Weird CP forums error - won't load

[DoubleF]

I have a really weird error that I cannot figure out a resolution.

I have a specific computer where I can get to the CP main page fine, but I cannot get into the forums. It is ridiculously slow and doesn't even load properly. I tried pinging the forums and I lose 100% of the packets.

I can use a different computer on the same connection and get in. But not this specific computer.

Any ideas what I should be looking into? I've tried a lot of research but I cannot figure out what the problem is. This has happened before on this computer and a Java update fixed it, but this time, no such luck even with reinstalling Java. I wonder if I may have deleted some program or plug in which completely messed up the connection to CP forums. I can get on other forums no problem on the affected machine.

[photon]

You won't be able to ping the servers, I have that blocked.

The forums don't use anything Java or plugin related, so that shouldn't be it.

It sounds like there's something specific with that browser, does it work if you try a different browser? Delete the cookies for CalgaryPuck? Can you see www.calgarypuck.com?

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by photon

You won't be able to ping the servers, I have that blocked.

The forums don't use anything Java or plugin related, so that shouldn't be it.

It sounds like there's something specific with that browser, does it work if you try a different browser? Delete the cookies for CalgaryPuck? Can you see www.calgarypuck.com?

I've tried deleting cookies, registry info and a few other things. I can see calgarypuck.com and that part works fine like game takes, store etc, but not forum.calgarypuck.com.

I've considered the browser too. Tried Opera, Firefox, chrome, Maxthon and even IE (eww) and none worked. I feel like the issue is specific to some type of software on the laptop but haven't had any leads even when researching these last few weeks. Maxthon I've never used before, which makes me believe it wasn't a cookie issue (which I was testing the theory on).

I considered virus or malware, but scans found nothing and I tried scanning with Nod32, Avast, Malwarebytes and MSE. Prior to that, I considered the possibility of my computer having something that's pissing off CP security (ie: zombie spamming) and thus blocking IP, but nope, it's computer specific.

Pretty sure it's not hardware either because it's a desktop with i7 with SSD and Win7 64bit for which my other laptop with similar specs is fine.

Not blaming CP or anything. Just curious and annoyed that after so many weeks of off and on testing and trying things out, I still have no idea what to look up/research to fix it.

I can try to take a screen shot of what the forums look like if it helps. A suggestion that doesn't need sign up would be helpful. I've tried searching up common errors of vBulletin forums, but found nothing either.



I should add that the error just randomly popped up one day. Was surfing CP, closed browser, opened it again and couldn't get into the forums. But the error doesn't seem to be browser specific leading me to believe it's os, registry or software specific.

[photon]

If different browsers don't work then it's the computer for sure. That you can get to the main site means it is something unique to the forums, but nothing to do with the forum server. Far too specific to be a virus or similar.

Yeah a screen shot might help though I have a suspicion of what it'll look like and what the problem is.

If you try to open this URL do you see the button? Or does it sit and wait to try get it?

http://forumcdn.calgarypuck.com/imag...tons/reply.gif

Alternately if you ping forumcdn.calgarypuck.com it should work and it should resolve to 108.161.188.129. If it doesn't resolve to that IP you can try doing a ipconfig /flushdns command.

If that doesn't work is it possible a rule got added into your firewall? Sometimes firewalls pop up a thing asking "do you want to contact this y/n" and sometimes I've clicked or typed when a dialog just popped up and it goes away and I have no idea what it was since my click said yes or no but I have no idea.

Or possibly the hosts file.

[To Be Quite Honest]

I was getting this issue as well. I thought I was missing a trade so I went a searchin' for news! lol I just waited until it worked again.

Firefox user

[psyang]

Proxy settings, maybe?

In Chrome, go to Settings->Show Advanced Settings->Network->Change Proxy Settings...

See if an automatic configuration script has been assigned, or if a proxy server is being used. This used to happen to me when I vpn'd into my former company's network - they'd assign a config script which remapped where different ip address ranges were sent to.

[DoubleF]

Sorry for the late reply. Been a crazy weekend.

I'll have to test that link tomorrow Photon as I don't have access to the computer right now. Thanks for the help.

Here are the pics of what the forums look like after about 3-4 minutes.

Spoiler!

Another 3-4 minutes after clicking a forum link, this is what it looks like.

Spoiler!

I found it peculiar that the sig was showing when everything else seemed broken.


@To be quite honest: this has happened before for me too and it originally went away after 3-4 days and a java update. This time, it's been around almost 3 weeks and I'm starting to get concerned (Well, more annoyed I can't access CP :P).

@ Psyang: After I try the things photon asks me to try, I'll absolutely give that a go.

[photon]

Originally Posted by DoubleF

I found it peculiar that the sig was showing when everything else seemed broken.

That's because the sig is hosted somewhere other than on CP's content delivery network (people have to put their sigs on some image service). Yeah it looks like what I suspected.

While the web page content comes from forum.calgarypuck.com, which you are getting, all the other stuff, the images, the CSS files, everything that tells the web page how to look what colours to use and all that all come from forumcdn.calgarypuck.com

And for whatever reason that computer looks like it can't get the files from that domain.

So it's either a DNS problem (it's not getting the correct IP address for forumcdn.calgarypuck.com) or something preventing the connection (i.e. if there's a rule in the firewall to block all attempts to contact that domain).

[DoubleF]

I checked the ip address. It resolves to the address that you listed photon, at a 61 ms average. I tried a flushdns anyways. It doesn't seem like that's the problem.

I also tried psyang's idea of checking for scripts/VPN etc even though I was quite sure that it shouldn't have anything like that and there are no blockages I can notice.

This must mean it's the firewall. I'm not sure where to check for that. All the stuff I looked up either had me chasing some weird settings in IE (Which I think was moved or renamed after an update? But shouldn't block all browsers and I didn't use this browser before the error for sure). I tried the advanced settings in the firewall rules too but I don't see any inbound or outbound rule that is blocking either the CP forum ip address or the site.

Any ideas or links to walkthroughs to try to figure out how to resolve this or find the rule blocking CP forums?

[photon]

You can turn the firewall clean off temporarily to see if that makes any difference.

Are you able to see this image if you click the link?

http://forumcdn.calgarypuck.com/imag...tons/reply.gif

What about this one:

http://cpforum.calgarypuck.netdna-cd...tons/reply.gif

[DoubleF]

The issue somehow resolved itself! I'm not sure what happened, but I'm glad CP forums work again.



Thanks for the guidance everyone, especially Photon. Too bad I couldn't figure out where in the firewall the issue was to fix an issue like this if it pops up again.