can't access donationcoder.com sometimes unless i use a proxy

[nudone]

i once put this question forward in the irc channel and obviously sounded like a lunatic as i thought donationcoder.com kept going down regularly.

f0dder gave me an answer/solution but at the time i didn't really understand what he meant.

anyway, here's the question again:

why can't i access donationcoder.com (or anything related to the url) when the site is still up and working perfectly. this happens to me on an almost daily basis - usually first thing in the morning. and then, by magic, after an hour or two everything suddenly starts working as you'd expect - without any messing about from me.

after stubornly accepting this problem for a couple of years i decided to use a proxy today - and, of course, everything worked fine.

i only have this problem with DC - it doesn't even affect the other websites that are hosted at DC - it's only the donationcoder.com url stuff.

does my computer hate me and simply won't allow me to view DC sometimes or is it something beyond my control?

[sri]

Try http://www.opendns.com/

[nudone]

okay, thanks sri, i'll give that a try next time it happens.

why is it happening though?

[Gothi[c]]

You also might want to try these:

Code

4.2.2.2
4.2.2.3

No advertising when you mistype an url

[nudone]

link=topic=12334.msg102251#msg102251 date=1203278003]
You also might want to try these:

Code

4.2.2.2
4.2.2.3

No advertising when you mistype an url

no advertising sounds better 

[f0dder]

My problem was DNS related - sometimes, anything related to donationcoder.com simply wouldn't resolve to an IP. If I added entries to my hosts file or used another DNS server (like OpenDNS), the site worked just perfect.

I don't know wtf the problem is, if it could be a misconfiguration at DC's end, or just my ISP (www.cybercity.dk), or whatever - haven't experienced the problem with any other sites though.

EDIT: running a WHOIS on donationcoder.com:

Name Server: NS1.DONATIONCODER.COM
Name Server: NS2.DONATIONCODER.COM

Now, I'm a bit rusty at the more advanced DNS topics, but assuming that your (ISP or whatever) nameserver doesn't know about DONATIONCODER.COM, how will it resolve NS1 and NS2? Doesn't resolving NS1 and NS2 mean your DNS server has to contact ns{1,2}.donationcoder.com, which it doesn't have the IPs for?

[nudone]

i can't help there but it's peculiar how other things hosted at DC don't suffer the same problem.

[Gothi[c]]

Now, I'm a bit rusty at the more advanced DNS topics, but assuming that your (ISP or whatever) nameserver doesn't know about DONATIONCODER.COM, how will it resolve NS1 and NS2? Doesn't resolving NS1 and NS2 mean your DNS server has to contact ns{1,2}.donationcoder.com, which it doesn't have the IPs for?

Yep,... That's how the hosting company has had it set up for some reason...

Whoever controls the domain (i'm not sure if that's mouser or the hosting company or whatever i'll have to ask him about it) should probably put in the IP addresses for the server instead of the domain name with the subdomains. The donationcoder server does have multiple IP's (72.36.247.82 through 72.36.247.86) that can be used, so it's not like you're stuck with one IP and have to have the subdomains as a hack to get around the 2 nameservers requirement.

nudone: an easy solution for you, without using custom dns servers etc, would be to just put the ip for donationcoder in your hosts file.

[f0dder]

Gothi[c]: but is that a/the problem? We had some weird DNS problems at another site, which I solved by fixing up nameserver addresses... but those are still {ns1,ns2}.otherdomain.net - so not "recursive", but still subdomains of another domain... hm.

I think I should read up on DNS records and how the TLD stuff works

[pip2kk]

thats absolutly correct setup of dns tho. in the zone files where the nameservers are setup...on the dns server. the ip for the nameservers is hard coded into the config...
this is more than likely just an issue with dns along the way. i would bet more on local isp than domain root servers....

do you by chance have a linux box handy? if so, next time this is happening. try dig donationcoder.com

when you do this make sure the box is set to query your isps dns servers...if this failes. then your isps dns is failing...

[nudone]

link=topic=12334.msg102281#msg102281 date=1203284268]
nudone: an easy solution for you, without using custom dns servers etc, would be to just put the ip for donationcoder in your hosts file.

thanks for the tip. i'll wait a bit longer before dong anything to see how things progress in this thread.