Technical Help ?

[TaMeOlta]

Hoping nobody minds a technical question here ;)

Every 6 months or so , I get locked out of certain forums / boards . This week its SevenLances and the AmazonBasin :o . Rarely do I lose my link to the LL .

I get the messages "cannot find" or "unable to load page" from my MSN Explorer (ver 9.0 I think ;) ) . I deleted cookies in folder , cleaned up my C drive , rebooted to no avail :( . I have made no changes to my browser settings nor my security features , so I am kind of stumped :blink: .

Is this caused by a bad cookie crumbling in one of my folders somewhere ? Or is this caused by differences in Invisionboard settings ?

Any help /suggestions would be muchly appreciated :D

[Nastie_Bowie]

I have had a similar experience using IE 6.0 and verizon dsl. Difference is, I get locked out of here (LL) as you described. :(

At first I thought Bolty got sick and tired of my dumb questions. :lol:

It has happened twice. First time, cleaning up disk cured the problem (temp internet files, cookies etc.) The second time was earlier this week, my anti-virus program (Norton 2003) was having a hissy-fit over the "In place upgrade of Windows" I had to do to cure a WMI problem I was having. After uninstall/reinstall NAV, everything is back to normal.

A friend of mine has recently upgraded from NAV 2003/Norton Personal Firewall 2003 to Norton Internet Security 2004. He is having a problem with Norton slowing his dial-up connection to a crawl. A call to MSN tech support, and the first comment from the technician was, "Slow, isn't it?" Referring to the 2004 Norton variant.

I have found that MSN tech support can be very helpful, depending on the technician, as I used MSN prior to my dsl with verizon. I still have MSN dial-up, and use it when verizon has a attitude. If maintenance doesn't cure your problem, try MSN tech support. The technician skills are a roll of the dice, most of them are very knowledgable, however some are not the sharpest tools in the shed. When this happens, I just listen politely and then re-dial the number to get a different technician.

I feel your pain! :lol:

NB :rolleyes:

[TaMeOlta]

Ah Silly me ..... TheAmazonBasin is not an InvisionBoard (its Mozilla ?)-- found out last night ;)
I have sent an EMail to MSN Services , and I guess I will see where that leads me .

I did purge my cookies , as well as clean out all temp files , and now that I have upgraded to MSN 9.0 I will hafta relearn all these funky tools and options . THe upgrade didn't cause this though , so if I do come up with an easy explainable solution / setting I shall put the answer in here to help save any other wayward/lost souls :P !

[Nastie_Bowie]

My buddy, Norman, hates 9.0. He wants me to help him downgrade back to 8.5.

NB :rolleyes:

~edit~ Don't forget scandisk and defrag. :huh:

MSN tech support 1-800-386-5550. Even if you have one phone line they can help with the settings offline, I believe. It's a lot quicker than the e-mail.

[TaMeOlta]

... :lol: never thought I'd here (see) myself using those words so close together :P !

I shall use that phone number as last resort (meaning "soon" ;) ). So far I can log on to the Basin from work , and heres an Update on my Efforts so far posted in response to a similar incident/ problem someone had encountered waaaay back in June of 2003 :blink:

EDIT: I can't be the only MSN user left on the Net ..... :P so I shall keep updates til I get it fixed .

[Nastie_Bowie]

...  :lol:  never thought I'd here (see) myself using those words so close together :P !

You're welcome ... I think ... :blink:

NB :rolleyes:

[LavCat]

I reported a similar problem here several weeks ago:

http://www.lurkerlounge.com/forums/index.p...t=ST&f=3&t=2519

You may find my solution helpful. I had a similar problem with the basin, but the solution was the same.

[TaMeOlta]

I went to war with an immense pile of viruses and some pop-up monsters yesterday that took me out of the picture for a bit :blink: then while I was at work today my wife finished up with complete install (and payment for) PC-Cillin - which settled the score . :D

After re-installing all lost software (MSN was obliterated in my "war" :P , and IE was taken over by something called SQuire ? ), everything is nearly back to where I started . I still cannot sign on to the Basin , nor SevenLances from home , either from my computer (upstairs) or my wifes computer (downstairs) . I am pretty sure it is browser (MSN or IE ) // Forum related somehow .

I can sign on from work (unsure of browser-will check tomorrow) as well as from my cousins computer (using his AIM - and is still connected to same Ethernet Hub that I am ) .


I have deleted all cookies and temp files . My spelling is correct (my Fav Link is broken :P ) , even hyper links from Google search findings on the Basin do not work . I have enabled anything concerning JAVA in my Internet Security settings . My hardrive has been defragged .

Now I am just plain stumped :P !

Sidenote : beware of pop up monsters , something called "STC" or has that in its name , something called "ADW_Scanportala" .......do your virus checks today !

[TaMeOlta]

The wife communicated with both Microsoft and ComCast today , they both told her it was not their problem :blink: . I can retry them at a later time , after I poke at my settings a bit more . If I find out its a simple little box that needed to be selected in my settings I will let everyone know what a dunce I am and you can all throw rotten fruit at me :P !

[Flick]

Well, it sounds like you have a routing problem, if you can't get to multiple sites. In that case, it *is* your ISP's problem - or maybe your ISP's ISP's problem. ;)

Try this: from the DOS prompt (or the Terminal window if you're using Mac OS X), try pinging the basin server:

ping www.theamazonbasin.com

If that doesn't work, then you have a routing problem. If it does work, then something's mis-configured with your browser or ISP software.

The basin server, at least, has a static IP address. If you can't ping, try the next command:

nslookup www.theamazonbasin.com

You should get 64.246.44.91. If you don't, then your DNS is out of date (waaaay out of date), and you need to bonk your ISP. It is their problem. If you do, then try:

tracert www.theamazonbasin.com

That should show you the "hops" that a packet takes to get there. Someone may be able to decipher the problem.

It's also possible that your ISP may be blocking return traffic from those sites. That's a serious problem: your ISP has decided to censor your browsing. Switch ISP's immediately, is my advice.


(oh yeah: MSN and AOL are teh sux. :P Sorry, had to get that out there!)

[Nastie_Bowie]

The wife communicated with both Microsoft and ComCast today , they both told her it was not their problem  :blink:  .  I can retry them at a later time , after I poke at my settings a bit more . If I find out its a simple little box that needed to be selected in my settings I will let everyone know what a dunce I am and you can all throw rotten fruit at me :P !

Hey Ta,

Last night I helped ole Norm, downgrade to MSN 8.0. All of his problems went away, once we did this. The "conflict" with Norton is no more.

I don't know if this is the issue with your problems, but it might be worth a try.

You are a NH native? I was born and raised in Concord. Salut!

NB :rolleyes:

[kandrathe]

Your diagnosis was the same as mine. At home I find my broadband ISP (mediacomm) frequently changes their DNS servers around, without expiring all the outstanding DHCP subscriptions. So, I have to go onto my router, release and renew my DHCP subscription and then all is well.

You can test the DNS problem by trying http://64.246.44.91 in a browser to bypass DNS lookup. If that works, and http://www.amazonbasin.com does not, then you know you have a DNS service problem.

[TaMeOlta]

Cool , guess what I just did ? :P

I shut off one of the Internet settings that was looking for certificates (not sure what it was) , enabled two JAVA applet boxes , and reset the Ethernet HUB ....... and here I am !

Before I did this I tried Flicks instructions , the ping failed all 4 times , but the address was 64.246.44.91 :blink:

Tracert failed , was unable to resolve target system :blink:

Not sure what action may have fixed this , but I am now unafraid to poke / change / and experiment w/ settings --- but only if I am fixxing something ;) ! ("If it ain't broke , don't fix it !" )

Thanks everyone !!!! :D