Internet access question/problem
 

I've been trying to access my Choice Privileges account for almost a week now, and never getting through.

I went to the local library, which has a higher speed connection than me, and I was able to get in no problem. Came home and no luck. Both of us are running Windows XP SP3.

Cleared the cookies and cache (temporary internet files - should I do more?) and re-booted and tried again. Still no luck.

No problem getting to Hilton, Marriott, BA, AA, etc. Just this site.

Any suggestions?

TIA

Do you have a router at home? If so reset it, or try this at the command line (assuming it's a windows machine)

ipconfig /flushdns

It sounds like you somehow got a bad dns entry for the site stored someplace and need to clear it

Yes I have a router (Linksys).

Shut down everything, ran ipconfig/flushdns. Reports it successfully flushed the cache.

Shut down windows and restarted it. Tried it again.

No luck.

If I can get hold of a wireless laptop, I'll try it at the library and here, to try to isolate the problem. My other computer doesn't work for that site, either.

Woe is me.

It's possible your ISP is blocking it too.

Ping it and get the the IP address (from a location you can reach the site), and try that, if you can get to it by IP address, but not through the name, it's a DNS issue, but it's totally possible it's at whoever you are using for DNS servers, so you may have to change them

I understand what you're saying, Mike, but I'm not sure how to do it.

AFAIK, both me and the library are using the same carrier, so we would have the same ISP. I'm not completely sure how to get there (IP address) nor how I would find their domain server, nor, come to that, how/if I can change the DNS. I'm pretty sure we're both using the same DNS, too.

I think the easiest path, for the present, is to get the cable folks (Time-Warner, if it makes a difference) on the line and start walking me through it. We may or may not solve it, but at least I'll learn something. I hate having to call the help desk types if I can work it out for myself.

Thanks for the assistance.

On a machine that it's working type (lets pretend it's flyertalk)

ping flyertalk.com

it will come back and say

Pinging flyertalk.com [98.158.194.68] with 32 bytes of data

If you can use the 98.158.194.68 (just put it in the address) to get to flyertalk (again I fully realize you are not trying to get to flyertalk :D) when you call them you can tell them it works just fine by IP address, but not through DNS.

Good news, it's not you - it's them. Both your router and ISP are fine .... :D

At least for the moment, their website is down (crashed, DOS, offline or whatever) I had a mobile link to Choicehotels . com and it's not going thru either on my smartphone.

"choicehotels.com is Temporarily Unavailable.
It's not you - it's us! choicehotels.com is temporarily unavailable. Please click here to try again in a few minutes. Thank you, and our apologies for the delay.

For immediate reservations or assistance, a Choice Hotels representative is available now.
1-877-424-6423"

http://www.choicehotels.com/notavail/en/Home.html

Interesting.

When I ping choicehotels.com, the IP address is 24.24.52.105. I can ping that IP address and it comes right back. When I try to use IE (url = http://24.24.52.105), I get a HTTP 404 message.

I use the same format to get to my router, and I got the (two) DNS entries. I use the same format to get to FT, and it works.

Not sure what's going on here. I should be able to get through when I give it the actual IP address.

I'll try the help folks in the morning, because, in addition to not knowing exactly what I'm doing (although that never stopped me before :)), Choice is up and down, so I don't know exactly what's not working.

Thanks everyone.

Not if their website is down, which seems to be the case based on Letitride's post. A ping command simply checks to see if a device is alive and responding at a particular IP address. A ping response does NOT mean that there's an active website at the other end, it simply means that there's an active "device" at the other end.

What's not working is their website, and the've told you as such by saying "it's not you, it's us" :)

There's no reason to call the help desk, and there's nothing further you can do except wait for them to fix their website.

That was true last night for a time.

However, I have been unable to get in from home for about a week, whereas I can get in no problem from another computer that is not at my house. This is why I believe the problem is somewhere in my system, or at least the system comprising my computer, my router, and the particular ISP/DNS I'm using.

I can look into the first part, but the cable provider has to check out the latter.

Check two places:

Open your HOSTS file, found in \windows\system32\drivers\etc. Some malware will hijack your browsing by making entries in this file.

If using IE, see if any malware has setup a proxy server. Go to Tools, Internet Options, Connections tab, and press Lan Settings on the lower right. Is there a check in the Proxy server box? Uncheck it.

If either of the above is true, run Malwarebytes to remove the offending malware.

Also, check your DNS settings. Get to a Command Prompt and enter "ipconfig /all" and look for the DNS Servers under the IPv4 group or your wireless adapter group (whichever you use to connect). Are the DNS numbers the same as those issued by your ISP? You might try using Google's DNS numbers just to test if the problem is DNS related. Google's DNS's: 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4.

Have you tried another browser? I have IE, Chrome and firefox. When I am having issues like this, I can usually use the Chrome browser and get there just fine.....

To rule out the possibility that it may be your router blocking the access get the WAN side settings from your router and use those settings for your computer's wired ethernet connection and then connect your computer directly to the cable modem and see if you can get through.

try this
 

Try going through an anonymizer like anonymouse.org and see if you can at least GET to the site from your home. This will eliminate things like DNS for YOUR ISP, DNS settings at the router, blocking by YOUR ISP, etc..

If you still cannot get to it that way, check to see if you have something like mcafee, norton, avg safesearch, webroot security which is actively filtering your safe sites list. MANY times these tools do NOT give any feedback that they are working in the background - at least not consistently.

If you go to THIS site, and type in the URL you are trying to reach, it will TELL you the IP address of the site, which you can then easily ping with either tools or a command line.

http://www.selfseo.com/find_ip_address_of_a_website.php

Start, RUN, CMD, type in PING at the command prompt and then type in the IP address that the above site lists for you.

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