websites on your computer, which non-existent.
Click to expand...

Hi. Do you mean the one in System32? I can't see anything odd in there at the moment, if that's the one you mean. Thanks.
 
Good Morning,

Try pinging 84.53.188.206 that is the actual address of www.cj.com

Browse to C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc and edit the file called "hosts" with notepad.
host file.jpg
It should look like above (empty) my first assumption would be that one of the lines look like
127.0.0.1 www.cj.com

Is that the case? put # infront of all the lines you don't want re-routed to yourself. Save, and try pinging again.
If there is none in the host file, in some rare cases people put it in the "lmhost" file just below the "hosts".

Then to confirm your DNS work, go to cmd, then ipconfig /all , look for your 3g adaptor/dongle and what it got the dns as, use the dns address in the lookup.
ipconfig.jpg
(This is connected to MTN)

Begin by typing "nslookup www.cj.com"

This should resolve the name, and should tell you which dns server your pc/nb uses, it should be the address in the picture (or what ever your modem has assigned) if it is say your adsl router address, then it would never resolve as you have adsl issues (disconnect from network)

Also try "nslookup 0.0.0.0 www.cj.com" (where 0.0.0.0 need to be replaced by your dns address assigned from mtn (picture))

For testers try "nslookup 196.41.124.11 www.cj.com" this would give you the 84 ip address

You can always use 8.8.8.8 or 8.8.4.4 for testing addresses if you don't find joy from the MTN assigned addresses, (but only for testing) it is Google's public dns servers, but slow as hell.
 
Last edited:
Hi, gfmalan. Thanks so much for your advice and instruction. It's appreciated.

It's interesting, when I ping the IP address for cj.com that you posted, it pings it properly with no loss. If I switch back to the actual address, it pings localhost.

I checked my hosts file. There's nothing odd going on there that I can see. It's just the default hosts file. lmhosts also looks fine.

nslookup to www.cj.com brings server: Unknown; address: 'my MTN DNS server address'; name: www.cj.com; address: 127.0.0.1 (localhost again).

When using my DNS server number with www.cj.com (nslookup xxx.xxx.etc www.cj.com), I get a server and address unknown, no response from server, etc. message.

When testing with the DNS number above, 196.41.124.11, I also get the above message:

nslookup 196.41.124.11 www.cj.com
Server: UnKnown
Address: 127.0.0.1

*** UnKnown can't find 196.41.124.11: No response from server
Click to expand...

Google's DNSs that you mentioned return the same result.

Yeah, so I don't know. I've also contacted MTN's coverage department about it and I'll have to see what they say.

I really appreciate your thoughts and time on this though. You've been really helpful. Thank you.
 
Have you tried the network trouble-shooter to connect to the site? It will give you an indication were the problem is.
You can also clear your browser history and cache to force new content to be downloaded.
 
Hi. Thanks. Yeah, I did. It doesn't show any connection problems. I've also cleared the cache, etc. and tried on IE, Chrome and Firefox... no go. Thanks.
 
Sorry that it didn't help. I did notice that gfmalan gave the direct IP for cj.com 84.53.188.206.
 
Rickster said:
Delete the current WAP settings and request a new copy *123*13#
Click to expand...

That sounded really promising. But I just get an SMS that the phone settings are not supported on my phone. It then recommends I dial 173, which I did, but it just leads back to the same error SMS. But thanks a lot for that; that and the WAP settings is something that I'll look into more.

LaraC said:
Sorry that it didn't help. I did notice that gfmalan gave the direct IP for cj.com 84.53.188.206.
Click to expand...

NP :). Yes, I tried that IP, but I think they've got it configured to go to the URL. Pinging that IP gives no problems, but the URL gives problems. Just hope I get my ADSL back up soon lol.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X