access difficulties

[noguru]

I have a problem that is driving me crazy, and I can't seem to get an answer from anyone regarding a solution.

The problem:
One evening, while doing some business on the web, I was suddenly unable to access paypal.com, or ebay.com, or hotmail.com, and I'm sure there are others, but they haven't been a problem yet. I am able to access thousands of other websites that I use frequently.
I am able to access pages.ebay.com

I get the standard "the page cannot be displayed" error, when the pages won't load. It does not matter if I use https, or http.

So, this has happened, rarely, in the past, and a reboot fixes it.

So I reboot, no difference. So, I try Opera, Mozilla, Netscape, makes no difference. I call a different access number, still does not fix it. I do a trace, which usually ends up stopping before getting to Pay Pal. But, I've been told that Pay Pal may be able to stop that. Ping testing times out both sites. If I do a trace using Neotrace for example, (I live in Ontario Canada) the map shows that the stoppage is around the Chicago area. My daughter in the city calls the same number, and can access the site.

I am able to access the site using a proxy server, on the web.

I have emptied my cache, cleared cookies, scanned the disk, defragged, re-installed windows, (win 98), nothing seems to make any difference. My ISP says the problem isn't on their network. The trace hops through their routers as far as I can tell, and the problems begin south. I've checked the internet health site, and most times, all major networks are running without incident.

Is there any way this can be my computer? Today I installed a new drive (it was on my list, not because of the problem), and I had hoped that might help, but no dice.

So, does anyone have any idea what may be causing this problem?

I'm just plain stumped.
UPDATE


Here is an update to this situation. Pay Pal is looking into the problem, but I did find a work around, and frankly, I feel kind of stupid I didn't think of it earlier.

I can access both Pay Pal, and Ebay.com using

http://ebay.com

httpS://paypal.com

and not using the WWW designation at the beginning of the URL.

That seems to have fixed it for now, although I'm still stumped.

So, if anyone else has a similar difficulty, that should work.

If anyone has a good understanding of why this is happening, I'm all eyes.

Looks like I posted too soon. I did not login to Pay Pal. I simply got to the site, and assumed I could access the entire site. Nope. Can't login.

Pay Pal customer services states this is a , "connectivity issue" and they can't do anything about it. There have got to be more people aside from myself having these problems.

Gonna keep plugging away.

Jim








Thanks,

JIm

 

[Larry K]

couple thoughts:

1) you did or did not reinstall the OS? --- reinstalling "could be" the easiest thing to do BUT its probably not worth it.....at least not yet.

2) could be some sort of virus or spy ware????

3) Need help with this one... somebody? ---
I can't think of the file, BUT I know you can edit a system file that allows you to change your "local" host, as in the DNS settings.
I have messed with this file before, BUT cannot think of the file name. I have just looked for it, but can't find it.

Maybe this file has changed?

4) Could you give us more detailed info on what you can't and can do? Maybe there is a pattern....

5) at first, I thought it was you security settings, but you seem to have ruled that out ??

uhm.... this seems like a tough one... BUT there has to be a reason

give us a little time
thanks

 

[Stephen47]

look here c:\windows\hosts
if the offending websites are listed there select it, delete it then click file and save it it worked for me once when I was having exactly the same problem but with different web sites

 

[Larry K]

the hosts file!!!!

that was it thanks stephen!

currious though.... how did your host file change? or what changed it?

 

[Stephen47]

I don't know how or why it changed ,

 

[noguru]

look here c:\windows\hosts
if the offending websites are listed there select it, delete it then click file and save it it worked for me once when I was having exactly the same problem but with different web sites

You guys are the best!!!!! Thank you. Hosts file. In fact, I had 2, one file "hosts" and one file "Hosts", so I believe that some spyware was at work here, and created a different data file to serve the purpose. Anyway, I renamed them, so I don't have that .dat file, and everything is back to normal. I'm going to surf without it for now, and see how much it slows things down.

Can't thank you enough! The pay pal techs didn't think of that.

Jim