Is my IP Address banned?

[BigFurryMonster]

Hi,

I'm having big trouble accessing Apolyton. At work, it works fine, but at home, I cannot reach the site or the chatroom with a normal connection.
I do not have any trouble connecting to other sites. I know Apolyton to be "up" since other people can reach the site at the same moment.

Only when I enter a proxy server, I can reach the Apolyton site. However, this causes some trouble with other sites, so I'd rather not use this trick. Also, this will not let me access the chatroom.

Is my IP address banned? I have a dynamic IP address - the first half is always the same, the second half changes with every session. Maybe Apolyton is blocking a range of IP addresses?

Please help!

BFM

[Skanky Burns]

Try running a tracert from your home connection to see where the problem lies.

From a dos prompt:
tracert -d apolyton.net > trace.txt

This will also output your tracert data into a text file (trace.txt) that you can copy and paste here if need be.

[Ming]

There are only a few IP addresses that are restricted at this moment. I've just ran a check on ALL the IP's you have ever used that we have records on, and NONE of them are even close to the IP's that are being restricted.

The problem is on your end... not Apolyton's.

[Arnelos]

Huh... that explains why you haven't been around lately. I'll let people know about your problem. Who knows, maybe someone will have an idea.

[BigFurryMonster]

Thanks for your quick answers! I have tried the following:

* I already did a TraceRt to www.apolyton.net. After the 18th hop (the "ev1" network I believe), the packets get lost.
(I will post the results here later).
* I had a friend, who can access www.apolyton.net do the same. His packets also get lost...!

I do have a firewall (Zone Alarm), and have tried every setting (especially the "low" security setting, the "off" setting and shutting the thing down entirely). No result.

I'm currently considering:
* Is it possible that my virus scanner is interfering?
* Does the route from my computer to apolyton run through a domain in which there are restricted IPs, or a firewall that is configured too strictly?

[MrWhereItsAt]

Haven't changed OS or Browser recently, BFM?

[BigFurryMonster]

When this problem occurred: no, not recently. I've been using Win XP and IE 6 for some time now.

Yesterday, I installed Mozilla, told it to always use a proxy, and now I can connect with it. For my other internet business, I use IE. A messy fix. It doesn't help in the chatroom department, either.

[DrSpike]

It could be at your end as Ming suggests. However, I had some very weird problems the other day where I could not access Apolyton at all except the front page. If I logged in there everything worked, but manually loading any other link to forums or posts would not work at all.

[Nikolai]

Weird... I have the same problem as some of you might know. My case and BFM's is quite alike as far as I can see.

[Ming]

Let me rephrase my answer... It's NOT an IP ban issue... as far as other possible site problems, I wouldn't know. I haven't had any problems in the last week connecting to the site

[BigFurryMonster]

Loud & Clear, Ming! Thanks for your reply.

Nikolai - which firewall(s) and/or virus scanner(s) are you running that might be causing this?

[Arnelos]

Originally posted by BigFurryMonster
* I already did a TraceRt to www.apolyton.net. After the 18th hop (the "ev1" network I believe), the packets get lost.

Sounds to me like you found your answer. One of the intermediary networks in between your ISP and Apolyton.net is losing packets. Others (seemingly also from Europe) are experiencing a similar issue and may be behind the same connector.

My GUESS is that this one network link is losing packets because of the recent virus mess, but that's just a guess.

In terms of what to do, not sure there's much you CAN do. The only thing I can think of is to contact your ISP and let them know about the problem and at which hop the packets are being lost (that ev1 network).

[BigFurryMonster]

Why can my friend access Apolyton while his packets are also blocked?

And why do I suddenly have access?

Why has my internet connection password setting suddenly changed?

And where does this virus mess come from? Where does it go?

/me runs away screaming in terror.

[BigFurryMonster]

Argh! Now I'm disconnected again....

Something fishy is going on.

[DrSpike]

Yeah, I also had weird downtime for a short period tonight.