If you’ve cleared your cookies and you’re still having problems, the most likely next cause is that somehow there’s a *.livejournal.com entry in your HOSTS file. Some plugins edit the file.
You can manually edit your HOSTS file and check for this.
If you’re not sure how to do that, you can run the installer on this page, which will replace your HOSTS file with one that blocks most advertising.
If you don’t want to block ads, and you can’t find the HOSTS file, let us know what OS you’re running, and we’ll point you there.
You’re kidding, right? Hell, no – you ain’t no fool!
And before I forget, thanks both excessive and effusive for your help! My computer knowledge is in the “fair to poor” range, and although I have a pretty good grip on terminology, I have no idea what to do with all the words.
Does this mean I have to go through a proxy server every time I want to access the site? Or is it indicative of the Actual Problem which can now be addressed?
No, you shouldn’t have to go through a proxy every time. This tells me that it is a problem with your computer(some program is blocking access, or your hosts file is) or your ISP.
Do you have access to another computer which you can try from your network?
Now that I think about it…did you reboot after running the hosts file utility? XP likes to cache entries in the hosts file (checks cache->host file->DNS server when trying to resolve a url) so if you didn’t reboot it may have still been using the old hosts file…
It’s definitely not the HOSTS file – the direct IP link didn’t work either.
Either something local is actively blocking LiveJournal’s IP – or LiveJournal is blocking Tracy Lord’s IP.
Do you have any firewall software installed? If not, maybe send an e-mail off to LiveJournal’s support folks, asking if your IP is on a blacklist? (You can get your IP address here: www.whatismyip.com )
It’s possible that your modem has inherited an IP address that previously belonged to a dickhead.
Otherwise, I got nuthin’, and someone with more geek points will be along shortly to figure it out.
Hmm… what do you get if you type “nslookup livejournal.com” from a command prompt? (that’s “START->run…->cmd”, brings up a black window that looks to all the world like a DOS prompt)
Most importantly, does the string “66.150.15.150” appear anywhere near the name “Livejournal.com”?
I’m thinking maybe there’s an upstream DNS resolution problem rather than one with your own “hosts” file… in which case you will need to talk to you ISP (rather than Dell) – but let’s see what you get, first.
… or, more likely, your computer has cached some invalid DNS translation for livejournal.com. :o
This is not necessarily overriden by rebooting – but should clear itself within hours or days (the Minimum TimeToLive for a client DNS Cache Record is 1 hour, but, IIRC, it could potentially “live” for as long as 72 hours under some circumstances).
You can manually “flush” the DNS cache on your computer by opening a Command Prompt (see my previous post) and typing “ipconfig /flushdns” at the prompt (in case this isn’t clear, don’t type in the quotes I have used to surround the text you should type!)
Try this and then see if you can connect directly (without using the proxy suggested by Nilor)
(BTW, haven’t seen you posting for a while; where have you been?)
Why don’t you just switch over to Firefox as a browser like a significant portion of the people here. That will probably take care of your problem. Note: It is free and you don’t have to get rid of Internet Explorer. You can have both.
I had an issue once similiar to this. The culprit was my wireless broadband router. Turns out, I just needed to unplug my router for a minute, and that fixed it. FWIW - it’s a LinkSys router.
Larry’s test with the IP address rules out DNS problems, since DNS isn’t consulted if an IP is given directly - as he says, it seems that some step in the route between Tracy and livejournal is failing, be it by accident or due to some sort of deliberate blocking.
Tracy, If you get a command prompt up (start … run … “cmd”) and run the following command:
c:> pathping 66.150.15.150
you should get a list of stages describing the route between your computer and livejournal - if you copy and paste the output here we might be able to see where things are going wrong. You might want to delete the first couple of lines, however, as your own IP address will show up, and is arguably personal information (if you’re bothered about that sort of thing).
Humph. Unless someone with more networking experience has a better idea, I’d say that judging by the fact that things don’t seem to be getting past your ISP (or at least, your ISP’s bandwidth supplier), it seems most likely that for some bizarre reason, they are blocking LiveJournal. Not much more to advise, really, except to send their tech support an email (including the output you pasted here couldn’t hurt). Whatever it is, I’d say that at this point it’s certainly not a problem with your computer.
