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I'll summarize my problem as concisely as possible. I'm taking an online real estate course that requires, by law, that I spend a certain amount of time in each unit. For 2.5 months, the timer on the website worked perfectly, tracking the exact amount of time I'd been logged in to each unit. It worked perfectly when accessed from my home Mac (over WiFi), my iPhone (over LTE and home WiFi), my iPad (over home WiFi), and from my work PC (over ethernet). However, 5 days ago, the timer stopped counting, and no longer works from any device on any network that previously worked for me. I called Tech Support, but they were little help, suggesting I find a stronger internet connection.
Meanwhile, I've asked family and friends to log in, and they all see the timer working perfectly. Nothing has changed with my internet connections, at home or at work, and they're as strong as they've always been.
Because "new" devices seem to have no issues, my working theory is that my home network and/or devices have been "blacklisted" by their servers for some reason, possibly because of too many timed out sessions (I did tend to not log out).
So in short, to prove or disprove my theory, I'd like to be able gain a whole new identity, such that when I access the website, it believes I'm a new device on a new connection from which the website has never been accessed before. What would that entail? I have Verizon FIOS with their router using factory defaults. My home computer is an iMac running OS X El Capitan. I'm happy to mess with its settings.
I have 9 days remaining to complete 10 units worth of work, so I'm desperate to find a solution. Technical support is "working the issue", but I'm not confident they'll get to the bottom of it. If I don't finish the course material, they cannot give me an extension or refund me my money. Any support from the community would be greatly appreciated.
MegaMatt
Posted 2016-04-23T00:57:28.390
Reputation: 133
"If I don't finish the course material, they cannot give me an extension or refund me my money." I hope you paid with a credit card so you can do a chargeback. That said, I'd use a friend's computer or go to a library. – ceejayoz – 2016-04-23T01:09:06.740
Yes, thanks, I did pay with a credit card and I'm prepared to lean on that. I'm checking out my local library in the morning, which I presume will work. But a few tweaks to my computer and/or network at home would be worth it to finish it out from home. – MegaMatt – 2016-04-23T01:19:00.580
Did you try different browsers? If you normally use firefox try chrome. If chrome try firefox. Maybe even Internet explorer. (gasp) – cybernard – 2016-04-23T01:21:02.413
Yes. I should have mentioned in my question that, once it stopped working, I attempted to access the site from my wife's Windows 10 laptop, using IE, which I had never done before. It still didn't work. So that particular data point leads me to believe that it's not the device, but the home wifi, that could be blacklisted. Seems like anything connected to it has this issue. Same thing at work. – MegaMatt – 2016-04-23T01:27:50.933
If they were blacklisting IP addresses chances are you'd be unable to see the site at all. If you're technical, you could try checking your browser's JavaScript console for errors. – ceejayoz – 2016-04-23T01:29:00.040
Yep, I am technical (webapp developer), and I did check my Chrome console for errors and found none. When I click the button on the site that tells me how much time I've "achieved" in the unit, it looks like it's making a REST call to get the info on-demand. This all leads me to believe that the time is tracked on the server, and not in the browser in any way. And that makes sense since it would be more secure. To your point about blacklisted IPs, I think it's possible that the "timer service" operates autonomously, with its own hypothetical blacklist. – MegaMatt – 2016-04-23T01:32:23.440