Websites/cams don't work

[LivingtheHL]

Has anyone else noticed how frequently the rattlesnake cam and the echoshores website don't work?

[Blue Thunder]

Originally Posted by LivingtheHL

Has anyone else noticed how frequently the rattlesnake cam and the echoshores website don't work?

Nope they work fine for me. Several times a day.

BT

[Pineedles]

Same here! No problem.

[RLW]

I'll second the last 2 threads.

[Steveo]

I have been having some problems as well. I get a "server not responding" error. What I do is hit my back button then hit the forward button and it comes in fine. A little weird though

[Rattlesnake Gal]

I've also been having trouble with the EchoCam. I get a Page Load Error.

I just Googled the address for Echo Shores Association, which came up as echoshores.com/ and it won't load either.

Tried Stevo's trick too with no luck.

[Pepper]

I've been having intermittent issues as well. Some days some of the cams show older dates, other days it's fine. Starting last night I've been unable to get the page to load at all - I get a message saying Safari cannot locate the server.

Whatever the issue is, it's not affecting everyone - which is good, because that means the aliens over on the islands aren't completely knocking out the feed!

[Chaos]

I also can not get any of the rattlesnakecam.com pages to loat on my Mac at home. PC at work is fine, laptop at home is fine. Just my Mac. I don't have a clue. This has been going on for about 2 weeks.

[Island Girl]

My daughter has a MAC and I will be dropping by to play with her babies later today... I will see if my webcam pages work.

For some people a page refresh will do it. Other times, the old pages get stuck in your browser cache and no amount of refreshing will clear out the cobwebs. Deleting your temporary internet files (Internet Explorer) often makes everything well again. I do not know the equivalent for Firefox and the MAC. Someone here might know.

Basically the pages are loading from the server on which they sit (same as winni.com). Reasons for not loading vary. A few days ago I was editing the ice out page and got an error. The little widget I was putting there failed and added thousands of empty lines to the page. This could have cause timeouts for some people. I was able to fix that problem later that night.

Anyone who has trouble with my pages can always PM me and I will try to help out. It is very important to me that you all get to see ice out!!!!

[RLW]

Check the date and time

[Pineedles]

I must ammend my first post. Dates are a day behind and many are unaccessible.

[Chaos]

Island Girl,
This is the error message I get "Safari can’t find the server “www.rattlesnakecam.com".

I don't know what else to try.

[Pepper]

Originally Posted by Chaos

Island Girl,
This is the error message I get "Safari can’t find the server “www.rattlesnakecam.com".

I don't know what else to try.

That's the same message I'm getting. No clue what could be causing it.

[webmaster]

Are all of you on the same ISP, maybe Metrocast?

If you are then this may be a DNS problem. DNS is the service that translates the domain name to an IP number. In future posts please include your ISP so we can see if there is a pattern.

One way to get around your ISP's DNS is to use OpenDNS. OpenDNS is a free service that is far better than most ISP's DNS. Many large companies, schools, etc. have switched to OpenDNS. I use it at home and at work and I've never had a problem reaching these sites. You don't have to sign up, just use their servers.

Their DNS servers are 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220. You can enter these settings fairly easily but the procedure varies for different kinds of computers and OS versions. Just Google "how to change DNS in windows" (or Mac) and you'll find plenty of help.

I can't say for sure that this is the problem but I've seen DNS cause these kinds of problems in the past.

[Bob M]

I too have an IMAC. When I click the URL in the reply message from Chaos I get the same message. However when I use the link in my bookmarks link I go right to the web page showing all the camera sites. Ditto when I go to the Rattlesnake home page. Since I am still in Florida Metrocast obviously is not part of the equation for me. I hope this helps.

[webmaster]

Originally Posted by Bob M

I too have an IMAC. When I click the URL in the reply message from Chaos I get the same message. However when I use the link in my bookmarks link I go right to the web page showing all the camera sites. Ditto when I go to the Rattlesnake home page. Since I am still in Florida Metrocast obviously is not part of the equation for me. I hope this helps.

The URL code in Chaos's post had an error in it that I just corrected. If that was pasted over directly from Safari then there could be some kind of strange Mac/Safari problem but I think it was just a typo.

I'm also using an iMac (side by side with my PC) and I accessed the sites using both Safari and Firefox without trouble. I'm on Comcast.

[brk-lnt]

Pretty sure the root issue here is with whoever is hosting the DNS for the rattlesnake.com domain:

Query from a machine on a metrocast network:
brks-macbook-pro:~ brk$ nslookup rattlesnakecam.com
Server: 192.168.1.1
Address: 192.168.1.1#53

** server can't find rattlesnakecam.com: SERVFAIL

Query against a DNS server in my colo, from Metrocast:
brks-macbook-pro:~ brk$ nslookup rattlesnakecam.com 66.203.66.203
Server: 66.203.66.203
Address: 66.203.66.203#53

** server can't find rattlesnakecam.com: SERVFAIL

Query directed at the nameserver that is supposed to control that domain name, again from Metrocast network:
brks-macbook-pro:~ brk$ nslookup www.rattlesnakecam.com NS1.LAKEHOSTSERVICES.NET
Server: NS1.LAKEHOSTSERVICES.NET
Address: 74.54.176.18#53

** server can't find www.rattlesnakecam.com: REFUSED


Query from one of my colo boxes in Marl, MA:

-sh-3.00$ nslookup www.rattlesnakecam.com NS1.LAKEHOSTSERVICES.NET
Server: NS1.LAKEHOSTSERVICES.NET
Address: 74.54.176.18#53

** server can't find www.rattlesnakecam.com: REFUSED

-sh-3.00$ nslookup www.rattlesnakecam.com
Server: 66.203.66.203
Address: 66.203.66.203#53

** server can't find www.rattlesnakecam.com: SERVFAIL

-sh-3.00$

PM me if you need/want more help or info.

[upthesaukee]

I have Metrocast and also cannot connect to Snake eyes or Echo Shores. I get the standard cannot connect message..

[Chaos]

Whatever change was made, worked! My bookmark for the iceout page (and all of weather watch pages) did not work until now. Unfortunately DRH's Echo Shores page still doesn't, but I'm closer now.

Thank you for you help.
Mike

[Pepper]

Chaos - I'm delighted it now works for you, because that means there's still hope that I will be soon able to see the page too. Unfortunately, it presently still doesn't work for me, using either the repaired link above or using my bookmark.

[Pepper]

I probably know less about how a computer works than anyone else on this forum, so I don't know if this information will be helpful or not ...

I've tried to access the page using the links provided in several places here, plus using my bookmark, plus using links available on other webpages, plus using links which appear when I use a Google Search. No matter which method I use, I get the same error message.

Adding to the fact that I am seriously techno-handicapped, now that I'm on a mac I have no idea how to refresh my page (if that's even possible on a mac), nor do I know how to clear cookies (if that's possible on a mac either).

So for now, I'm totally stumped. I have the day off, so perhaps I'll get in the car and go drive around the lake and check out the conditions in person!

If I decide to do that - I promise I'll bring my camera and post some photos from some locations that don't have webcams - so I can at least contribute to the cause.

[webmaster]

Originally Posted by brk-lnt

Pretty sure the root issue here is with whoever is hosting the DNS for the rattlesnake.com domain:

Query from a machine on a metrocast network:
brks-macbook-pro:~ brk$ nslookup rattlesnakecam.com
Server: 192.168.1.1
Address: 192.168.1.1#53

** server can't find rattlesnakecam.com: SERVFAIL

Query against a DNS server in my colo, from Metrocast:
brks-macbook-pro:~ brk$ nslookup rattlesnakecam.com 66.203.66.203
Server: 66.203.66.203
Address: 66.203.66.203#53

** server can't find rattlesnakecam.com: SERVFAIL

Query directed at the nameserver that is supposed to control that domain name, again from Metrocast network:
brks-macbook-pro:~ brk$ nslookup www.rattlesnakecam.com NS1.LAKEHOSTSERVICES.NET
Server: NS1.LAKEHOSTSERVICES.NET
Address: 74.54.176.18#53

** server can't find www.rattlesnakecam.com: REFUSED


Query from one of my colo boxes in Marl, MA:

-sh-3.00$ nslookup www.rattlesnakecam.com NS1.LAKEHOSTSERVICES.NET
Server: NS1.LAKEHOSTSERVICES.NET
Address: 74.54.176.18#53

** server can't find www.rattlesnakecam.com: REFUSED

-sh-3.00$ nslookup www.rattlesnakecam.com
Server: 66.203.66.203
Address: 66.203.66.203#53

** server can't find www.rattlesnakecam.com: SERVFAIL

-sh-3.00$

PM me if you need/want more help or info.

I'm puzzled why the connection failed for you from so many different locations. I just did a nslookup from home, my datacenter and my office network. I got a good response from all those locations. They all use OpenDNS.

Care to speculate why you can't connect from anywhere and I (and almost everyone else) can connect without trouble?

[Island Girl]

Both Echo Shores and Rattlesnakecam.com are hosted on the same servers as Winnipesaukee.com. Rattlesnakecam is broadcasting and I can see the latest image from home. I have not had any outage issues in the last couple of days. I would contact my ISP since the site is working for many. My daughter's Mac could get to the ice out page yesterday.

Don, do you have any reasons that some people cannot reach our sites?

Here is the latest picture.

[webmaster]

Originally Posted by Island Girl

Both Echo Shores and Rattlesnakecam.com are hosted on the same servers as Winnipesaukee.com.

That is no longer true. I moved winnipesaukee.com to its own Virtual Private Server last year to resolve the performance issues I was having. However, echoshores.com and your site are both running on the same server and DNS. They actually share the same IP number since they are both virtual sites within the same system. There is definitely a connection.

Since so many people, including you and me, have no trouble accessing the sites it hard to understand what could be the problem on the server end. It seems like the problem may be in some ISP's DNS lookup tables. I'm pretty sure now that the problem may go away if they switch to the OpenDNS servers that I mentioned above.

It will be interesting to see what ISPs are being used by those having trouble. Except for brk-lnt's list it seems to be mainly Metrocast.

[Pepper]

I just had a nice online support session with Metrocast, and my operator tried to view the page using her Metrocast connection to no avail. We chatted a bit more and she decided to try to access it on her Apple IPhone, using the AT&T 3G network, and that also failed. Her thought was also that it was a DNS update issue and that eventually an update would occur and the problem would resolve itself. Her final suggestion to me was to locate a public server (just as our Webmaster suggests!)

I'm going to follow Don's instructions, test it out and then report back ...

[RLW]

I just tried going into Echoshores.com and it came right up. I'm using verizon as my system. Click here for the site I used

[Pepper]

Wow! That was fast, easy and FREE! I just switched over to OpenDNS, followed the extremely easy setup, managed my settings in seconds, and then used my bookmark to access the IceOut Page! Woooohooooooo!

Many thanks, Don!!!!!

And many thanks also to Island Girl!!!

[brk-lnt]

Originally Posted by webmaster

I'm puzzled why the connection failed for you from so many different locations. I just did a nslookup from home, my datacenter and my office network. I got a good response from all those locations. They all use OpenDNS.

Care to speculate why you can't connect from anywhere and I (and almost everyone else) can connect without trouble?

OpenDNS's servers seem to be caching old info:

brks-macbook-pro:~ brk$ nslookup www.rattlesnakecam.com 208.67.222.222
Server: 208.67.222.222
Address: 208.67.222.222#53

Non-authoritative answer:
www.rattlesnakecam.com canonical name = rattlesnakecam.com.
Name: rattlesnakecam.com
Address: 74.54.143.210

brks-macbook-pro:~ brk$

I'm not overly familiar with OpenDNS, other than having heard of it. I run my own nameservers, so I don't tend to need to rely on 3rd party DNS providers.

The nameserver that is authoritative for rattlesnake.com is currently not providing any info. If that is not resolved/fixed, it will eventually stop working for everyone as other DNS servers eventually hit the record cache time limits and the info expires out.

OpenDNS may be caching info beyond the TTL's set on the record, or it might be that the TTL's are/were very long and it's just taking time to expire everywhere.

Pepper - you can clear cookies and refresh pages and any thing else on a Mac. What specific browser are you using?

[Chaos]

I may have spoken too soon. At 10:20 AM i could view the iceout page, but not the echo shores page. Now, I'm sad to say, i can not view either.

Mike

[Pepper]

Chaos - try the link Don provided, and start using the OpenDNS. It works like a charm, and surfing is actually sped up for me now.

brk-lnt - I sent a PM with my OS info and some questions.

[Chaos]

Thanks Pepper. It worked! But does anyone know why we had to use openDNS?

Thanks all. I just bought a new boat, and it's been killing me to not watch the ice melt as I approach delivery day.

[brk-lnt]

Originally Posted by Chaos

But does anyone know why we had to use openDNS?

The "master" DNS servers for the rattlesnakecam.com domain are broken. DNS information expires after a period of time and the info has to be re-looked up. This is normally a seamless process, but when the master server no longer passes out new info, then things start to break down. Sometimes a DNS server (like OpenDNS) is setup to hold on to information long past the expiration date, which helps when there are issues like this. Other times, it causes different problems (like when a server is moved to a new IP address but a DNS server is still telling people to use the old IP).

[Chaos]

Ok, I understand the technological explanation, however, I setup the openDNS on my wireless router which is used by all of the pcs in my house including my Mac. The Mac was the only one effected?

Oh well. As long as it's working, I'm happy.

Thanks.

[brk-lnt]

Originally Posted by Chaos

Ok, I understand the technological explanation, however, I setup the openDNS on my wireless router which is used by all of the pcs in my house including my Mac. The Mac was the only one effected?

Oh well. As long as it's working, I'm happy.

Thanks.

Your OS and/or your browser also tend to cache DNS info.

DNS server information is also "passed" out with IP address info when your PC/Mac gets on the network and requests an IP from the router. THAT info also has an expiration time in it.

Depending on exactly how you configured things one or more various caches, expiration limits, or network config settings may or may not have timed out or reset as expected.

[webmaster]

I have reported the details of this problem to the hosting service. I'll post an update when I have more information.

[webmaster]

I think the problem has been resolved, although it may take 24 hrs or more to fully propogate to all the name servers around the Internet.

Turns out there was an error in the DNS zone file for the "master" DNS server for the sites. The error has been corrected and I'm now seeing all the correct info when I do nslookups.

Sorry for the problems. Those records were set up automatically a few years ago and I wasn't aware of any problems until LivingtheHL mentioned it. I'm surprised it didn't cause more problems much sooner.

I still recommend using OpenDNS. As Pepper noticed, it really speeds up your surfing and gets around many little DNS problems.

Thanks to everyone who helped us work our way through this.

Don

[RI Swamp Yankee]

I just tried www.rattlesnakecam.com and I can't reach it. I get Cannot find server or DNS Error

I did a lookup at http://www.intodns.com/rattlesnakecam.com and the DNS record looks ok except SOA expire is a bit long (5 weeks, should be 2-4 weeks).

I can ping it by name ok so my ISP DNS seems to resolve it.
>ping rattlesnakecam.com
Pinging rattlesnakecam.com [74.54.143.210] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 74.54.143.210: bytes=32 time=55ms TTL=55

I tried the IP address in my browser and get the same error.

ISP is Cox Communications - Browser(s) IE and Firefox




DUH! while I have been writing this and trying things .. I can now reach snake eyes

[upthesaukee]

...I go to Snake Eyes now, and all I see is the security light in the upper left hand corner of the webcam shot. I'll check tomorrow and see if I can see the lake.

[RLW]

Check out the time and date. It doesn't look any different than yesterday.

[DRH]

Originally Posted by webmaster

That is no longer true. I moved winnipesaukee.com to its own Virtual Private Server last year to resolve the performance issues I was having. However, echoshores.com and your site are both running on the same server and DNS. They actually share the same IP number since they are both virtual sites within the same system. There is definitely a connection.

Since so many people, including you and me, have no trouble accessing the sites it hard to understand what could be the problem on the server end. It seems like the problem may be in some ISP's DNS lookup tables. I'm pretty sure now that the problem may go away if they switch to the OpenDNS servers that I mentioned above.

It will be interesting to see what ISPs are being used by those having trouble. Except for brk-lnt's list it seems to be mainly Metrocast.

I just noticed this thread today. As webmaster of echoshores.com, I am sorry some of you have been having a problem accessing the site. I have no explanation other than the one Webmaster Don has provided. I am a Metrocast user and have had no problems accessing either rattlesnakecam.com or echoshores.com. I update the echoshores.com site every day with a new picture, and then check rattlesnakecam.com/iceout.htm to make sure the day's new photo is appearing. I haven't encountered a problem accessing either Island Girl's or my sites. However, I've been using the OpenDNS settings Don mentioned for quite some time, so that may be the reason I haven't experienced the problem.

Is everyone able to access the two sites now?

[idigtractors]

Originally Posted by DRH

I just noticed this thread today. As webmaster of echoshores.com, I am sorry some of you have been having a problem accessing the site. I have no explanation other than the one Webmaster Don has provided. I am a Metrocast user and have had no problems accessing either rattlesnakecam.com or echoshores.com. I update the echoshores.com site every day with a new picture, and then check rattlesnakecam.com/iceout.htm to make sure the day's new photo is appearing. I haven't encountered a problem accessing either Island Girl's or my sites. However, I've been using the OpenDNS settings Don mentioned for quite some time, so that may be the reason I haven't experienced the problem.

Is everyone able to access the two sites now?

I to use MetroCast and also Verizon and have no problems what-so-ever to retrieve those 2 site cams.

[riverat]

I believe the electromagnetic forcefield surrounding the mothership when it is in the area may be the culprit

[SIKSUKR]

No problems using Comcast DRH.