Cannot access specific webpages at seemingly random times

I recently started experiencing this very interesting issue. At random, a webpage that might have worked 30 minutes before, would suddenly fail to load, giving me a server nonresponsive. I know this is not true because using a proxy, the web page loads fine. Using the CL to ping the webpage causes a timeout. These intermittent failures last for 10-60 minutes then go away by themselves.

Recently however, en.wikipedia.org has not worked for over 24hrs which leads me to suspect something wrong with my computer's configurations, so I disabled all AV/FW programs but to no avail. My connection is provided by the IT dept of my organization. The only nonstandard setup I have is a switch. Other people using the same connection do not experience this issue. Unless there is a virus, I am baffled.

wonton

Posted 2013-01-12T03:08:00.347

Reputation: 355

Whenever a page does not load, start up Command Prompt, and try to ping the site that does not load. Then post the errors (if any). – BenjiWiebe – 2013-01-12T03:47:37.650

Answers

Use OpenDNS.

From here,

Windows 7 
    1. Open Network Connections by clicking the Start button Picture of the
       Start button, and then clicking Control Panel. In the search box,
       type adapter, and then, under Network and Sharing Center, click View
       network connections.

    2. Right-click the connection that you want to change, and then click
       Properties. Administrator permission required If you're prompted for
       an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or
       provide confirmation.

    3. Click the Networking tab. Under This connection uses the following  
       items, click either Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) or   
       Internet Protocol Version 6 (TCP/IPv6), and then click Properties.

    4. click Use the following DNS server addresses, and then, in the 
       Preferred DNS server and Alternate DNS server boxes, type the 
       addresses of the primary and secondary DNS servers.

    Primary:     208.67.222.222
    Alternative: 208.67.220.220

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WikiWitz

Posted 2013-01-12T03:08:00.347

Reputation: 1 233

It appears that a runthrough of may have CCleaner fixed the issue. That or it fixed itself again. – wonton – 2013-01-12T06:13:59.537

1If you do use OpenDNS, it's worth noting that they do incorrect-url redirection to their own search service if you misspell a URL, and also content-filtering by default. I found this really annoying, as if I misspelled a url, the www.url.com would get changed into www.opendns.com?url=[biglongurlescapedstring], and you couldn't just make a minor fix to it. – Fake Name – 2013-01-12T06:34:46.657

These days I use Google's DNS, 8.8.8.8, 8.8.4.4, which aside from being easier to remember, don't do obnoxious redirections.

– Fake Name – 2013-01-12T06:36:19.570

Try clearing your DNS cache. If you are on Windows:

Open a Command Prompt as administrator.
type ipconfig /flushdns
Close all your browser windows, wait a little, and retry.

See if this works.

K.A.Monica

Posted 2013-01-12T03:08:00.347

Reputation: 5 887