Possible solutions
Poetic_thing said:
...since Saturday I have not been able to get to BW. I get the message "this page cannot be displayed" or something to that effect.
Sounds like a DNS resolution issue to me. You see, all machines on the Internet use what we call IP number (XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX format) to be connected to the rest of the people on it. When you type in the name of a site in your browser, the browser goes to a
DNS Server and asks it, "Hey I wanna go to this site. What's it's IP number?". The server gives that number to the browser and the browser then tries to connect to the computer (web site) that is on that IP number. Since IP numbers are hard to remember, we have domain names and DNS Server help us (Think of it like this: Whenever you want to dial a Joe Smith and there is only one Joe Smith in the world, if you tell your phone "Dial Joe Smith" the phone will automatically connect to the exchange, look up Joe Smith's number and dial it. "Joe Smith" is the domain name, his number is IP number, the phone is your browser and the exchange is the DNS server.)
Sometimes, the DNS servers provided by ISPs act strange and might not give a proper reply to your browser (it is unable to
resolve the IP number for a name) and so your browser gets the issues. (In our example, when the phone asked the exchange, the exchange replied, "hey, I know Joe Smith but I can't find his number.")
You can get access to the site by IP number if you know it. But if the site uses the links using the domain name, then obviously your browser will again try to figure out the IP number ... and hey, it's not getting any info about there. So the page loads but the images and links don't.
Your browser, when it displays the error will probably also tell you what the problem was faced by it. If it is a DNS issue, it will say "Could not resolve DNS". But then, it depends on a few settings so your mileage may vary.
If you're facing this problem frequently, you should ask your ISP's tech support to help you put the the IP number in a
HOSTS file. You want to make boxerworld.com resolve to 67.18.237.102 and they'll guide you on how to do it. (If you're wondering, if you do that, then your browser does not have to go to a DNS Server for the IP... so even if the server is acting goofy, so long as your connection is ok, you're good to go.) (Think of it that you are saving Joe Smith's number right in your phone so that whenever you tell your phone to "Dial Joe Smith", it says, "hey, I don't need to go to exchange for that number. I got it right here!" and dials it)
HTH.
[a]
My local Road Runner finally got their act together and fixed the problem in my area but it took awhile and lots of calls. They fought with me on it and stated it was the webpage not them. They had to update their stuff before it'd work. Every once in awhile it does the same thing but usually only for a day. Good luck and hope you can get it to work.
