Hello. I have a problem.

In my parents' house we have four computers: two desktop PCs and two laptops (one a mac). All appear to be in fair working order. Nothing major has been changed on the internet connection shared by all four. And yet, I cannot access Google for the life of me.

It worked when I got here. Then, about an hour after my arrival on Friday night, Google stopped loading. I figured it was a temporary site outage and would be back in a few minutes. Not so. I have not been able to access Google or any related site for nearly forty-eight hours. This despite trying all four computers, all three browsers, checking permissions, verifying firewall settings, and all those other random things I thought it might be good to try. I can load every other site I've tried except for Google, Gmail, and various Google projects. I also can't use google-powered searches on separate websites.

I have a gmail account. I want my email NOW. It has information I need for the holiday, such as phone numbers and addresses, that I can't find in the phone book.

Cable internet access. Everything else is fine. It's just Google that I can't reach. ("The server at www.google.com is taking too long to respond.")

So... what on earth is going on?

Just so you know, Google is working fine here on my computer, Lib.
Can you access this link?

Have you tried other similar sites? Yahoo, hotmail, etc. Is there any sort of software proxy or anything that might be blocking? Do you get an error messsage or does it simply never respond?

It just never responds. I know the site is up -- Trudes and everyone else say so, after all -- but it doesn't load. On the downstairs computer running IE the message is slightly different ("couldn't find" the site, then lists a bunch of "similar" sites I might have been trying to find, including Google), but I presume the same thing is happening, just with a different browser.

Nope, that link wouldn't load, Trudes. Thanks for trying.

I've been able to login to Hotmail without any trouble. The Yahoo front page seems fine, as well. It's just google and my beloved gmail which simply won't show up.

What sorts of proxy settings would you suggest I check for, Stiv?

I doubt it is proxy if there are similar sites to gmail that you can get to, generally a proxy (or net nanny, security) type software would block all not just one of any type of site.

I am not sure why can't get there...i'd be curious to know if anyone else in the area that uses the same ISP is having the same problem. It is entirely possible that it is a problem with the ISP.

Out of curiosity...try this...

http://216.239.63.19/

That is a direct IP link to www.gmail.com. Maybe your ISP is updating their DNS and google is not accessbile because of it.

Let me know.

!!!!!!!!!!!!

It works! It works! Thank you, Stiv!!!!

Only problem is it instantly stops working as soon as I link to something that no longer has the IP address as the URL, such as clicking the gmail "sign in" button. Oh, well. At least we know what's happening, right?

Is there anything I can do to get around that? And do you have any guess as to how long the DNS is going to be messed up?

OK...no I don't know how long this will last. You can call your ISP and tell them of your trouble and I believe they can force a reload on their servers for that address....or something like that...

How long has it been going on so far? Generally stuff like this gets resolved within a few hours, but It could last longer than that.

As for getting around it...not really sure...is there anyone that can log into your gmail account and forward any necessary emails to another account that you can access?

Nope. My usual forwarder is currenly passed out in the living room, and is therefore subject (when conscious) to the same internet problems as I. Boo.

This has been going on since Friday night. Seriously. Lemme see if there are any 24-hour numbers I can complain to....

Thanks.

No Problem. Wish I could do more...hopefully someone can come along behind me and give you a better work around.

You might try something as simple as emptying your all your caches. History, temp internet files, cookies...everything. I had that problem with Amazon.com on my browser, emptied everything, and got it functional again.

Luck with it.

try Gizzoogle.com instead...

~fff

If they'd let me access my gmizzle, I'd be totally up for that.

I need my email.

Thanks for the suggestion, Amanda, but the tech line says it really is a DNS thing... and that they can't tell me when it'll be fixed. Boo. At least I go home tomorrow.

Try each of the following testing http://www.google.com after each.
[1] try rebooting your PC.
[2] try entering this at a command prompt (click start, run, type "CMD" without quotes then click ok. This will open a 'black' window. type: "IPCONFIG /FLUSHDNS" -again w/o quotes.

[3] on your computer, look for a file called 'host'
on a WindowsXP install, it would be located:
c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\host

open it with NOTEPAD and add the following line:

"216.239.63.19 google.com" --again w/o quotes

save and close the file

Let us know