computer question

[xlogger]

I can't pull up this forum on my desk top it keeps sending me to a search. I have to  use a laptop here that I don't like using. Has anyone got a suggestion how to fix this problem? Everything else seem to work fine on the computer. Ricky

[Roxie]

You'll get a faster answer on this board.   

[POSTON WIDEHEAD]

I can't pull up this forum on my desk top it keeps sending me to a search. I have to  use a laptop here that I don't like using. Has anyone got a suggestion how to fix this problem? Everything else seem to work fine on the computer. Ricky

Ricky, if it keeps sending you to a search, what search engine is it sending you to? I have been on other people's computers and I just go to Google search and type in Forestry Forum. It sends me right to it and I just sign in with my username and password.

[Roxie]

I'm no expert by any stretch, but it might be caused by not logging out of the forum on your laptop before you try and login on the PC.

Warbird is still sleeping.  Hello!  Warbird we need you!   pc_smiley

[WH_Conley]

Something like this?

https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,60077.0.html

[xlogger]

It fix itself. Works good tonight after two days. I did try to google search, nothing work, just sent me to the same page. But I'm really bad on computers. Ricky

[Warbird]

Interesting.  I had the same thing from my home computer last night/this morning.  It appeared to be a DNS issue.  From home, I couldn't get here by name but from work, it was still cached and working fine.

I'm running FireFox on OS X.  I believe it was a DNS issue with only some providers.  That or my browser has been hijacked, but that is unlikely.

[WH_Conley]

I have 2 computers in the house. One has this same problem, the other does not.

[Warbird]

On the one that's broken, exactly what happens when you try to go to the forum?  Do you know how to open a command window on your computer?  If so, try running these 2 commands and tell me what they return:

nslookup forestryforum.com

ping forestryforum.com

The first should return the IP address of the forum.  The second will attempt to send 3 pings to the forum but I need to know if they are successful.

[Warbird]

Also, on the computer that's broken, try a different web browser if you have one available.

[WH_Conley]

I don't know what the command window is. If I go to the forum from favorites, no problem. If using the search bar I get redirected to another search.

[Warbird]

The Google search bar?  You probably have the redirect thing beenthere had, which is referenced in another recent thread here.

[WH_Conley]

Yeah. That was the thread I referenced xlogger to above to see if it was the same thing.

[xlogger]

Thanks for all the advise. But now its working  8) I'm so bad on computers I'm not touching anything. I could mess up something here. Ricky

[SwampDonkey]

Weird things happen. I've never been able to be logged in 'Forever'. Every time the browser opens anew I have to login. Happened since the last upgrade. Tried everything with Jeff. It's not a big deal, just odd. I'm thinking my trouble is a permissions thing more than anything. Some of the behind the scene things have to be just right. I know, I used to mess a little with FTP setup when everyone was still on dial-up modems.

[Warbird]

It's most likely a security thing within the browser , SD.  For instance, if you're running FireFox, you are most likely using 'Private Browsing' or have other security set.  I have mine setup the same way.  Nothing caches between sessions.

OKAY!!!  When I tried to post this message, I stopped being able to contact the FF again, just like yesterday morning.  I will post my findings and how I fixed it on the next post in this thread.

[Warbird]

So...  I was correct for my instance - it is a DNS issue.  The original poster's problem was likely something else.

Warning:  the following is for people who aren't afraid to mess up their computers.  Only do this if you are comfortable with computers.

Long story short, my ISP's DNS servers stopped resolving both forestryforum.com and www.forestryforum.com.  Here's the proof.  I explicitly entered their 2 DNS servers for the lookups:

warbird-2:~ xxxx$ nslookup www.forestryforum.com 209.165.131.13
Server:      209.165.131.13
Address:   209.165.131.13#53

** server can't find www.forestryforum.com: SERVFAIL

warbird-2:~ xxxx$ nslookup forestryforum.com 209.165.131.12
Server:      209.165.131.12
Address:   209.165.131.12#53

** server can't find forestryforum.com: SERVFAIL

warbird-2:~ xxxx$ 

As you can see, it failed in both instances.  So I forced using another names server (Google's), and it worked:

warbird-2:~ xxxx$ nslookup forestryforum.com 8.8.8.8
Server:      8.8.8.8
Address:   8.8.8.8#53

Non-authoritative answer:
Name:   forestryforum.com
Address: 209.164.108.37

warbird-2:~ xxxx$ 

I had 3 options at this point:  1. Change my primary DNS server to Google (not good for me).  2. Contact my ISP and tell them to fix their stuff and/or figure out why they have some entries falling out.  Or, 3. Fix it myself.

I opted for option 3 and will contact the ISP later today if time permits.  Here is how I fixed it:  I simply added "www.forestryforum.com" to my /etc/hosts file.  This means I've forced my computer to always resolve it to what I say, before checking DNS servers.

warbird-2:~ xxxx$ sudo vi /etc/hosts

##
# Host Database
#
# localhost is used to configure the loopback interface
# when the system is booting.  Do not change this entry.
##
127.0.0.1       localhost
255.255.255.255 broadcasthost
209.164.108.37  www.forestryforum.com

And now you can see it works, even tough my ISP's DNS servers are still not resolving the FF's name:

warbird-2:~ xxxx$ nslookup forestryforum.com 209.165.131.13
Server:      209.165.131.13
Address:   209.165.131.13#53

** server can't find forestryforum.com: SERVFAIL

warbird-2:~ xxxx$ ping www.forestryforum.com
PING forestryforum.com (209.164.108.37): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 209.164.108.37: icmp_seq=0 ttl=42 time=94.126 ms
64 bytes from 209.164.108.37: icmp_seq=1 ttl=42 time=95.461 ms
^C
--- forestryforum.com ping statistics ---
2 packets transmitted, 2 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 94.126/94.793/95.461/0.668 ms
warbird-2:~ xxxx$ 

[Warbird]

However, reverse lookups for the forum are failing across the board.  Even with Google's DNS server:

warbird-2:~ xxxx$ nslookup 209.164.108.37 8.8.8.8
Server:      8.8.8.8
Address:   8.8.8.8#53

** server can't find 37.108.164.209.in-addr.arpa.: NXDOMAIN

warbird-2:~ xxxx$

So something strange is going on.  I don't have time to research it anymore this morning.

[beenthere]

For sure have me confused.   : :

FF working for me (as far as I can tell on the surface). And I'm not diving under to see what's there, as I would surely drown.

[Warbird]

Well, my ISP's DNS servers have the FF's entry again.  Seems like there is a timeout issue somewhere in the chain such that some DNS servers aren't getting refreshes/updates, so the FF entry is allowed to age out.

And I'm wondering if the reverse lookup against Google's DNS ever worked. 

[Jeff]

I've found the problem and I'm not happy.  Apparently, the old dns servers that any domain name that I take care of, have been decommissioned, without warning. The guy I talked with said that they never were the right ones. He does not know what he is talking about. The problem is the company that hosts are dedicated servers has changed ownership and names 3 times since I became a customer. This guy does not apparently know the history, as he wanted to debate it with me.  Anyhow, now I have to try and dig up all the information I can, to go in and change the dns on every domain I've handled.  I'll start with the forestry forum.

[Warbird]

Ugh!  That's such a pain, Jeff.  Sorry.  :(

Let me know if I can help in any way.

[SwampDonkey]

It's most likely a security thing within the browser , SD.  For instance, if you're running FireFox, you are most likely using 'Private Browsing' or have other security set.  I have mine setup the same way.  Nothing caches between sessions.

I don't run my browser that way at all and nothing blocks it, I have Norman and the FF has never been blocked. Nor does Windows Firewall. The only thin I run is Noscript and ADBlocker. Noscript isn't set to block anything that would interfere with a login. ADBlocker is set to hide one element, but doesn't have anything to do with security.

Anyway, it makes no difference it's just odd. I'm on several forums and the browser or other software never interferes with logins on those forums.

Jeff, what you have in front of you sounds like a chore. Like I told ya before when I talked last over the login issue, don't waste no time on it. It not a big deal on my end.

I think I'd bill the host the hours, even if I didn't get paid.

[Brian_Rhoad]

I've noticed for the past week or so that the main Forestry Forum page loaded very slow. After I got to the forum pages they seemed to load like normal.

[thecfarm]

I'm on this stupid dial up thing and I noticed that too. I made another short cut to bring me to the un read posts and have not see the strolling pictures for a few weeks. Just like some pictures on here take forever to load and some don't at all. I had an awful time with Forget The Girl thread. I went to that thread at least 20 times through the 2-3-4 days that thread was on before it loaded. There's some others that are bothering too. I just blame it on my dinosaur computer that is getting ready to die on me.