# Are all msn sites inoperative at this time? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 18, 2003, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-msn-sites-inoperative-at-this-time/169609 "2003-04-18T18:21:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2003, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-msn-sites-inoperative-at-this-time/169609/1 "2003-04-18T18:21:58Z")
I was at a school this morning, learning about business technology. We’ve got a hundred PC’s or so here, each with access to the Internet (via the school’s server). The IE launches by default to [msn.com](http://msn.com) on all of these computers. Well, ever since at least eight o’clock this morning (Pacific Daylight Time), anyone trying to go into the internet has gotten the dreaded **Cannot find server** error message. It’s not a completely debilitating condition (especially since last week the IS people used the Websense filter to block “games” and we can’t have Text Twist tournaments any longer 😉 ), because it’s easy enough to type a URL into the address line and get to a site that DOES work. But it’s evidently not limited to the computers at this facility; one of the teacher aides this morning told me that she had the same problem loading [msn.com](http://msn.com) on her PC at home last night. So does anybody know if [msn.com](http://msn.com) has been having technical problems since yesterday evening? ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2003, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-msn-sites-inoperative-at-this-time/169609/2 "2003-04-18T19:25:24Z")
Chances are, [MSN.com](http://MSN.com) was probably fine all along. What may have happened was _your school_ chose to lock out access to [MSN.com](http://MSN.com). ---
**Author:** ![SirRay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cc9497/32.png) [@SirRay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SirRay)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2003, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-msn-sites-inoperative-at-this-time/169609/3 "2003-04-18T19:46:19Z")
Perhaps our friends at MSN were fiddling around with the site again - the site at Hotmail seems different (unless they mucked around and screwed up the style sheets again). ---
**Author:** ![Lure](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ba8739/32.png) [@Lure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lure)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2003, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-msn-sites-inoperative-at-this-time/169609/4 "2003-04-18T19:52:03Z")
I read a message in the help screen that MSN was doing “routine maintenance” on their system and listed about 30 cities that will be affected.Probably Anaheim’s one. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2003, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-msn-sites-inoperative-at-this-time/169609/5 "2003-04-20T05:33:19Z")
**Lure** , thanks for the (probable) explanation. **Duckster** , actually, when the facility’s computers are blocked from accessing a site, there’s a page generated from [Websense](http://www.websense.com/)specifically telling us so, and also telling us either for how long (permanently, as likely as not), or why. The error message we were getting looks more like [this](http://www.notreallyasite.com/). Well, the facility is taking a spring break until the 28th of April, so I guess we’ll find out when we return if the default browser setting is working again or not.