A webmaster type question thingy

vaaaska

I'm having this weird quirk with my website and I can't figure out how I would go about researching the problem - perhaps one of y'all might know what to do?

What's happening is my website, from where I am, disappears. The domain can't be found nor can I retreive my email.

I send a note to my webhost and they say they can access it. Plus, I do the general things provided at dnsstuff.com and this too says my domain is active.

I CAN access my site if I use the IP address instead of my domain name so the server is clearly working.

I can only guess, the problem lays with the local powers that be (my ISP or perhaps some Belgian DNS server or whatnot). But, when this happens, I don't know what to research so I can see where the problem actually is.

Any ideas?

Thanks, v

weekender

i'm guessing this has either been since you got your domain name, since you started using this ISP or since your host changed the ip of your domain.

as i understand it, when you change an ip address linked to a domain, it takes up to 72 hours to propagate around dns servers around the world. Most dns servers update their tables every day at the most, but some may only update every three days - so people using these dns's won't get your correct ip for three days after a change.

It sounds like either your dns settings are wrong (but they are normally assigned dynamically) or your isps' dns servers haven't updated recently. Give them a call, and try to find out how often they update their dns, and whether it is succeeding.

adam

weekender

whoops

weekender

dammit

weekender

aargh

goldbug

Holy quadruple post, Batman!

AstroTeg

First, go over to http://www.dnsreport.com. Plug in your domain name and look over the report. Check out the issues in red. Make sure your domain has two name servers and both are on different IP addresses. If they're not, contact your hosting provider. They have a DNS config issue.

If everything looks ok at dnsreport.com, then you probably have an issue on your side. You might try doing a quick search for public DNS servers available. Grab a couple and plug them in and see if the problem goes away. If so, your ISP's DNS servers are having issues and you might want to contact them.

And of course, like weekender said, if your site's IP address just changed, it may be a little bit before the change makes it around to the rest of the DNS servers. Contact your hosting provider to see if any changes to the IP address have been made recently.

vaaaska

Originally posted by AstroTeg
First, go over to http://www.dnsreport.com. Plug in your domain name and look over the report. Check out the issues in red. Make sure your domain has two name servers and both are on different IP addresses. If they're not, contact your hosting provider. They have a DNS config issue.

If everything looks ok at dnsreport.com, then you probably have an issue on your side. You might try doing a quick search for public DNS servers available. Grab a couple and plug them in and see if the problem goes away. If so, your ISP's DNS servers are having issues and you might want to contact them.

And of course, like weekender said, if your site's IP address just changed, it may be a little bit before the change makes it around to the rest of the DNS servers. Contact your hosting provider to see if any changes to the IP address have been made recently.

DNSReports says things are aok - I have two nameservers in action.

IP/domain info has not been changed in the past year.

Yep, the problem seems to exist for me for about two hours each time, however, I was able to confirm that it was working in the states. So, it's an odd problem and I should probably chalk it up to the wonderful customer service standards you find in Belgium (don't get me started on this one).

Thanks for tips you guys...v

AstroTeg

Sounds like a local DNS issue. In the meantime, you could just override your ISP's DNS servers and use some other ones.

Sxooter

Yep, I'm guessing you've got a bum entry in your /etc/resolv.conf file (or equivalent in other OSes).

weekender

Originally posted by goldbug
Holy quadruple post, Batman!

sorry about that, page kept 404ing - i even checked to make sure it hadn't posted each time... honest!