Karaoke Forums

Cindy,  would a DNS query tool be of help resolving this ? Or is it evident that this is  DNS problem ?

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".

For Vicki... its fairly evident that at least 2 dns servers on the "way" to the address karaoke-forum.net are lost in cyber space and hopefully will pull over for directions at some point..

until then.. she's a passenger being held hostage it seems..

and I'm guessing that either the other people having issues are stalled at the same intersection.. or there are some other intersections on the Net that are having the same difficulty..  

They could check that by being connected to the "problem" ISP and doing a tracert as well.. like Vicki did originally..

Start - Run - CMD, click on OK... then at the C:> tracert www.karaoke-forum.com      then press enter...
what is the IP addy of the very last "hop" that gives a happy reply (### ms) instead of the 3 *'s....  

(note you can stop the test after it starts to fail by doing CTRL C)...

that's really what it looks like to me.. but I'm not going to proclaim to know it all or that I'm an expert.. just saying what in my experience this is acting like.. and what I'm seeing as results of the tests that've been done so far..

I don't think a DNS query tool will tell you much more..

Hello Again everyone,

I posted on the previous (other) post regarding the situation.

I am uncertain what if any changes took place that could have possible caused the errors - I am investigating.

I checked our system and server there isn't a problem. I did restart the server and reset the DNS (BIND) and that apparently didn't resolve the situation. Still working on it.

I have the NOC and my Server Guru Darrell (He is in Idaho) checking into this. Thus far, They cannot detect a problem at our end.

I am on top of this and don't feel that I have abanded you folks...

_________________
Phill Cross
Webmaster, Host Provider & Part-Time “Technical” Problem Solver

KJ / MC


services provided by:
CROSS WEB TECH

Cindy honey if you were a doctor I would move just to be on your books. Your explainations are easy to understand and thank you very much for doing so.

Hi phil, I would wave but I cant use smilies on this poxy or should that be proxy server. Dont panic I have fielded all the emails that came to MY inbox by copying and pasting Cindy's explaination. I have also given as many as have contacted me the proxy server url so as they can continue to come in

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"Be who you are and say what you feel... Because those that matter... Don't mind...And those that mind... Don't matter."

Site has been down or me for a couple days..

(Where do I find these porn banners?)

Not certain, but when you find out please notify me ASAP,  I want to know how to avoid getting such abominable banners, and must take all precautions to avoid such sites generating them !  What HORRID sites !!!!!!!


(but of course this goes without saying)

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".

Psst Jerry,

 I sent this post to you via private PM because I don't want people to think we're pervs.  What type porn ?  Is it like that cool site I sent to you where the blonde pygmies are wearing leather Yarmulkes with rubber ear-flaps ?  Call me !!!

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".

lmfao kappy your special brand of humour has brightened my friday

_________________
"Be who you are and say what you feel... Because those that matter... Don't mind...And those that mind... Don't matter."

Seems in the fray,  my humor got rerouted thru the UK.



Thought,

   Those of you familiar with Websites and Telecommunications.  

   This seemed to happen at the very beginning of Memorial day weekend. Is there a chance that a small tweak to allow for advertising of perhaps a "sale" inadvertently triggered America Online and it's affiliate telecom networks to autoblock Karaokescene forcing a rerouting that appears to make this problem "random" ?  America Online is huge.   Wouldn't a huge site viewing KS suddenly as "spam" and autoblocking it due to some change forcing rerouting perhaps start a domino effect too ? Verizon of course is HUGE too !  They admit to having considerable probs. These two factors might account for the problem ?  or no ?  If this is the case it seems like a sit and wait game.

  I have a few free hours this afternoon, since anything dealing with America Online is time consuming, if making a few calls on the sites behalf would be at all beneficial to AOL,  I can do-so

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".

I wanted to add on here that my access became available again sometime yesterday by the afternoon.

So possibly it is DNS related, or some networking between me, time warner, and phil's server was down causing an inability to access.

However Phil, someone should know the answer to this. It doesn't just happen invisibly or for no reason. Your web host or one of your techs would have had to change something related to your ip address or your DNS records for the those to be affected and cause the outage. If it is a network down then your web host should be able to quickly identify that as the source of your problem. Otherwise you may have to still consider this part of some type of web attack / DOS that could occur again without warning.

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The Truth Is Out There

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Phill and Cindy both explained that regardless of what *might* have caused this, there's no VISIBLE down anywhere. Turning the clocks back, or trying to rectify exact changes in such a case CAN do more harm (at this point) than the positive benefits. Absolutely no virus activity was detectable on the site.  DATA center, and administration researched that.  What is happening now regardless of TOTALLY unknown causes, or what *might've* caused this chain of events (assuming it's even that) already affected *something also unknown* outside the site, or at least beyond anyone in KS's control someplace currently not known.  Going back thru time doesn't remedy reactions at this point, because there's no reference point, no reasonable change that can be made to undo what's entirely unknown, probably like hunting while wearing a blindfold, what's the point ? Nothing they KNOW of would've caused this.  A major change, perhaps even a slight change for what might very well NOT be related would just be doing too much, and MIGHT in fact exacerbate things even more for those that DO currently have access to the site.. Whatever happened isn't happening according to any logic understood. So what could be reasonably tweaked when there's no apparent cause, but just guesses ?   Assuming it *was* site related, and individuals were being denied access (by mistake), these individuals would STILL not have access whether they rerouted to get here or not. Tracers were done FROM KS out showing no problem that can be rectified by any reasonable change on this end.  That's the problem currently. The reactions to *whatever* the cause is, for all anyone knows MIGHT be something like Verizon, or lines elsewhere, and NOT caused by a site tweak; No tweak took place on the site that should've caused anything at all like this to happen.  It's unknown.  These situations can at times possibly iron themselves out too assuming it's an adjustment that other sites must make BUT to throw another wrench into things might give A LOT fewer of us access, and as Phill explained cause a loss of ability to use this site for perhaps as long as 72 hours for all of us, and for what gain ? only to hopefully attempt a "shot in the dark" remedy that might worsen things.

For that reason, I was wondering that IF a phonecall to America Online might by some quirky chance divulge that America Online HAS in fact blocked KS, that might help to call.. Besides that, nothing about this makes sense. They checked for viruses, and anything done at this point is not without substantial risk of worsening existing prob that at least hasn't been worsening, Those that didn't have access, DO have access when on a different site..  That's the best that anybody knows of at this point. Nobody was thrown off of KS by a mistake.. As to whether KS was thrown off've some other server....that's what I was wondering.

Barring my warped humor which of course has no place on an administrative thread such as this, I Emailed Phill with some similar questions about cause and effect. When I observed this happening there appeared to be a strange reversal of events on my end, and the end of others however unfortuneately there's no reasonable correlation between any modifications and what's now happening.  Might be coincidental, might be something entirely unforeseen. Unknown.  

There is NO site trojan, there is no virus activity that can be detected by ANY known site diagnostics. Other website folk were also consulted with. Nobody knows.

The fact they are doing the best they can, is all we should expect. Doing something, when there's no clue might not be too cool considering certain problems fix themselves given some time.  They are putting 100% into this.  This is annoying for KS also because people don't understand stuff *happens* and members trying to fault find (although most understand) creates more of a problem, stress and does nothing to help with solutions,  solutions I suppose administration isn't asking *us* for.

_________________
Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".

good to know you have resumed normal workings Bill...Joyce, me, Clay, Raven are still experiencing the same prob and still have to connect via proxy

_________________
"Be who you are and say what you feel... Because those that matter... Don't mind...And those that mind... Don't matter."

From Phill earlier.




Administration would appreciate it if we just accept they are doing all they can do.

_________________
Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".

so does that mean its permanent?

_________________
"Be who you are and say what you feel... Because those that matter... Don't mind...And those that mind... Don't matter."

hello,

Whether this is permanent or not doesn't appear to be the case. It is a waiting game as far as we know currently.

I am considering modifing the IP addresses. This may remedy the situation by having the ISPs and Networks force to update the DNS.

Please note that this may take all sites offline for a period of 2 to 72 hours!

I am leaving for a brief vacation on Sunday June 10th and return on June 15th. I will be unavailable during this time.

I would prefer to wait until I return before making any modifications - therefore I could monitor the situation fully.

Also, note that during my vacation the servers will be monitored by Darrell. He is doing this as a favour and may not be available to assist.

I apologize and thank you -

_________________
Phill Cross
Webmaster, Host Provider & Part-Time “Technical” Problem Solver

KJ / MC


services provided by:
CROSS WEB TECH

Phil ~ If you think there's a reasonably good chance that modifying the KS/SS IP addresses will lead to a solution of the problem, then I think it's a good idea to try it.  A two or three day overall down-time period shouldn't be THAT difficult and painful to deal with.  Obviously, it's your and admins call!  The problem may still resolve on it's own by the time you're back from vacation on the 15th anyway.

I don't agree with this. I always keep my computers very clean and up to date with all Microsoft updates and regular scans with about 4 or 5 antivirus solutions in addition to adware / spyware scans. This problem occurred before using any proxy servers which may have caused possible problems for individual computers accessing that way. The fact that all the other sites that I regularly visit are all up and working is usual is also a suspect reason for thinking it is related to this site in particular. The blurb you talked about above regarding sites being taken down because of downloaders and infections means that the corrupted sites are removed by the web hosts providers & not the programs themselves.

This still appears to me to be DNS related. The fact that my connectivity came back indicates this. That's why I'm saying that it should be investigated. When this has happed to the web sites that I own I can contact my web host and they can tell me if a change related to the DNS or IP has been submitted or if there has been an error in their systems to cause and outage. That's what I mean when I say someone should be able to identify this. It does have a cause and it can be found. This also occurred at about the same time as the gray font which was also odd, and caused a problem with the site. That raises my suspecions about tampering.

So, I'm thinking some larger network issue occurred, or Phil's web host made a change to their servers such as moving their files / access from one server to another, or someone purposely made a DNS change, or someone screwed up and made a similar change, but isn't telling Phil. The other alternative is that someone has managed to gain access to his servers and software and can randomly / at will make changes and submit those changes unawares to the rest of Phil's team and thereby causing disruptions.

_________________
The Truth Is Out There