Can't Get The Geocaching Web Site

[+flowerman]

I have a pc that can't get the geocaching web site

I can get every other web site I try but every time I type in geocaching.com I get a "time out" error message. I have turned off the firewall so why can't I get the site? Every other pc on my network can get it!

 

Any ideas?

 

Thanks

[Jeremy]

I'll move this to Geocaching.com discussion forums.

 

If you know how to bring up a command prompt, try typing:

 

ping www.geocaching.com

 

and see what address it returns. It should return either:

 

66.150.167.148

 

or

 

66.150.167.149

 

If it doesn't, you have old info on your machine. Try typing:

 

ipconfig /flushdns (I think)

 

and try pinging the site again.

[+Prime Suspect]

It's ipconfig /release_all followed by ipconfig /renew_all on some windows version. I think running Winipcfg will bring up the GUI interface, regardless of what version you're using.

Edited November 3, 2004 by Prime Suspect

[+Moose Mob]

It's ipconfig /release_all followed by ipconfig /renew_all on some windows version. I think running Winipcfg will bring up the GUI interface, regardless of what version you're using.

Well, I hate to argue... but...

 

"ipconfig /release" releases your DHCP assigned IP address & it's lease,

"ipconfig /renew" establishes and/or renews your DHCP assignment & lease. You (will get a new DNS entry with this, but it doesn't flush out the existing DNS buffer)

 

I browsed my Win XP sp2 setup, and WinIPCfg doesn't seem to exist.

[Jeremy]

And I hate to argue, but I was attempting to fix what I believe was a dns issue, not an issue with getting a new IP address from a DHCP server. What you're doing in your posts is entirely different.

[+Moose Mob]

I should have mentioned that ipconfig /flushdns is the correct way to clear the DNS buffer on the desktop. The /release & /renew switches ar for DHCP address assignments.

 

Sorry for the confusion.

[+legna and sOulbAit]

I was having the same problem since your upgrades. From the command prompt, I typed: tracert www.geocaching.com and it would come up with the old IP address. Example:

C:\>tracert www.geocaching.com

 

Tracing route to www.geocaching.com [63.251.163.181]

 

As you can see the tracert came up with an old IP.

 

First I want to thank Michael, Ed and everyone at Groundspeak for helping me work on this problem. They were fantastic. They took the time to show me what was wrong and what I had to do to fix the problem.

 

I called my service provider and lead them thru this process and they understood they had a problem. I just finally got on today. I did another tracert and now this is what is says:

 

C:\>tracert www.geocaching.com

 

Tracing route to www.geocaching.com [66.150.167.149]

 

Now you can see my service provider corrected there problem and it now has the correct IP for www.geocaching.com

 

Thanks again for all the help on getting this problem straigned out.

 

Happy Geocaching .......legna and sOulbAit

[+Prime Suspect]

I should have mentioned that ipconfig /flushdns is the correct way to clear the DNS buffer on the desktop. The /release & /renew switches ar for DHCP address assignments.

 

Sorry for the confusion.

As I said, on some versions of windows (like W98) you have to use /release_all and /renew_all. That's because those versions of ipconfig don't support /flushdns. Release_all closes the DNS cache, and renew_all creates a new one.

[Jeremy]

Neat. I was unaware of the other way to flush dns. Thanks for the tidbit!

[thorin]

Nice one I wasn't aware of that switch either.

 

Thorin

[+flowerman]

I am able to ping the www.geocaching site!

But when I go to search for the site I get the following error:

 

The operation timed out while attempting to contact www.geocaching.com

 

This only happens when I try to get geocaching.com! Not when I try to get to any other site. I don't have any firewalls in place so why should this one site be unavailable?

 

I tried all of the things suggested above and I get this message when trying to

ipconfig /release and ipconfig renew:

 

The operation failed as no adapter is in the state permissible for this operation.

 

Am I getting closer?

 

Thanks

[Jeremy]

I'm at the end of my bag of tricks. Sorry

[+Tzoid]

See if http://hardware.mcse.ms/message51923-2.html may help

[+flowerman]

Found out why my pc couldn't load www.geocaching.com

I had an incorrect listing in the "hosts" file.

 

By default, Windows will consult the local hosts file before consulting any DNS servers on your network or on the Internet.

 

There is no error checking at all concerning validity of the mappings in your hosts file. You (or someone else) can put any hostname-to-IP mapping entry you want into the hosts file; when your browser encounters that hostname, it will automatically ty to go to the associated IP address listed in hosts.

 

Here is what to do to correct the problem:

 

Open your "hosts" file in Windows Notepad. In XP the file resides in the c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\ folder; in Win 2000 it resides in c:\winnt\system32\drivers\etc\. Aside from some comment lines (lines beginning with the "#" sign) at the beginning of the file, it should usually contain only the following line:

 

127.0.0.1 localhost

 

If it contains other lines, especially those which refere to the URLs you can't reach, delete those lines and save the newly-modified file.

 

Happiness in flowerland again!

 

flowerman

[+DeskJocky]

Found out why my pc couldn't load www.geocaching.com

I had an incorrect listing in the "hosts" file.

OK, I'm going off topic here...

 

Why are you using a HOSTS file?

[+flowerman]

I'm not! I don't even know what a "hosts" file is. But when I couldn't load the geocaching.com web page I started asking "why?" The answer turned out to be a line in the "hosts" file. How it got there - I'll never know! When I deleted that line, I can see the web site again. I hope to never see or hear about a "hosts" file ever again.

Edited November 12, 2004 by flowerman