AOL problems connecting to SOG sites

[Heidi Maiers]

Originally Posted by Mike McCarty

When this all started weeks ago, I would click on SOG and "St. Louis Internet" home page (somewhat garbled) would come up. Within each link (maybe a half dozen) on their home page you would read: "www.portraitartist.com." If you clicked one of them it would go to "Web site not found." At the time I had no idea who they were. I have not seen the St. Louis Internet site in several weeks.

Mike, I am curious how you usually access SOG. Do you type portraitartist.com in your address bar, do you have a bookmark set up, or what are you referring to when you say "click on SOG"?

I too have XP, but not AOL. Several weeks ago, I typed in portraitartist.com and some other site came up that was clearly not SOG (though I don't recall seeing "St. Louis"). It wouldn't go away until I cleared out my cache, shut down and restarted my IE and refreshed. Haven't seen it since. I am wondering if the site set a bookmark or cookie on your system in AOL that keeps trying to redirect you to the fake site and stays until you clear out your cache again. Weird.

[Mike McCarty]

Heidi,

I was hoping that you would show up. I use AOL for everything, I have a "favorites" section that holds all of the sites which I routinely visit. Within this section I have saved the SOG forum. So I pull down my favorite list and "click" on SOG forum, which is of course http://forum.portraitartist.com/.

During the course of the day I probably visit the forum a half dozen times. My success in actually getting in is not predictable in any way. A few days ago I went about two and a half days with complete success but then it went back to hit and mis.

From what I can tell it is specific to AOL, I know that Chris S. and Stephen S. have had similar troubles. I have AOL clients that have never been to the forum (I hope) but have had trouble getting to my SOG web site.

[Heidi Maiers]

Seems this has been going on a while - before the upgrade. Can you think of anything else that was changed on your system around the time you started experiencing this problem? Did AOL release an upgrade that you installed? Did you install a pop up blocker? Did AOL install a pop up blocker? When you say you click on links and get the ol "Page cannot be found" error, that makes me wonder if a pop up blocker is preventing a new browser window from opening (either nothing happens or you get that error when clicking on a pop up link). That would explain why sometimes you can get in and other times you can't - depending on if you already have a browser window open. If you are trying to open from a favorites bookmark, you already have a window open and the new one may be getting blocked.

If you are using a pop up blocker, you should be able to set in the options to allow all pop ups from the SOG site, or add http://forum.portraitartist.com to the pop up blocker's Allow List. Either that, or you can temporarily disable it while visiting SOG.
If that is not the problem, I am stumped.

[Mike McCarty]

Actually there are two ways that I access SOG, first is the way I described above, second is when I get an e-mail notification from a forum thread that I have subscribed to. In this case I will copy the url and past it into the long AOL window (tech term) at the top and hit "go."

My best guess is that this started about six weeks ago. In this general time frame I have installed the new version of AOL 9.0 (the superbowl ad convinced me). I cannot link this event to any of these woes.

I have installed, and frequently run, Adaware 6.0 which rids my computer of spyware.

I have set in my AOL controls to block all popups. I do not have any independent blocker installed.

I have set my security settings to low, and specified "portraitartist" as an "always allow."

I do from time to time delete my temporary internet files.

I'm not sure if I have the ability to use DOS to trace a path. If I do, I don't know how to use it.

The curious thing to me is that whatever I, AOL, or some hideous hacking monster is doing, it only affects SOG related sites. And it's not just for me but for others as well.

[Cynthia Daniel]

I just heard again from my ISP this morning and he writes the following:

The problen has been identified. It's AOL's DNS servers which cannot reach anyone using Qwest or Verio carriers in St. Louis. The AOL, Verio and Qwest NOC's were Email'd last night. The problem is neither of the three, rather, a third party carrier in the middle. I Email'd them the traceroutes and other technical junk to prove it. AOL has responded "they are looking into it".

Verio and Qwest have open tickets, but it's not their problem to fix.

I'll let you know what response I get from AOL.

[Mike McCarty]

Cynthia,

That is wonderful news. Lets hope they solve the puzzle.

[Heidi Maiers]

Mike,

Oops, I started to post before I read Cyntha's latest reply. Hopefully, that will take care of the problem. It explains the St. Louis page you have been seeing.

If not, it still could be a pop up issue - or perhaps a combination of several issues?

Those security settings you mention to allways allow are to always allow cookies from portraitartist.com, not to always allow pop ups. Especially if AOL has a pop up control and you have it set to block all pop ups. Pop ups are not just advertisements - they are pop up windows to allow a second browser window to open up - such as when you click on an artists name in the portraitartist.com site, their site will open up in a pop up window. If not allowed, you will just get a page can't be displayed error.

[Cynthia Daniel]

My isp ended up signing up for AOL to solve the problem, even though he was under no obligation to do so. The communications, starting with the oldest.

From AOL:

I think we found the problem. A couple of our name servers had to have some of the data refreshed.
Try it now.

Thanks,
CJ Roberts,
AOL Network Operations

From St. Louis Internet:

AOL responded (see above), however, as of this morning AOL users still cannot get to sites. I have forwarded this information to AOL again this morning.

- Greg

From St. Louis Internet:

As of this morning I can get to sites here via AOL. This was a 100% AOL issue.

- Greg

[Mike McCarty]

Up until yesterday I would have said that my success percentage had gone up to 70+ %. Today I have been locked out most of the day.

Once I am logged on to AOL I will either be able to access SOG or I won't. No matter how many attempts I make. The determining factor seems to be at the point of logging in. It would seem that when you log on you are assigned to one of AOL's many servers and you are with that server for the remainder of your session. Some servers are bogus and some aren't.

It's as if they are making modifications very slowly, thus the increased success percentage. I really don't know much about what goes on behind the scenes but this is the way it appears to me.

PS: I'm getting no response from SpelChek.

[Tito Champena]

I have had from time to time the same problem, but I figured out that the reason could have been, that my computer does not accept cookies. After I disable the cookie protector, I can connect.