Help with web site access

[NastyDawg]

OK I have a friend that runs a racing forum
He has two members that were kicked off the site and this is the message he sent me. I was just wondering if anyone has any ideas to why this is happening to 2 members and not the rest?


I believe it is Dawg.
They both said with about 14 laps to go in the Busch race Saturday (they were posting with us) they got kicked out and can't get back in. They can get to ALL my sites on the Web-site home page, except the ones hosted by SiteGround. They cannot even get to those sites, the page stays white and they get the error message saying invalid url/ web page doesn't exist. When I go to my control center and look at the error page I can see their IP's trying to log in getting an error #403 & Error #404 . The techies exact words was that means nothing, but if they can't get in, it MUST mean something.

Any help would be great, i found this but I don't think it means much since all but 2 of us can access the site


My web site doesn't load! I get a "403 & 404 Forbidden" error message.
Most often, this error occurs when there is no index.html (default web page) in the domain directory/folder. Be sure a file named index.html (in all lowercase) is in the appropriate domain directory/folder.

I'm thinking that something happened to their 2 computers when they got booted! I told my friend to ask one of them to do system restore to a day or 2 before he got booted, waiting to here if this helped.

[Nitro]

did they try pinging it

[BobtheCkroach]

A 403 is handed out when a server gets a request for a page that isnt' accessible to the user.

A 404 is handed out when a server gets a request for a page that doesn't even exist.

IE: If you've set up the server so only people logged in with a certain user name can get in, if a normal user tries to get there, they get a 403 (this won't be the users on the forum, but rather system users - the web server is running as a user, for instance)

A 404 would occur if you browsed to site/index2.html instead of site/index.html and index2.html doesn't exist.

http://gamemecca.net/test.aspx - generates a 404


As far as solutions, since no one else is getting this, it's kind of a weird issue.

I would have them completely wipe their browser history/cookies/cache/etc. If they still can't get in, have them use an alternate browser. If that doesn't work either, if there's another computer in their household, have them try that.

They could also try killing the DSL Router/Cable modem. If their IP is being blocked for some weird reason, resetting the box will end up with a new IP address (unless these users are on Static IP addresses - not likely)

[NastyDawg]

Well they try all that Bob to no luck.

One of them tried to ping the site and got this

Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.

Ping statistics for 67.15.255.5:
Packets: Sent = 6, Received = 0, Lost = 6 (100% loss),
Control-C
^C
C:\Documents and Settings\cale>ping -a 67.15.255.5

Pinging ns1.siteground161.com [67.15.255.5] with 32 bytes of data:

Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.

Ping statistics for 67.15.255.5:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4 (100% loss),

[BobtheCkroach]

Are the 2 individuals physically close to each other (same city or anything)?

if they were both behind the same gateway or redirect server or whatever, and taht cached the site when it was down for 5 seconds or something, it's possible (not likely) that it's still caching them.

Have the users in question gone somewhere else - a coffee shop, the office, etc - and tried logging in there?

I gotta admit - you've got one heck of a weird issue on your hands.

[OUTLAWS Tip]

One thing they could check is their "host files". I had a spyware program that blocked certain sites from my computer. It ended up blocking pictures from advertisers so I got red x's where the advertisements were supposed to be. I ended up clearing out the host file and all was well.

http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm

[NastyDawg]

Are the 2 individuals physically close to each other (same city or anything)?

if they were both behind the same gateway or redirect server or whatever, and taht cached the site when it was down for 5 seconds or something, it's possible (not likely) that it's still caching them.

Have the users in question gone somewhere else - a coffee shop, the office, etc - and tried logging in there?

I gotta admit - you've got one heck of a weird issue on your hands.

No Bob they are not close to each other (half way across the county from one and other)

They have tried different computers but not another site, I'm sure it's in there computer because all but these two can access the site.

[NastyDawg]

Update, we got it working, they had to reset there modems, I asked the to shut them down over night and that did the trick, only shutting them down for up to 15 min's did not work.

[BobtheCkroach]

Update, we got it working, they had to reset there modems, I asked the to shut them down over night and that did the trick, only shutting them down for up to 15 min's did not work.

hmmm, weird. Normally a modem will get a new IP if it's shut down at all. Odd that they needed an overnight shutoff to get it working.

Glad you got it fixed, though. :thumbs:

[NastyDawg]

thanks for all your help Bob & Nitro