My wife paints chatroom avatars in various paint shop sites. There's one in particular that she has been unable to access for the last couple of weeks, even though it worked fine up till then. We tried to access the site at four different PCs in our house ... can't get in at any of them. I have tried pinging the site, but it times out. Ran tracert, and it seems to time out at the 18th hop. We made no changes to our system; I have a Linksys WRT54GL router (running Tomato 1.09 at the time; tried flashing firmware to 1.14 ... no help.) According to the webmaster at the site, they have made no changes either. Any ideas what might cause this to happen, and how we might fix the problem? Thanks.

1 Corinthians 15:3-4

"Ran tracert, and it seems to time out at the 18th hop"

With that information how could you come to the conclusion it has something to do with your pcs or router?
Tracert went way beyond your router before it failed.
Given this information there is nothing wrong with your systems but with the path to or including the web site.

Do make sure you have not blocked the site via the Hosts file or any spyware blockers

Imagine the power if you knew how to internet search

Thanks for your input, wanderer. We were able to access the website by bypassing the router and connecting my PC directly to our cable modem. Also added the website as a Trusted Site. I still wonder if they made some changes on their end ... it's the only website we know of that we cannot access at any of our home PCs.

1 Corinthians 15:3-4

By running Wireshark, I was able to figure out which port should be open to access this one website, but beyond that I still don't know why we can't access it from any of the PCs in our house (unless we bypass the router and go directly thru the cable modem). I agree, I don't think the problem is with our router, because we aren't having this problem with any other sites. I have even flashed the router to the latest Linksys firmware ... made no difference. Any other ideas as to why one website that was perfectly accessible up until a couple of weeks ago would suddenly be unavailable?

1 Corinthians 15:3-4

Any other ideas as to why one website that was perfectly accessible up until a couple of weeks ago would suddenly be unavailable?

The reason can be many. It;s really impossible to tell unless you tell us what website it is that you are talking about.

i_Xp/VistaUser

Hello, XpUser ...

The website in question is:

http://members.vpchat.com/ladysara/...

It brings up a kind of racy-looking site, but it's a paintroom where my wife paints chatroom avatars (she's pretty good with Paint Shop Pro). What's interesting is that there are a number of websites in the members.vpchat.com group that we can access with no problems whatsoever. (Incidentally, if you try going to the above address and drop the styd.htm, you will end up at a page that has since been abandoned.) So far, nothing I have tried has enabled us to get into the paintroom website. I'm just trying to figure out whether the problem is with our router (highly unlikely since that was never a problem before), or whether we are being blocked by the website (again, never a problem before). I'm open to advice and suggestions.

1 Corinthians 15:3-4

Oh I didn't realize that VPChat is just a virtual place where people chat, play games and make friends similar to MySpace. Israeli-based Ublique founded this hosting service website (look HERE for more info).

What I think happens is that the individual who set up the site under VPChat and which your wife frequent may have lose all interest in it altogether. If that is the case, it is better to forget it & move on than it is to keep beating a dead horse, you know.

i_Xp/VistaUser

Thanks for the link, XpUser ... interesting history about VP. I noticed that somehow the URL I listed in my previous response got truncated, leaving off the last part. The full link should end with /styd.htm, so after the http:// you should see:

members.vpchat/ladysara/styd.htm

It's this particular site that brings up the VP paintshop we cannot access on any of our PCs at home.

1 Corinthians 15:3-4

najitech you don't open ports on your router to access a web site. You only open ports to allow access to you which you should not do.

Have you contacted the web site via email? Perhaps they can help resolve your issue. Perhaps you were blacklisted by mistake and that is what is blocking you now. Only they know which is why you need to contact them.

Imagine the power if you knew how to internet search

What I was seeing thru Wireshark was probably the port on their end. I know that MY ports are closed; according to grc.com, they are all classified as "Stealth." Anyway, I guess it's possible that we are being blocked, although my wife, as one of their "painters" has never been blacklisted before. I thought that maybe she already contacted them, but I'll ask just to be sure.

1 Corinthians 15:3-4

Just for review you have done:

1. checked the router to see if any sites/ips have been restricted
2. renamed any hosts files on the pcs to hosts.old so they don't load [this is a way to bitbucket web sites - some antispyware softwares use this technique]
3. if a home system is a laptop what is the result of going to a wireless web kiosk [starbucks?]and going to the site?
4. talk to the web site and see if you WAN ip is listed as blacklisted.

Imagine the power if you knew how to internet search

1. Yes

2. Yes.

3. N/A

4. Yes ... my wife called to check.

1 Corinthians 15:3-4