MTN DNS problem - Websites not Loading

[thinga]

I'm working on a website. We get a reasonable amount of traffic, but nothing at all from MTN. We've also had ppl using MTN contact us, to let us know that they cannot access our website.

I've looked into it a bit, and it seems the problem is related to MTN's DNS nameserver. When I use MTN's nameservers, I'm also unable to load our website - I always get "Server not found" in Firefox, or "Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage".

MTN's DNS server's are 209.212.96.1
209.212.97.1

I've also noticed that if I carry on surfing with these nameservers, other perfectly functioning websites don't load.

-Has anyone noticed this as well?

 

[Bukabi]

Yes, had the same problem this morning on 3G. Have not used it since, so not sure whether it is fixed or not.
Connects fine, browse for 3min. and then nothing.Connection does not drop though.

 

[atmosphere]

i've been saying they have DNS errors for MONTHS now..

Phone 083 900 1212 to find out if there are - or notify them of network problems.... the more ppl phone - the quicker they will realise there's a real problem in an area

 

[thinga]

Glad others have noticed this also! thanx atmosphere for the number - will phone to bug them about this.

Our website is an e-commerce site (www.thingamathing.co.za), so losing ALL MTN visitors for the last few months is obviously quite serious for us....

I think it's even more serious for MTN users that they're not able to open all websites! But I suppose you tend to think the problem is with the website - not with your ISP's DNS servers - so it's probably one of those things that goes quite unnoticed.

 

[atmosphere]

Nope - i'm on MTN and i can't get into that site either

 

[Voldemort]

I m staff and i cant get on that site- what indeed are you selling?

 

[Skeptik]

I spent a good while trying to explain the DNS issue to 'data support'. That was weeks ago so it should have filtered up the line by now ...

 

[Skeptik]

The error msg is unusual for me on FF:

"Unable to connect

Firefox can't establish a connection to the server at www.thingamathing.co.za."

 

[thinga]

Thanx guys - that confirms we have a problem!

snakepit: Thingamathing sells women's underwear, but of the everyday variety, not the saucy type! so it's not an adult website.

Skeptik: From what I've researched, that is often a DNS issue - the website doesn't even start to load, because the DNS server isn't pointing at it. The IE errors are more helpful (surprisingly!). One of them is "The Domain Name Server (DNS) does not have a listing for the website's domain." Since all the other possible explanations do not explain why only MTN users cannot access our website, this seems the most likely explanation.

I have phoned MTN support on 083 1555. I managed to get them to escalate the problem to an engineer, who spoke to me for a very long time, so we discussed the problem quite thoroughly. They are now escalating it to the networking department, so hopefully someone will have a look at the DNS servers and see if anything is up...

 

[hanno p990i]

Well don't know if this is now cleared up , but I am on MTN and managed to connect your site from the link. AM in Bloem.

Also by typing into adres bar.

Hanno

 

[thinga]

Just a VERY delayed update.... (sorry guys). The problem initially cleared up, then returned, and now it seems to have been sorted out for quite a while!!! We've got lots of MTN customers, so I'm very grateful to MTN for sorting this out - thanks.