Cannot get on this site anymore, help please.

Kmot

Kmot

Well-known member
I am on now, using my mobile phone.

Two days ago I clicked on my bookmark for this site and it did not load. Since that time I have deleted all cookies, deleted complete browser history, and tried using both Chrome and IE. Nothing helped. I checked if the site is down and of course it is not.

This morning I did DNS flush, and that did not help. I have re-booted my PC several times in-between the various steps.

I could use some guidance on how to resolve this issue! :(
 
Well it is not the site itself nor the requirements for this site.

I frequently log in using IE8 in Windows XP, so even an old browser is not an issue.

Go to the affected computer and open a DOS ( command ) prompt.

Type in

ping www.knifeedge.com

You should see:

Pinging knifeedge.com [208.101.22.248] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 208.101.22.248: bytes=32 time=52ms TTL=52
Reply from 208.101.22.248: bytes=32 time=55ms TTL=52

If you get a different IP address then your computer may have it's DNS lookups compromised.

The most common way of doing this is by adding bogus entries to your C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts file.

The HOSTS file is a text file without an identifying suffix.

Right click on it and open it using Wordpad.

There should only be ONE uncommented entry in it that looks like this.

127.0.0.1 localhost

If there is anything else, delete it and reboot.

Then try again.

If you get the same result, change the servers which provide you with DNS services.

At worst you can always use Google's own servers located at 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4
 
Thanks opjose. I did the ping and it was correct, with a time of 47ms. TTL =53

I will go look at the other stuff now.
 
Yes there was another line I had inserted long ago dealing with live updates for my video editing software. I have deleted it and am rebooting. Hope my next post comes from my PC and not my phone!
 
So next type in

http://208.101.22.248 to your browser and see if the Knifeedge web site comes up.

If it does not you may have a local proxy installed. Some anti-virus/malware suites install a proxy that intercepts web page access.

You may have to look at that.

Delete all Temporary Internet Folder files too, just in case you are seeing a bogus cache result.
 
Typed it, did not work. Back to the drawing board!

Thanks for the assistance. :)
 
Open a Command prompt again

Type

telnet 208.101.22.248 80

Note the space between the 248 and 80

The screen should clear after you do this.

type a character or two.

You should get something back that looks like this...

<html>
<head><title>400 Bad Request</title></head>
<body bgcolor="white">
<center><h1>400 Bad Request</h1></center>
<hr><center>nginx</center>
</body>
</html>


Connection to host lost.

C:\>

If you don't get something similiar to the above, you definitely have a proxy in the way.
 
'telnet' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.

So it is still a mystery. BTW, I am on my mobile phone using the WiFi linkup. So at least it is not a router problem. But typing on a cellphone keyboard sure is! :(
 
Ryan;

Eh, actually if you go into Windows "Add/Remove Windows components" you can add Telnet back to any current version of Windows.

It is part of one of the optionally installed "packages" that includes "echo" and other commands.

A useful debugging tool that should be part of any Windows install.
 
opjose, that was Adam that posted above, not me. Do we all look the same to you?! ;)

Kmot, I'm sorry for your trouble! Are you getting a 404 error, or what?

In any case, I think the problem must exist on your end. I don't know what to recommend. opjose's recommended steps have already shown that you can reach our server at a lower level. Clearing the cookies and temporary Internet files is one of the first things I would have suggested. But you've also shown that it's not specific to just one browser, which puts it in a different class of problem.

Did you install any new protection (antivirus, antimalware) software? I wonder if something is incorrectly--or even maliciously--interfering with your web browsing traffic.

I wish I had a surefire solution to offer you.
 
The next thing I would try in this situation is some other browsers. Try Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, etc. See if any of them load the site.

If the source of the problem is indeed a misconfiguration from some kind of malware, it's quite possible that a new, freshly-installed browser will be unaffected.
 
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I'm on my wife's laptop, on the same network, in the same house.

I still cannot get on using my PC. I have been trying everything that people have been telling me here and on other sites. I have installed all sorts of cleaners, malware detectors, root killers, etc. I did identify something bad called Private VPN that had sneaked in somehow but it has been cleared out.

I have changed numerous settings in both IE and Chrome, the two browsers I use. Nothiing has helped.

As for installing something new, yes I changed my anti-virus software from AVG to Avast. But that was several weeks ago and I had no problem getting into knifeedge.com/forums with Avast installed.

I cannot recall installing or updating anything around the time knifeedge.com ceased to work on my PC.

It's a frustrating mystery to me and through many, many suggestions nothing has fixed the issue yet.

Why only one website? Would not a virus, malware, or whatever affect numerous websites?

Sigh...
 
Kmot said:
As for installing something new, yes I changed my anti-virus software from AVG to Avast. But that was several weeks ago and I had no problem getting into knifeedge.com/forums with Avast installed.

I cannot recall installing or updating anything around the time knifeedge.com ceased to work on my PC.

It's a frustrating mystery to me and through many, many suggestions nothing has fixed the issue yet.

Why only one website? Would not a virus, malware, or whatever affect numerous websites?

Sigh...
Click to expand...

Did you try running the TELNET command I mentioned, and at worst installing it from Window's ADD/Remove Windows Features?

The results of that will determine if the problem is browser based, which I doubt or proxy-redirection-cache, which IMHO is the problem.

If the problem is the latter no change of browser is going to affect things... it will not matter if you are using Chrome, Firefox, IE... all will produce the same results.

Also, some ISP's utilize transparent caching servers to reduce their bandwidth utilization upstream.

If the cache has been polluted, you may not see the web pages you expect on ALL of your computers that are hooked to the same ISP.

The fix for this is to contact the ISP and tell them that you are unable to see particular web sites due to their caching.
 
Gotta throw in my two cents here...

Any time I come across a machine I know to have been infected with malware, my response is pretty much always a full reformat & re-installation of an OS. Antivirus programs do a decent job at preventing infection when used properly, but once a virus has had its way with your computer, there's no limit to the number of places it could have hidden copies of itself and stored nasty mechanisms to endlessly revive itself, even after an antivirus program claims it has eradicated it. The few times I've initially trusted an AV program when it said the computer was clean, I was forever doubting it in the future any time anything would go remotely wrong with the machine, thinking maybe the virus wasn't really removed... it's not worth it.

Reformatting is a pretty surefire way to know your computer is clean, is relatively painless if you have the know-how, and has the nice side-effect of resetting lots of potentially misconfigured and problematic settings and whatnot back to their working defaults. Plus, you can rest easy knowing that your computer isn't being used as an email spammer or as part of a giant distributed DDoS network to break websites some malicious script kiddie doesn't like.

Relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCbfMkh940Q
 
Thanks guys. I have tried lots of things, with the exception of reformatting and reinstalling the OS. I have four hard drives, and I would rather not mess with them. I lost a hard drive once, with 50,000 photos on it. I do not wish to risk anything again.

I just have to access this site from my mobile phone or another PC.
 
Kmot

The thing is that what seems like a little problem may be a much bigger one.

While it could be a caching or routing issue at your ISP, it could also be due to virus/malware or other infections that have already damaged your computer set up.

Assume your computer is infected with something, download tools from your other computers and run them on your machine.

e.g.


TDSKiller
Hijackthis
Malwarebytes
CCleaner

etc., etc., etc.

Sometimes a reformat is the easiest path. Adam's suggestion is spot on.

Especially when you have multiple drives as you have. You can use the "Windows transfer tools" to move all of your data to one of the other drives, reformat your boot drive, reinstall the OS scan the other drives and transfer everything back.

That does require that all application programs be re-installed though.
 
Well considering the fact that this forum averages about 1-2 posts a day I wouldn't worry about it too much, its pretty much a DEAD forum. If your so concerned re-install windows.
 
I think opj's point was that while it may appear to only affect this site, likely there are much deeper issues that will cause other more serious problems.
 
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