Yesterday I was browsing the runescape official forums for a few hours and then all of a sudden the runescape page would not load. As well as that, I was also unable to load up any other runescape-related sites like funorb or jagex.com, and there were also a few non-runescape related sites that i could not get on, but i could get on the majority of sites that i tried to view. The error message that I got was:

 

 

 

Server not found

 

 

 

Firefox can't find the server at http://www.runescape.com.

 

 

 

 

 

* Check the address for typing errors such as

 

ww.example.com instead of

 

http://www.example.com

 

 

 

* If you are unable to load any pages, check your computer's network

 

connection.

 

 

 

* If your computer or network is protected by a firewall or proxy, make sure

 

that Firefox is permitted to access the Web

 

 

 

I tried using internet explorer to view the pages but that didn't work either. I also tried restarting my computer and my modem but to no avail. When i pinged runescape.com all of my requests timed out. Eventually i found a similar post on another runescape forum and the guy said that he downloaded the latest windows updates and that fixed his problems. I did the same and it once more allowed me to access all of the sites that were previously unavailable to me. The problem has been fixed but I just wondered if anyone could explain exactly why downloading those updates fixed my problem and why only a few sites were inaccessable, especially since the updates did not seemed to be related to anything other than security.

I could be your ISP. I have stuff liek that happen some times but, very rare. It has happened though.

Hmm but how could downloading a windows update solve a problem with my ISP? Also, my friend who lives just down the road and has the same ISP as me was able to access funorb so I wouldn't have thought that was the problem.

Should have gave those details up above notice i said that it could be. Does it work now?

Yeah, as I said, it's fixed now, I just wondered if anyone knew exactly why it had happened and why downloading the latest windows updates fixed the problem. Thanks for your help anyway though :)

It's possible that the updates could have been a driver or a security fix that reset your IP stack (IP = Internet Protocol) or network. This could have killed your network until your PC obtained a new IP address.

But surely if there was a problem with my IP then I'd be unable to view any websites rather than just being unable to view a select few of them? :?

True, unless the other sites you were viewing were being pulled from your browsers cache (Not very likely though).

 

 

 

Another possibility is the complete and accidental coincidence that http://www.runescape.com went down the same time as your update. Sites do have down times, and usually at the most inconvenient of times :?

Nah, I even checked that the sites weren't coming from my browser cache by going on sites I'd never been on before.

 

 

 

As to the other possibility, the runescape site was working at the time because I checked with a friend and there were other sites that were in no way related to runescape which I was also unable to access. Maybe you can see why this caused me so much confusion :?

Yeah, very confusing indeed. There is one other possibility:

 

 

 

It might have been a problem at your ISPs end, it is possible for an ISP to have connections to part of the internet only, it all depends on their backbone and the servers in between them and your destination server. I work in a UK University and our main internet gateway is JANET (Joint Accademic Network), sometimes a part of JANET goes down restricting certain blocks of sites.

I see what you're saying but at the same time I was experiencing the problems, my friend who lives nearby and has the same ISP as me was able to access the site so surely he'd experience the problem too. On top of this, I'm certain that it was to do with the windows updates that I installed since someone else on another forum had the exact same problem as me a few days ago and he too fixed the issue by installing the windows updates. Surely if there was a problem at my ISP's end then installing these updates wouldn't solve the problem :?

z0diark, just out of curiosity, who is your ISP? :-s

 

 

 

~D. V. Devnull

It's Tiscali, why?