DNS Errors, constant disconnection and MAC Code difficulties

When trying to access my account via myaolbroadband.co.uk and aolbroadband.co.uk I don't get anywhere because the web pages are unavailable. This has been ongoing now for quite a few days.

Certain website wont respond, but if I use openDNS they respond perfectly!

After a lengthy disconnection today I decided to give up and ask for a MAC code. After feeding me endless rubbish about how they had upgraded my local exchange "YESTERDAY" having spent "millions of pounds" on making it ADSL2 and by putting their own equipment in the exchange, they tried just a little bit to hold onto my custom. Having rejected their story they then decided to tell me that it was my line that was the problem, but in truth it was their rubbish VoIP phone that kept dropping out. They were probably using AOL broadband to connect the calls.

I told them to stop with the silliness and issue me my MAC. Then they said:
No sorry, we can't do that at the moment. Our system is down. You should hear from us by email within the next five days though!

Has anybody else had problems like this recently?

Many ISPs have DNS issues occasionally. The avoidance is to use an ISP-independent DNS, like OpenDNS, as you have done, or even to mix-and-match them.

Obtaining a MAC and migrating ISPs could be considered OTT, compared with the simplicity of changing DNS settings in router.

I noticed your 'symptom' - no access to the core webpages <myaolbroadband.co.uk>. I have investigated this since I suffer it to - but only since about December 2011. I found several friends who use AOL as their ISP suffer the same problem, so it's nothing specific to me, my computer(s), my router etc. Of course AOL fob this off and fail to respond to technically detailed emails. Phoning is as useless as ever.

The symptoms seem to be that if you use any browser (other than AOL's execrable 'desktop' utility with its own browser) you will get this problem. The worrying result is that you can't get at your won account pages because anything under <myaolbroadband.co.uk> fails to load. I've used both Mac and PC platforms to confirm this. I can immediately get at these pages on the same machines if I use another ISP (in my case via a roving access dongle and Vodafone). Email access (via www.aol.co.uk) etc is fine ... as it seems is every other webpage on the planet.

I've checked with others using AOL as their ISP and they have the same symptom. Many users will not notice this issue if they use AOL's custom environment. But get them to launch Internet Explorer, Safari, Chrome, Firefox etc and they fin d that they too can't raise the page.

For a few weeks, AOL was inadvertently blocking access to any <...weebly.com> websites (apart from the parent page). SInce Weebly hosts many personal websites (and local organisations like camera clubs etc) it was very annoying. That eventually got sorted (after a stream of emails from me and friends about our own particular site and us alerting Weebly themselves to the problem) - without explanation from AOL.

As ever, the lack of proper communication from AOL is a big issue here. They will simply not engage with users who are trying to help! I've done their trouble-shooting on the <myaolbroadband.co.uk> issue ... but still no response and no action. It's 7 March 2012 ... and counting. If you're an AOL user, give it a try!