# I can access SDMB with Tor, but Chrome times out. Why? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 11, 2014, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-can-access-sdmb-with-tor-but-chrome-times-out-why/701057 "2014-10-11T19:09:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2014, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-can-access-sdmb-with-tor-but-chrome-times-out-why/701057/1 "2014-10-11T19:09:16Z")
(My question may be complicated, with no clear answer. Mods, feel free to move it to IMHO.) Perhaps SDMB Internet experts can shed light on my on-going problem. I live in Thailand. I connect to Internet with a directional antenna aimed at a Wifi transmitter 3 km away. Sometimes it works well, sometimes not. I’ll get timeouts from SDMB (as well as some but not all other sites) for a few minutes (“(110) Connection timed out”), then the problem will clear up. My Wifi provider says the problem is some unknown “router” colliding with our signal. He plans to visit each customer and install some fix on the receiving antennae. This sort of made sense, though I’m so ignorant about Wifi and Internet I didn’t fully understand. But recently I noticed something strange. I often have a Tor browser (which bypasses Thai government censorship) on stand-by to access [dailymail.co.uk](http://dailymail.co.uk) and other websites that are banned in Thailand. I pointed that browser at SDMB and … experienced no problem!! It’s not Chrome vs Firefox of course; when the Chrome browser is getting errors from SDMB so is the ordinary Firefox browser. But Tor browsing works fine (subject to Tor limitations) even when other browsers are getting timeouts. This makes me think the problems have nothing to do with “alleged collisions with an unknown router” and may be caused by overloading of Thai computers responsible for checking Internet packets for blacklists. Any insights from experts? Experimentation may be difficult as the error periods come and go irregularly. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2014, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-can-access-sdmb-with-tor-but-chrome-times-out-why/701057/2 "2014-10-11T20:47:30Z")
I don’t live in Thailand, but it’s entirely possible that one of the intermediate servers is blocking your access on purpose or by accident. If you go to your terminal (dunno which OS you’re using) you can run a tracert to [straightdope.com](http://straightdope.com) and see which servers the connection goes through (or dies at). You might also try using [Google’s DNS](https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/); sometimes that’s enough to bypass bad ISP nameservers or mild government censorship. Dunno what the Thai will do to you if they find out, but if you’re using Tor already, that’s probably not a concern. Edit: Slightly longer version is that internet routing does not necessarily seek out the most efficient path, but whatever routes are defined by system administrators. Tor just spreads its tentacles all around, and so you have a higher chance of routing through someone who has a connection to the site rather than whatever the government or ISP imposes on you. You’re trading stability for latency in that case. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2014, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-can-access-sdmb-with-tor-but-chrome-times-out-why/701057/3 "2014-10-11T20:57:46Z")
I’ll second the DNS suggestion **Reply** made, though I know nothing about such things. I had a problem with SDMB (and webmail) not loading last week. I took the suggestion made here to change my DNS settings and it’s working fine now. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2014, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-can-access-sdmb-with-tor-but-chrome-times-out-why/701057/4 "2014-10-11T21:01:51Z")
If either of you are curious, DNS just means “When I type [straightdope.com](http://straightdope.com), where should my browser go?” Website servers have numerical addresses, kinda like the street address + apartment number for your house, and DNS servers are just internet whitepages that tell your browse which number belongs to which name. Cheap ISPs have flakey DNS servers and cheap governments use it as a low-investment way to censor sites. Google’s DNS tends to be very reliable, if not always fast as your ISP’s own DNS servers. It’ll often add a second or two to page load times, but that’s probably better than having them randomly time out altogether. ---
**Author:** ![tellyworth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/977dab/32.png) [@tellyworth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tellyworth)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2014, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-can-access-sdmb-with-tor-but-chrome-times-out-why/701057/5 "2014-10-11T21:08:48Z")
Thailand uses [fake error messages](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Thailand#Methods) when censoring the internet. > [@](#): > > However, current policy is to use a system of transparent proxies so that the user receives system, server, TCP and browser error messages when trying to access blocked sites leading the user to believe that the failure is caused in the Internet itself. It’s possible the SDMB is being deliberately blocked, and you’re seeing one of these. A Connection Timed Out error is similar to the sort of fake message they’ve used in the past. It’s also possible that it’s a genuine error, perhaps caused unintentionally by the censoring proxy interacting with the board’s intermittent slowness. When you get the 110 error, is there a long timeout delay before it happens? ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2014, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-can-access-sdmb-with-tor-but-chrome-times-out-why/701057/6 "2014-10-11T23:58:01Z")
> [@tellyworth](#): > > Thailand uses [fake error messages](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Thailand#Methods) when censoring the internet. > > It’s possible the SDMB is being deliberately blocked, and you’re seeing one of these. A Connection Timed Out error is similar to the sort of fake message they’ve used in the past. > > It’s also possible that it’s a genuine error, perhaps caused unintentionally by the censoring proxy interacting with the board’s intermittent slowness. When you get the 110 error, is there a long timeout delay before it happens? The delay before timeout is about 25 seconds. I know because I’m experiencing the problem right now – I’m posting this via Tor. There may be more than one censoring mechanism. When I atttempt [dailymail.co.uk](http://dailymail.co.uk) I’m redirected [to this page](http://203.113.26.210/) which states in Thai that the website has unacceptable content and has been suspended by the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology. (Sometimes instead I get a time-out trying to load that page. 😕 ) I’ve never seen that with SDMB (although sometimes the Wikipedia page for Thailand’s King redirects there!) Be aware that SDMB usually works fine from the normal browser, but has streaks where it mostly times out. (Right now, a few minutes after I started typing here in Tor, it’s working again.) I’ve never tried to change DNS server before, but [I found a webpage that instructs how to do that.](http://www.opennicproject.org/configure-your-dns/how-to-change-dns-servers-in-windows-7/) I’ll try it soon, when I’m feeling alert. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2014, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-can-access-sdmb-with-tor-but-chrome-times-out-why/701057/7 "2014-10-12T01:04:50Z")
Why don’t you just keep using Tor? Or sign up for an American/Canadian/European VPN somewhere where the Thai don’t block? ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2014, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-can-access-sdmb-with-tor-but-chrome-times-out-why/701057/8 "2014-10-12T01:39:00Z")
> [@Reply](#): > > Why don’t you just keep using Tor? Or sign up for an American/Canadian/European VPN somewhere where the Thai don’t block? Most sites work adequately most of the time. Tor has severe inconveniences – or perhaps I don’t have it configured right. It doesn’t allow tabs; it lacks add-ons, some sites (vidoes?) don’t work at all, I had to re-enter my SDMB password sometimes, etc. etc. Maybe there are workarounds for some of these problems, but the effort would be greater hassle than the problem it would bypass. It’s quite convenient to do 95% of browsing from Chrome and switch, via simple cut-paste, to Tor as needed. Anyway, I’m _curious_. Are the timeouts caaued by blacklist-checking bottlenecks? I’m aware of very few blocked sites right now. They’re no longer blocking Quicktopic and RollingStone. I’d paid no attention to Daily Mail except for occasional links from other sites. I’ll try the DNS experiment when I’m in a leisurely alert state, and rethink after that. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2014, 9:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-can-access-sdmb-with-tor-but-chrome-times-out-why/701057/9 "2014-10-12T09:00:11Z")
Yeah, try the DNS thing. If it works, that’d be the easiest work around. If that fails, Tor is more than just a browser: it’s the network. You can use the Tor network with other browsers, you just compromise security & privacy by doing so. But if you just wanna browse the news and read the Dope, maybe that doesn’t matter much. Again, not sure how the Thai treat people who circumvent their laws for their reading pleasure, but you can try configuring Chrome to work with Tor: > **[Create a TOR Button in Chrome for On-Demand Anonymous Browsing](https://lifehacker.com/create-a-tor-button-in-chrome-for-on-demand-anonymous-b-5614732)** > > The TOR Project provides free, distributed worldwide proxies for anonymous browsing and private downloading . TOR comes with a built-in Firefox add There used to be a simpler 1-click process called “TorButton” for Firefox that did the same thing, but they stopped supporting it. You can look for that too if you want. If all else fails, just look for “VPN” service. A lot of expats use that to bypass foreign internet filters. They generally cost $5 to $15 a month. > [@](#): > > Anyway, I’m _curious_. Are the timeouts caaued by blacklist-checking bottlenecks? We can speculate all we want, but only you would know by doing a traceroute. If the terminal is too daunting for you, you can try a visual program like this one: [Open Visual Traceroute download | SourceForge.net](http://sourceforge.net/projects/openvisualtrace/) (Java needed, sadly) ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2014, 9:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-can-access-sdmb-with-tor-but-chrome-times-out-why/701057/10 "2014-10-12T09:07:09Z")
Missed edit. Two other quick workarounds you can try: You can also try [http://anonymouse.org/](http://anonymouse.org/) for an easy, free proxy or you can also add “[nyud.net](http://nyud.net)” to the end of the domain name, like [dailymail.co.uk.nyud.net](http://dailymail.co.uk.nyud.net) – this [pipes it through a global proxy network run by a bunch of universities](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coral_Content_Distribution_Network) to study how to make internet routing more resilient. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2014, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-can-access-sdmb-with-tor-but-chrome-times-out-why/701057/11 "2014-10-12T11:45:15Z")
For me, learning about the Internet and tools (more out of curiosity than real need) is as important as solving my SDMB problem. This and another recent thread have already taught me more than I get with lots of Googling. Thank you, **Reply** and other Dopers! I hope I’m not wearing out my welcome or abusing GQ. I’ll the DNS experiment later, but will enclose the results from tracert, some of which seem odd. Comments: (1) You’ll note two types of result from SDMB though each leads to “Destination host unreachable.” The cases where the “unreachable” message occurs immediately (as event 2) are when Chrome is experiencing the time-out errors. The cases where it gets lots of “Request timed out” messages before “unreachable” are when Chrome is accessing SDMB OK! 😕 (2) The tracert to [Google.com](http://Google.com) has a last line with a ‘th’ country code appended. When I run [http://www.ip-adress.com/reverse\_ip/54.94.50.182](http://www.ip-adress.com/reverse_ip/54.94.50.182), I’m told the domain is in Brazil with ISP = Amazon Technologies! BTW, I needed to run [www.ip-adress.com/reverse\_ip](http://www.ip-adress.com/reverse_ip) via Tor. On Chrome I got “Invalid Response error was encountered while trying to process the request:” or just “(104) Connection reset by peer” for the domain name by itself. I saw something similar on another IP lookup site. (3) The final tracert is to a blacklisted site. Perhaps pings are allowed to backlisted; anyway it timed out. (4) If I get a knock on the door from soldiers wondering why I’m pinging blacklisted websites, I’ll just point them to SDMB and say you guys told me to do it. 😛 ```auto Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7601] Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. C:\Users\764>tracert straightdope.com Tracing route to straightdope.com [209.104.5.198] over a maximum of 30 hops: 1 4 ms 3 ms 2 ms 172.16.0.1 2 192.168.254.187 reports: Destination host unreachable. Trace complete. C:\Users\764>tracert straightdope.com Tracing route to straightdope.com [209.104.5.198] over a maximum of 30 hops: 1 3 ms 112 ms 4 ms 172.16.0.1 2 * 192.168.254.187 reports: Destination host unreachable. Trace complete. C:\Users\764>tracert boards.straightdope.com Tracing route to boards.straightdope.com [209.104.5.198] over a maximum of 30 hops: 1 3 ms 4 ms 2 ms 172.16.0.1 2 192.168.254.187 reports: Destination host unreachable. Trace complete. C:\Users\764>tracert straightdope.com Tracing route to straightdope.com [209.104.5.198] over a maximum of 30 hops: 1 4 ms 4 ms 4 ms 172.16.0.1 2 * 192.168.254.187 reports: Destination host unreachable. Trace complete. C:\Users\764>tracert boards.straightdope.com Tracing route to boards.straightdope.com [209.104.5.198] over a maximum of 30 hops: 1 4 ms 2 ms 2 ms 172.16.0.1 2 * * * Request timed out. 3 * * * Request timed out. 4 * * 192.168.254.187 reports: Destination host unreachable. Trace complete. C:\Users\764>tracert boards.straightdope.com Tracing route to boards.straightdope.com [209.104.5.198] over a maximum of 30 hops: 1 2 ms 2 ms 2 ms 172.16.0.1 2 * * * Request timed out. 3 * * * Request timed out. 4 * * * Request timed out. 5 * * * Request timed out. 6 * 192.168.254.187 reports: Destination host unreachable. Trace complete. C:\Users\764>tracert boards.straightdope.com.nyud.net Tracing route to http.l2.l1.l0.nyucd.net [137.165.1.114] over a maximum of 30 hops: 1 2 ms 2 ms 3 ms 172.16.0.1 2 27 ms 25 ms 24 ms 10.121.65.125 3 25 ms 25 ms 24 ms 10.121.65.126 4 36 ms 32 ms 32 ms mx-ll-110.164.14-187.static.3bb.co.th [110.164.1 4.187] 5 30 ms 30 ms 34 ms mx-ll-110.164.14-186.static.3bb.co.th [110.164.1 4.186] 6 30 ms 31 ms 30 ms mx-ll-110.164.1-139.static.3bb.co.th [110.164.1. 139] 7 34 ms 31 ms 34 ms mx-ll-110.164.1-117.static.3bb.co.th [110.164.1. 117] 8 59 ms * * mx-ll-110.164.0-251.static.3bb.co.th [110.164.0. 251] 9 58 ms 60 ms 59 ms 1-60-41-175.TWGATE-IP.twgate.net [175.41.60.1] 10 110 ms 108 ms 109 ms 203.78.187.81 11 259 ms 237 ms 235 ms 14-60-41-175.TWGATE-IP.twgate.net [175.41.60.14] 12 234 ms 234 ms 235 ms sl-st50-pa-.sprintlink.net [144.223.243.81] 13 242 ms 240 ms 239 ms sl-crs2-sj-.sprintlink.net [144.232.1.185] 14 241 ms 239 ms 239 ms 144.232.7.127 15 246 ms 247 ms 245 ms 144.232.12.42 16 277 ms 280 ms 277 ms 144.232.11.18 17 286 ms 284 ms 285 ms 144.232.1.74 18 294 ms 298 ms 304 ms 144.232.20.186 19 309 ms 310 ms 307 ms sl-crs2-spr-0-9-0-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.10.8 1] 20 307 ms 308 ms 305 ms sl-gw6-spr-15-0-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.1.9] 21 312 ms 314 ms 312 ms sl-crock5-96615-0.sprintlink.net [144.223.76.22] 22 313 ms 311 ms 311 ms 66.59.57.126 23 311 ms 335 ms 310 ms 137.165.1.25 24 328 ms 325 ms 325 ms planetlab4.williams.edu [137.165.1.114] Trace complete. C:\Users\764>tracert straightdope.com Tracing route to straightdope.com [209.104.5.198] over a maximum of 30 hops: 1 3 ms 2 ms 2 ms 172.16.0.1 2 * * 192.168.254.187 reports: Destination host unreachable. Trace complete. C:\Users\764>tracert straightdope.com Tracing route to straightdope.com [209.104.5.198] over a maximum of 30 hops: 1 3 ms 4 ms 2 ms 172.16.0.1 2 * * * Request timed out. 3 * * * Request timed out. 4 * * * Request timed out. 5 * * * Request timed out. 6 * * * Request timed out. 7 * * * Request timed out. 8 * * * Request timed out. 9 * * * Request timed out. 10 * * * Request timed out. 11 192.168.254.187 reports: Destination host unreachable. Trace complete. C:\Users\764>tracert google.com Tracing route to google.com [182.50.94.54] over a maximum of 30 hops: 1 6 ms 2 ms 2 ms 172.16.0.1 2 27 ms 28 ms 33 ms 10.121.65.133 3 29 ms 46 ms 26 ms 10.121.65.126 4 33 ms 32 ms 35 ms mx-ll-110.164.14-193.static.3bb.co.th [110.164.1 4.193] 5 33 ms 39 ms 30 ms mx-ll-110.164.14-192.static.3bb.co.th [110.164.1 4.192] 6 32 ms 29 ms 30 ms 10.11.253.18 7 77 ms 42 ms 33 ms 54.94.50.182.static-corp.jastel.co.th [182.50.94 .54] Trace complete. C:\Users\764> C:\Users\764> C:\Users\764>tracert boards.straightdope.com.nyud.net Tracing route to http.l2.l1.l0.nyucd.net [128.220.231.5] over a maximum of 30 hops: 1 2 ms 2 ms 2 ms 172.16.0.1 2 25 ms 34 ms 24 ms 10.121.65.125 3 25 ms 25 ms 62 ms 10.121.65.134 4 31 ms 35 ms 33 ms mx-ll-110.164.14-187.static.3bb.co.th [110.164.1 4.187] 5 29 ms 29 ms 44 ms mx-ll-110.164.14-186.static.3bb.co.th [110.164.1 4.186] 6 43 ms 38 ms 29 ms mx-ll-110.164.1-139.static.3bb.co.th [110.164.1. 139] 7 44 ms 41 ms 35 ms mx-ll-110.164.1-117.static.3bb.co.th [110.164.1. 117] 8 73 ms 68 ms 60 ms mx-ll-110.164.0-129.static.3bb.co.th [110.164.0. 129] 9 271 ms 268 ms 251 ms mx-ll-110.164.0-85.static.3bb.co.th [110.164.0.8 5] 10 244 ms 237 ms 244 ms xe-4-1-0.bar1.SanFrancisco1.Level3.net [4.35.160 .121] 11 237 ms 238 ms 257 ms ae-0-11.bar2.SanFrancisco1.Level3.net [4.69.140. 146] 12 * * * Request timed out. 13 * * * Request timed out. 14 * * * Request timed out. 15 * * * Request timed out. 16 * * * Request timed out. 17 * * * Request timed out. 18 * * * Request timed out. 19 * * * Request timed out. 20 * * * Request timed out. 21 335 ms 343 ms 325 ms ae-4-4.car2.Baltimore1.Level3.net [4.69.134.106] 22 329 ms 329 ms 347 ms JOHNS-HOPKI.car2.Baltimore1.Level3.net [4.59.246 .2] 23 356 ms 458 ms 338 ms addr162129253110.testippl.jhmi.edu [162.129.253. 110] 24 * * * Request timed out. 25 357 ms 345 ms 318 ms planetlab4.cnds.jhu.edu [128.220.231.5] Trace complete. C:\Users\764>tracert en.wikipedia.com Tracing route to en.wikipedia.com [198.35.26.96] over a maximum of 30 hops: 1 4 ms 2 ms 7 ms 172.16.0.1 2 27 ms 25 ms 25 ms 10.121.65.125 3 50 ms 34 ms 24 ms 10.121.65.134 4 32 ms 31 ms 31 ms mx-ll-110.164.14-187.static.3bb.co.th [110.164.1 4.187] 5 30 ms 47 ms 32 ms mx-ll-110.164.14-186.static.3bb.co.th [110.164.1 4.186] 6 30 ms 32 ms 31 ms mx-ll-110.164.1-5.static.3bb.co.th [110.164.1.5] 7 35 ms 36 ms 39 ms mx-ll-110.164.1-117.static.3bb.co.th [110.164.1. 117] 8 60 ms * 73 ms mx-ll-110.164.0-251.static.3bb.co.th [110.164.0. 251] 9 59 ms 60 ms 77 ms xe-0-0-0-6-101.r00.sngpsi02.sg.bb.gin.ntt.net [1 16.51.17.189] 10 60 ms 73 ms 75 ms ae-1.r20.sngpsi05.sg.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.3.1 46] 11 249 ms 230 ms 238 ms ae-3.r20.snjsca04.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.3.4 8] 12 278 ms 240 ms 239 ms ae-1.r01.snjsca04.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.4.2 07] 13 231 ms 238 ms 231 ms xe-0-7-0-11.r01.snjsca04.us.ce.gin.ntt.net [129. 250.204.6] 14 239 ms 262 ms 239 ms text-lb.ulsfo.wikimedia.org [198.35.26.96] Trace complete. C:\Users\764>tracert dailymail.co.uk Tracing route to dailymail.co.uk [195.234.240.212] over a maximum of 30 hops: 1 2 ms 3 ms 2 ms 172.16.0.1 2 29 ms 27 ms 31 ms 10.121.65.133 3 26 ms 26 ms 26 ms 10.121.65.134 4 57 ms 31 ms 39 ms mx-ll-110.164.0-201.static.3bb.co.th [110.164.0. 201] 5 30 ms 34 ms 30 ms mx-ll-110.164.0-140.static.3bb.co.th [110.164.0. 140] 6 36 ms 30 ms 30 ms mx-ll-110.164.1-65.static.3bb.co.th [110.164.1.6 5] 7 * 37 ms 33 ms mx-ll-110.164.1-117.static.3bb.co.th [110.164.1. 117] 8 * 80 ms 58 ms mx-ll-110.164.0-251.static.3bb.co.th [110.164.0. 251] 9 349 ms 226 ms 226 ms mx-ll-110.164.0-219.static.3bb.co.th [110.164.0. 219] 10 242 ms 226 ms 225 ms prs-b5-link.telia.net [213.248.81.93] 11 232 ms 232 ms 232 ms prs-bb1-link.telia.net [62.115.138.120] 12 238 ms 237 ms 242 ms ldn-bb1-link.telia.net [80.91.247.35] 13 275 ms 240 ms 272 ms ldn-b5-link.telia.net [80.91.246.145] 14 240 ms 241 ms 249 ms ldn-tch-i1-link.telia.net [80.91.250.210] 15 250 ms 255 ms 249 ms internap-ic-121223-2-ldn-tch-i1.c.telia.net [213 .248.75.210] 16 252 ms 308 ms 258 ms border5.po1-20g-bbnet1.lon.pnap.net [212.118.240 .40] 17 348 ms 254 ms 266 ms anmedia-200922-gw.lon.border5.lon.pnap.net [212. 118.240.202] 18 273 ms 249 ms 251 ms 195.234.242.72 19 * * * Request timed out. 20 * * * Request timed out. 21 * * * Request timed out. 22 * * * Request timed out. 23 * * * Request timed out. 24 * * * Request timed out. 25 * * * Request timed out. 26 * * * Request timed out. 27 * * * Request timed out. 28 * * * Request timed out. 29 * * * Request timed out. 30 * * * Request timed out. Trace complete. ``` As if to taunt me, I get “The system returned: (113) No route to host” when I click “Preview Post” just now. I’ll try again; if unsuccessful Post via Tor. On retry I got the more common “(110) Connection timed out.” Posting via Tor… ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2014, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-can-access-sdmb-with-tor-but-chrome-times-out-why/701057/12 "2014-10-12T12:47:10Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > For me, learning about the Internet and tools (more out of curiosity than real need) is as important as solving my SDMB problem. This and another recent thread have already taught me more than I get with lots of Googling. Thank you, **Reply** and other Dopers! I hope I’m not wearing out my welcome or abusing GQ. You’re welcome. I don’t think anyone minds. We answer what we can. You’d probably get more complete, in-depth answers on something like AskSlashdot or StackExchange’s [network engineering](http://networkengineering.stackexchange.com/), though. > [@](#): > > Comments: > (1) You’ll note two types of result from SDMB though each leads to “Destination host unreachable.” > The cases where the “unreachable” message occurs immediately (as event 2) are when Chrome is experiencing the time-out errors. The cases where it gets lots of “Request timed out” messages before “unreachable” are when Chrome is accessing SDMB OK! 😕 Hmm. It looks like they are dropping a lot of traceroute packets, probably on purpose. Don’t worry, it happens from the US too. Most sites block pings as a matter of course now, but I didn’t realize they were blocking other packets too, rendering tracert not very useful. Anyway, I’m having better luck with [tracetcp](http://simulatedsimian.github.io/tracetcp.html), but you’ll need to download that along with the winpcap library. As a supplement to that, in Chrome, you can push CTRL-SHIFT-I to open the inspector, go to Network, and then load a page. You can look at the headers and such to try and figure out what is going on, but it may or may not tell you much depending on how the pages are being censored. (This will only work if the requests are at least reaching a web server of some sort, rather than just being blocked at a lower network level). If you want to delve deeper, [WireShark](https://www.wireshark.org/) lets you view everything your network card is saying, and the responses it gets (or doesn’t), but it takes more learning to understand. For example, you can see the DNS requests going out and you can see if they come back.\* The main thing here is that internet routes are not under your control. The best case scenario with tracetcp is that you’ll eventually hit a certain point after which packets disappear, but all that’ll really tell you is who that server is and maybe where it’s located in the world. Won’t really tell you much about how they’re censoring you, or if it’s on purpose, or why. If you wanna avoid that censorship, use the aforementioned methods. A properly configured VPN is the most reliable because it works on a level that isn’t application-dependent and routes all your traffic, encrypted, through that – making them very hard for governments to block selectively unless they want to block all traffic on certain ports, or all encrypted traffic (most censors don’t do this because it causes too much network trouble). \*You can also do this using the “nslookup” command straight from the terminal. Type “nslookup [boards.straightdope.com](http://boards.straightdope.com)” to see what your ISP is telling you, and “nslookup [boards.straightdope.com](http://boards.straightdope.com) 8.8.8.8” to see what Google would tell you if you used their DNS. Wireshark just lets you see that and a lot more, but you have to be able to understand what you’re looking at. I usually don’t. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2014, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-can-access-sdmb-with-tor-but-chrome-times-out-why/701057/13 "2014-10-12T13:04:59Z")
> [@Reply](#): > > \*You can also do this using the “nslookup” command straight from the terminal. Type “nslookup [boards.straightdope.com](http://boards.straightdope.com)” to see what your ISP is telling you, and “nslookup [boards.straightdope.com](http://boards.straightdope.com) 8.8.8.8” to see what Google would tell you if you used their DNS. Too late to run half this experiment without backing up – I’ve just changed to Google’s DNS. So far so good! 🙂 I’ll report again after several hours. ```auto Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7601] Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. C:\Users\764>tracert straightdope.com Tracing route to straightdope.com [209.104.5.198] over a maximum of 30 hops: 1 2 ms 5 ms 5 ms 172.16.0.1 2 44 ms 33 ms 28 ms 10.121.65.125 3 32 ms 64 ms 26 ms 10.121.65.134 4 33 ms 30 ms 32 ms mx-ll-110.164.14-187.static.3bb.co.th [110.164.1 4.187] 5 32 ms 31 ms 45 ms mx-ll-110.164.14-186.static.3bb.co.th [110.164.1 4.186] 6 29 ms 32 ms 30 ms mx-ll-110.164.1-139.static.3bb.co.th [110.164.1. 139] 7 38 ms 43 ms 31 ms mx-ll-110.164.1-117.static.3bb.co.th [110.164.1. 117] 8 94 ms 62 ms 61 ms mx-ll-110.164.0-129.static.3bb.co.th [110.164.0. 129] 9 238 ms 244 ms 264 ms mx-ll-110.164.0-85.static.3bb.co.th [110.164.0.8 5] 10 249 ms 257 ms 261 ms te0-7-0-33.ccr21.sjc03.atlas.cogentco.com [38.10 4.138.121] 11 246 ms 244 ms 490 ms be2000.ccr21.sjc01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.6. 105] 12 264 ms 268 ms 285 ms be2162.mpd21.lax01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.27 .173] 13 380 ms 270 ms 280 ms be2332.ccr21.phx02.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.41 .246] 14 261 ms 406 ms 264 ms te3-1.mag01.phx02.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.24. 145] 15 262 ms 275 ms 262 ms te0-0-1-0.nr11.b022559-0.phx02.atlas.cogentco.co m [154.24.0.50] 16 372 ms 394 ms 370 ms 38.122.89.162 17 358 ms 276 ms 266 ms 204.17.58.121 18 270 ms 315 ms 277 ms tus6.Login.COM [209.104.1.6] 19 274 ms 275 ms 275 ms straightdope.com [209.104.5.198] Trace complete. C:\Users\764>nslookup boards.straightdope.com DNS request timed out. timeout was 2 seconds. Server: UnKnown Address: 2001:4860:4860::8888 DNS request timed out. timeout was 2 seconds. DNS request timed out. timeout was 2 seconds. DNS request timed out. timeout was 2 seconds. DNS request timed out. timeout was 2 seconds. *** Request to UnKnown timed-out ``` And with Chrome now “working,” nslookup times out. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2014, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-can-access-sdmb-with-tor-but-chrome-times-out-why/701057/14 "2014-10-12T16:52:16Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > I’ve just changed to Google’s DNS. So far so good! 🙂 I’ll report again after several hours. SDMB had no trouble at all 🙂 … But I started getting Timeouts on other sites, e.g. [skepticalscience.com](http://skepticalscience.com) ☹ If I switch back to “Get DNS automatically”, vice versa. Tor always works. Since there’s a “primary” and “secondary” DNS server, could I solve it all by using Google’s as one, and whatever my “automatic” DNS server is as the other? How do I determine the IP address of my “automatic” DNS? ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2014, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-can-access-sdmb-with-tor-but-chrome-times-out-why/701057/15 "2014-10-12T17:32:02Z")
And now I’m getting " (113) No route to host" for SDMB via Chrome with Google’s DNS. Posting via Tor with no problem. 😕 😕 :smack: :eek: ☹ ---
**Author:** ![tellyworth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/977dab/32.png) [@tellyworth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tellyworth)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2014, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-can-access-sdmb-with-tor-but-chrome-times-out-why/701057/16 "2014-10-12T20:58:59Z")
Timeouts are difficult to diagnose at the best of times, and traceroutes are unfortunately not very useful. Your traceroute packets probably do not follow the same route as your web browsing. I think ```auto ipconfig /all ``` will list the DNS servers set by dchp. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2014, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-can-access-sdmb-with-tor-but-chrome-times-out-why/701057/17 "2014-10-13T18:47:18Z")
Update: SDMB started getting timeouts again, despite using Google’s DNS. I know intermittent errors are hard to troubleshoot, but it seemed spooky the way Google’s DNS gave me good SDMB for several hours and then started failing. By running nslookup, I think I found that my “automatic” DNS is 172.16.0.1 – some sort of generic address? I tried listing Google for primary and this one as secondary. That seemed to improve at first, but then, again, things got bad. I’m getting paranoid! (BTW, do I need to change both IPv4 and IPv6? I have been, but didn’t try to figure out the IPv6 version of 172.16.0.1.) Today things are worse than ever. :mad: Tor browser still works fine, and I’ve been doing much of my browsing from there. (Sometimes getting “Your IP Address is banned” message when I try to post on SDMB – another example of Tor inconvenience.) Others in Thailand have Internet problems, but symptoms are too variable to know if they relate to mine. As I said, the Wifi guy thinks there’s an (enemy!?) router colliding with his signal. He knows much more than me, but would that really yield this strange symptom _ **where Tor works fine?** _ BTW, isn’t there some sort of DNS cache? Why would DNS cause trouble in the middle of a session that repeats the same domain names? ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2014, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-can-access-sdmb-with-tor-but-chrome-times-out-why/701057/18 "2014-10-13T20:04:07Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > BTW, isn’t there some sort of DNS cache? Why would DNS cause trouble in the middle of a session that repeats the same domain names? There is, and DNS is probably not what you’re seeing. It was just an easy troubleshooting thing to rule out. Don’t have any more answers for you beyond “get a VPN”, I’m afraid. Perhaps others have ideas. Good luck! And the wifi guy is just totally bullshitting you. Network people who have to talk to consumers are usually there for one of two reasons: 1) they don’t know enough to be a proper network engineer with a much higher paying, non-tech-support job or 2) they’re part of some small fly-by-night operation that figures it can retain customers by feeding them plausible-enough bullshit for problems they experience ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2014, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-can-access-sdmb-with-tor-but-chrome-times-out-why/701057/19 "2014-10-13T22:14:46Z")
> [@Reply](#): > > And the wifi guy is just totally bullshitting you. Network people who have to talk to consumers are usually there for one of two reasons: 1) they don’t know enough to be a proper network engineer with a much higher paying, non-tech-support job or 2) they’re part of some small fly-by-night operation that figures it can retain customers by feeding them plausible-enough bullshit for problems they experience He’s not part of some fly-by-night operation; he _is_ the operation. He seems eager to help; contracts another young local guy for technical help. And he probably does intend to visit and modify our receiver, an expensive detour if it’s just bullshit. And I’m pretty sure he’ll let me sit at his computer (i.e. _before_ his flakey Wifi connection to me) and access SDMB from there for an hour or two, to see if I get similar problems. (A better first experiment, I think, would be to take my laptop to his shop and use his Wifi from 10 meters instead of 3 km.) In either case the intermittent nature of the problem will make diagnosis uncertain. Some months ago, he straightened out a problem which perhaps I should have mentioned. Between our Wifi receiver and a retransmitter is a Dlink box [which got hijacked several months ago](http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/03/hackers-hijack-300000-plus-wireless-routers-make-malicious-changes/). I didn’t understand that at the time – we got bogus login page – but he “fixed” it. Googling for a mention just now, I suddenly wonder if an ongoing hijack could be related to my recent problem? 😕 :smack: