Website problem

Some help, please.

On a recent trip to the USA I purchased a Tracfone, which gives cheap US and international calls from the US. The phone doesn't work in Europe at all, of which I was well aware.

However, since returning on Sunday I haven't been able to access my account on their website www.tracfone.com. I'm on O2 broadband.

Would somebody please be kind enough to see if they can access the site, to give me a clue as to where the problem lies.

Many thanks.

Felix

The site loads fine from your link for me, on IDNet.

In reply to a post by FelixTCat:

I haven't been able to access my account on their website www.tracfone.com.

Can you get their site but not your a/c?

Site OK from here. Maybe a/c only accessible from US IPs?

In reply to a post by billford:

The site loads fine from your link for me, on IDNet.

Many thanks. I wonder what the problem is. Could it be a O2 DNS issue? Could you suggest an alternative DNS server address I could try to eliminate this? (Assuming I can find how to enter it in Windows 7)

Thanks,

Felix

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

In reply to a post by FelixTCat:

I haven't been able to access my account on their website www.tracfone.com.

Can you get their site but not your a/c?

Site OK from here. Maybe a/c only accessible from US IPs?

Thanks for the quick reply. I can't access the site at all - it just times out.

Regards,

Felix

Easier to bypass the need for DNS entirely and use their IP address:

http://67.107.122.136/

Have you tried pinging the url? If it fails it could well be a DNS issue.

Works Ok here on O2. Don't use O2's DNS servers though, open DNS and Google's.

Reboot your router.

Thanks. I've tried the ping, both on O2's DNS and Google's. This is what I get:

C:\Windows\System32>ping www.tracfone.com

Pinging www.tracfone.com [67.107.122.136] with 32 bytes o
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.

Ping statistics for 67.107.122.136:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4 (100% loss)

It looks as though the address is being resolved but nothing is getting through. I've tried disabling the firewall (both Comodo and Windows) with no change.

What else can I try?

Thanks,

Felix

Trace the route :

tracert www.tracfone.com

This will tell you how far it gets and potentially who is blocking it.

Use a proxy, such as http://www.daveproxy.co.uk/

In reply to a post by JonRennie:

Trace the route :

tracert www.tracfone.com

This will tell you how far it gets and potentially who is blocking it.

Thanks for that excellent suggestion. This is what I found:

C:\Windows\System32>tracert www.tracfone.com

Tracing route to www.tracfone.com [67.107.122.136]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 85 ms 99 ms 99 ms 192.168.1.254
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 30 ms 24 ms 24 ms 10.1.2.85
4 26 ms 25 ms 26 ms 10.1.2.169
5 25 ms 25 ms 25 ms xe-9-1-0.edge3.London1.Level3.net [212.113.15.65
]
6 26 ms 25 ms 25 ms ae-34-52.ebr2.London1.Level3.net [4.69.139.97]
7 100 ms 100 ms 100 ms ae-41-41.ebr1.NewYork1.Level3.net [4.69.137.66]

8 115 ms 104 ms 103 ms ae-10-10.ebr2.Washington12.Level3.net [4.69.148.
50]
9 102 ms 101 ms 101 ms ae-5-5.ebr2.Washington1.Level3.net [4.69.143.221
]
10 100 ms 99 ms 100 ms ae-82-82.csw3.Washington1.Level3.net [4.69.134.1
54]
11 106 ms 106 ms 106 ms ae-41-80.car1.Washington3.Level3.net [4.69.149.1
40]
12 116 ms 105 ms 105 ms XO-COMMUNIC.car1.Washington3.Level3.net [4.71.20
4.26]
13 105 ms 105 ms 104 ms 207.88.14.162.ptr.us.xo.net [207.88.14.162]
14 142 ms 132 ms 132 ms te-3-0-0.rar3.atlanta-ga.us.xo.net [207.88.12.9]

15 129 ms 130 ms 139 ms ae0d0.mcr2.miami-fl.us.xo.net [216.156.0.230]
16 134 ms 142 ms 133 ms ae1d0.mcr1.miami-fl.us.xo.net [216.156.1.113]
17 138 ms 127 ms 127 ms 207.239.154.74
18 * * * Request timed out.
19 * * * Request timed out.
20 * * * Request timed out.
21 * * * Request timed out.
22 * * * Request timed out.
23 * * * Request timed out.
24 * * * Request timed out.
25 * * * Request timed out.
26 * * * Request timed out.
27 * * * Request timed out.
28 * * * Request timed out.
29 * * * Request timed out.
30 * * * Request timed out.

Trace complete.

207.239.154.74 is XO Communications, who host Tracfone (and, I think, own it). I wonder what I've done to upset them?

Any ideas as to what I could try next?

regards,

Felix

In reply to a post by john2007:

Use a proxy, such as http://www.daveproxy.co.uk/

Many thanks. Worked a treat. Great suggestion.

Regards,

Felix

It works fine for me using an O2 connection and O2 DNS.

Sounds like the OP just has a black-listed IP address.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Sounds like the OP just has a black-listed IP address.

Don't O2 use dynamic IPs?

Could be he's been clobbered for someone else's naughtiness.

In reply to a post by billford:

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Sounds like the OP just has a black-listed IP address.

Don't O2 use dynamic IPs?

Extremely sticky. As in only when you change router does the IP address change.

Could be he's been clobbered for someone else's naughtiness.

Almost exactly my suggestion. It is common for admins to block IP address ranges with a * in the final or last two (IPV4) triplets.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Sounds like the OP just has a black-listed IP address.

Doesn't work on my BE connection either.

Traceroute very similar to the one above.

I'm a 78.x.x.x address and static IP

Home page comes up from 91.xxx.xxx.xxx

Thanks, everybody, for trying the connection for me. What is most annoying is that when I was in the US I had no trouble at all connecting to the site using the same laptop - only the ISP was different. As far as I can remember, I accessed the site from 3 different places (with different ISPs and IP addresses) so it cannot be a change of one of these.

I have rebooted everything in sight, cleared every cache and even changed my underpants and nothing has made any difference (to the connection, anyway ).

The whole thing is a complete mystery, but I have a work-around, thanks to John2007. I don't need to contact them for a while anyway. I might try it from a friend's connection (also O2) just for a laugh.

Again, thanks for trying.

Regards,

Felix

In reply to a post by FelixTCat:

..... Regards,

Felix

Not Mr Geyr is it?

Idiotic mods and admins usually, occasionally a legitimate issue

Email Tracfone explaining the problem and include the traceroute

It is their responsibility to liaise with XO to get this resolved

If on BE, I would suggest contacting their support as well (they tend to be able to prod a bit harder and provide more technical detail), but likely you will get nowhere with O2 support

BTW works fine for me on an 87.194.x.x range

In reply to a post by nredwood:

Idiotic mods and admins usually, occasionally a legitimate issue

I've been on the mod end of that. It becomes necessary when a nutter on dynamic gets banned and wants to play smarty-pants. Also see PM to follow.