Weird problem accessing some websites - help requested, por favor

[Fonzie]

I've encountered a very strange problem and was hoping to tap the FOFC's collective expertise to solve it. Recently I've been unable to access certain websites from my home network, but I know that they are up and running as I've been able to access them from other locations. For example, I am now unable to access consumerreports.org or landsend.com - but I can access the vast majority of sites I go to, and don't recall making any changes to my browser/internet security settings that should selectively impact websites like this. I'm using Firefox 1.5 with JavaScript blocker and Adblock - I know that these sites have worked with Adblock on, but I hadn't been to either of them for quite a while before I installed JavaScript blocker, so that's a possible culprit. However, when I "allow" JavaScript to be run from those sites I still am unable to load the pages (I get a "Problem Loading Page" error from Firefox - a similar error in IE).

Any ideas as to what might be going on here?

[JonInMiddleGA]

No ideas here I'm afraid, but I hope you don't mind if I piggyback a similar situation onto your thread.

Visited my family yesterday, my sister's comp is having a similar problem with, of all things, microsoft.com. No obvious problems found in trying to go over her computer, other than several spyware installations which I hope she's cleaned up with Spybot by now (it was late last night when I was looking & she's on dial-up so I started the d'load before having to head home).

Issue happens with both IE & Netscape, no pop-up blocking or ad blocking running on her comp at all as far as I could tell.

Ideas/suggestions welcome.

[Fonzie]

Well I'll be. I solved my own problem, amazingly enough.

All I did was reset my wireless router and bingo - all those websites were suddenly accessible again. Very, very weird, but your sister might try reseting her router (if she uses one), JIMG.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Well I'll be. I solved my own problem, amazingly enough.

All I did was reset my wireless router and bingo - all those websites were suddenly accessible again. Very, very weird, but your sister might try reseting her router (if she uses one), JIMG.

Unfortunately no router in use :(

[JPhillips]

I had the same problem and it was also my router. Now any time I have trouble loading I reset the router.

[jeff061]

The IP's of the DNS servers your ISP uses could of changed and resetting the router forced it to grab the new IP's.

[RendeR]

Power cycle your modems when this happens.

[Airhog]

John, it could be that her hosts file is messed up. Have her search for a files called hosts

It should look something like this

# Copyright (c) 1993-1999 Microsoft Corp.
#
# This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.
#
# This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each
# entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should
# be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.
# The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one
# space.
#
# Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual
# lines or following the machine name denoted by a '#' symbol.
#
# For example:
#
# 102.54.94.97 rhino.acme.com # source server
# 38.25.63.10 x.acme.com # x client host

127.0.0.1 localhost


Make sure that there isn't an entry in their for microsoft like
127.0.0.1 microsoft.com

I have had this happen to me before with some spyware. I couldnt access any virus websites, like Mcaffee, or norton.