The Problem: For no known reason I became unable to reach my web host. All of my websites and even the host’s public site vanished. I could reach everything through remote desktop connections, but not from my home connection. I had just backed up two gigs of files from one of my servers and I assumed that the web host had blocked me (mistaken profiling). After much back and forth with my host’s tech support team they unblocked my IP Address. I still could not reach my host. I inform tech support of that; they do some more digging, and they tell me that I had never been blocked at all.
I then think that my ISP (Comcast) has blocked me. I call them, and after resetting every single part of my workstation’s DNS system, router, and modem I still cannot get to the web host.
We try connecting the workstation to the modem with a new network connection and Eureka! It works!
I try accessing the sites again via the router, and then get the original error. I scour the router admin screens (a four year old Linksys) and cannot find any restrictions.
I resign myself to buying a new router and do a hard reset (reverting back to the original configuation) of the existing router, just to see if that works. It does not. In fact, the entire router stops working. I let it run for about 20 minutes and the router still has not reset itself. I then do another hard reset (just for fun) and the router resets itself within 30 seconds and works perfectly. I’m even able to get to my web host again.
The Cause: No idea, animal spirits and a gypsy curse seem to be the likely culprits.
The Solution: Two hard resets of the router seemed to do the trick, no idea why. I did not have to get a new router, but I would like those four hours back though.
photo credit: stars6 / Leonardo Rizzi
This post originally appeared on the Stronico blog – with the absorption of Stronico into Digital Tool Factory this post has been moved to the Digital Tool Factory blog
