Unavailable, only reachable through proxy server!

[Lady Stardust]

I’m curious, I think phones and computers/laptops have different IP addresses don’t they? So, if I had this problem in the future, would a different device work? I know last time I tried on my phone and on an iPad, I don’t think I had access to a laptop to try at the time.

Also, as lapushka has mentioned an IP range, would the IP addresses be similar for, say, a phone and an iPad in the same house/from the same ISP? In that case, would going off Wi-Fi and onto data make a difference? (I don’t think it did to me, last time, I just couldn’t get in at all for a couple of weeks).

Last question, can site admins see the IP range that is being blocked, or would we need to provide more information? If so, how do we do that?

What got me wondering really is that lapushka didn’t answer the questions asked by physicschick. I’m not tech savvy so I wonder what it is that I don’t understand here I’d like to know what I could try/what information to provide if this happens to me in future.

Obviously my question is not urgent, just if a techie minded person wanders past this thread and would like to explain to my not so techie brain!

[lapushka]

I didn't answer? How did I not answer? What I don't get is how it *can* be my system, when all the rest of the internet works. Only LHC is the issue. I don't see how my ISP would block the site? My ISP doesn't do that.

[Lady Stardust]

Maybe you did answer and I didn’t get it! Like I said, I’m not tech savvy. That’s why I wondered if the IP addresses would be in the same range, because you mentioned that you thought the IP range might be blocked by the LHC server.

The questions were, have you tried another computer? Have you tried another browser? Have you tried on your phone?

I guess the point of those questions is to pin point which IP address could be blocked, or which security settings (for the browser?) could be the problem. Not that the problem is necessarily from your end, but just to find exactly what is being affected.

[lapushka]

Lady Stardust, LOL! Girlfriend... I only have 1 computer. Where else could I possibly check? My phone does 0 with the WiFi, which is "normal" and expected because: same network. My phone when on regular 3-5G does go through. So it's something about my IP range that the server doesn't "vibe" with. It has to be that, because I can access the rest of the internet (and that's a lot) just fine. No problems whatsoever there. So it's not my computer, or internet, or any of that sort... right? Nothing on my end, I mean that I am doing wrong or have set up wrong or what have you.

It has to be the range, that the server has this (ISP?) blocked for SPAM reasons, something like that, which... it shouldn't. Because it's a normal ISP (Proximus). I can go through a proxy just fine. Any proxy server will go through.

Anyway. I hope this gets solved. I mean, the proxy is easy enough to do, but it's a little bothersome.

[Gumball]

Hello lapushka! When your phone does 0 while on your home WiFi, does that mean it has similar connectivity issues and results?

I would be interested in any differences you experience on your home network when accessing:

• longhaircommunity.com
• forums.longhaircommunity.com

I mention them separately as they are two distinct sites with two different IP addresses.

A few things I can think of to try and help troubleshoot, too:

Browser cache:

To rule out issues with a browser cache, using a separate web browser or a private/incognito browser is a good way, though not foolproof, to determine if it's a caching issue.

Browser console:

You can open a developer console in a browser to see if it shows any obvious problems when attempting to navigate to a site. An example is FireFox or Google where you would use Ctrl+Shift+I to open the console, select "Network" from the tabs, and try reloading the site looking for red errors or anything that appears to take a long time to complete.

Ping and Traceroute:

Ping:

If you open a command prompt are you able to ping forums.longhaircommunity.com and get a response?

If you do get a reply, that's good. If not, to be safe check what IP address is being served.

Example: forums.longhaircommunity.com resolves to 104.192.220.152 when I ping it. I do get dropped packets once in a while when performing this test, but not enough to cause access issues for me. If your ping is resolving to a different IP, it's possible that the DNS cache is off so the URL is not resolving to the forum's IP address.

Traceroute

You can also try to tracert forums.longhaircommunity.com. This helps to determine if it's the destination that is the cause of the connectivity problems (server drops) or if it's possible something along the way from your home to the forum. This might be useful to compare on- and off-proxy.

For what it's worth, I get a lot of timeouts tracing to longhaircommunity.com as opposed to forums.longhaircommunity.com, likely meaning their hosting is different and responds differently to the packet transfers.

DNS:

In case it's a DNS issue, a quick way to troubleshoot is to flush your DNS cache by heading back to the command prompt and use ipconfig /flushdns. This will tell your computer to fetch new DNS entries when you resume browsing instead of relying on what your operating system has already cached for itself.

If it turns out to be a DNS issue, you can opt to try using a different DNS provider (Linked instructions) than what is used by your ISP, such as:

• 8.8.8.8 - Google public DNS #1
• 8.8.4.4 - Google public DNS #2
• 1.1.1.1 - Cloudflare public DNS #1 (Of the three, I'd recommend this one. It's my fallback if my personal DNS server has a problem)

[lapushka]

Gumball. Can access longhaircommunity, just not the forum. Same thing happened last time I needed to use a proxy to get here (and then the site admin performed magic and solved it, whatever it was). And I am not touching the network or its settings, because I can access the rest of the internet, remember? If that was all down, then maybe it was my fault.

[neko_kawaii]

The last time this happened within a couple of days we had received multiple emails as well as multiple mods being contacted on other platforms such as Instagram. This time, no one else appears affected. Please work through the suggestions Gumball took the time to make.

[Gumball]

Gumball. Can access longhaircommunity, just not the forum. Same thing happened last time I needed to use a proxy to get here (and then the site admin performed magic and solved it, whatever it was). And I am not touching the network or its settings, because I can access the rest of the internet, remember? If that was all down, then maybe it was my fault.

Yes, I remember that you can access the rest of the internet. I took that into consideration when drafting the above message.

Many of the settings and troubleshooting options listed above are useful when you are on a functional network, can access most any other site without issue, and experience a problem connecting to a single website or online resource.

After reviewing the forum blocklist I doubt it's at the application level. It is possible the issue resides at the host level which the moderation team cannot access. I want to rule out other likely causes, too, that wouldn't require escalation beyond the immediate moderation team and are easy steps to try.

Local cache issues, DNS issues (Operating system level or otherwise), or other issues with an intermediary system or service between a source (you) and destination (here) are possible causes of a loss in connectivity to a specific resource on the internet.

[Lady Stardust]

I’ve copied and pasted what you’ve written Gumball in case this happens to me in the future. Not that I’ll necessarily understand it but I could Google around any phrases I don’t understand. It did happen to me a few months ago so it’s good to know what steps to take.

Thanks for taking the time to set out such detailed instructions.

[lapushka]

I dove right in. I let this page (and the consecutive links on the bottom of said page), guide me along and... still zippo.
https://www.hostinger.com/tutorials/...tion_timed_out

I have to say, the amount of stuff that is within my power is now exhausted. And besides, if it were, as I said, a network issue on my side, then why the heck is it this site alone and not anything else? My settings are fine, everything is fine.