Tim's Tech Tips

 

“hey tim my name is josh and i had a question for you
i have an internet connection on my home computer but i keep trying to load up web pages but they dont want to work and i cant ping web pages either it says i cant resolve the host name or something and i dont no what to do. some things work but most htings dont and i cant figure out why web pages wont load if some things do load… can u help?”

You bet I can help! This is a fairly common problem, and even more so among DSL subscribers. For some reason, this particular issue happens a lot more commonly on DSL than on cable or cellular internet, and although I don’t know why, I do know a few possible solutions. If you’re unable to load web pages by domain name (a domain name, being the letters that make up the URL) but you can still access some services that may access a server directly, such as instant messengers which often connect to an IP address instead of a domain name, then the problem almost certainly lies in your DNS settings.

To understand why this problem occurs, we have to understand something about how the internet works. I’m going to use the metaphor of a street address.
Imagine you want to go to “John’s house”. You know that John’s house is located at 123 N. Fake street, Fakesville Ohio, but if you wanted to refer to it more quickly you’d of course, simply call it “John’s house”. The name “john’s house” refers to a specific address (in this case, 123 N. Fake street, Fakesville Ohio). In the same way, “Google.com” refers to a specific IP address, which is like the street address of the internet.

Now, imagine you don’t know where John’s house is, and you’re told to go there. You would have to ask someone who knew where John lived, to get directions. This is how DNS operates. DNS stands for domain name server, and it is the service which translates a name (like Google) into a number (like a street address).

Some services, like instant messengers simply use an address instead of a domain name in order to connect to a server, and don’t need to resolve from the DNS. That’s probably why certain services on your computer still work over the internet.

---The diagnosis---

There are 2 common causes for this problem.
The first, and probably most common is that your DNS server configuration has been changed, OR that it (for whatever reason) isn’t working for you anymore. I ran into this problem setting up the internet connection at my previous job, the DNS server provided by our ISP simply wouldn’t resolve hostnames. The solution to this problem is number 1, below.

The second cause for this problem involves your HOSTS file. Your HOSTS file is a certain extensionless file, which I believe is located in your primary OS drive (ex: C:\) in the WINDOWS\System32\Drivers\etc directory.

This file is used by your computer to resolve hostnames locally, sort of like your own internal DNS. It will override your external DNS, such as your ISP’s DNS server with whatever’s in that file. For example, if you have an entry in your HOSTS file, that looks like “www.google.com [tab space] 127.0.0.1” then your computer is redirecting the request for the server at “www.google.com” to your local host. Keep in mind that most HOSTS files will have “localhost” redirected to 127.0.0.1. That is fine, and completely normal. Don’t delete it.

Some malware (in fact, a lot of malware) changes this HOSTS file in order to redirect requests for certain web pages (or all web pages) to their own server, or back to your local host so you can’t access them. This can be used to force a person to install even more malware, to trick them into thinking a site is legit when it’s not, and to make it difficult to get to sites which would contain software which would allow the user to remove the malware that’s causing the problem in the first place. Pretty sneaky, huh?

---The solution---

1: If the problem is with your ISP’s DNS server, then the solution is quite simple. You could call them up, and ask them to confirm the IP address of their DNS server, and ask them why it might not be working, if there’s an outage or something, but the simplest solution is to use a service called OpenDNS. This service requires no registration, and I’ll show you how to use it here.

Step 1: Go to your start menu, and open “control panel”, (and if you have the option on the left, click “switch to classic view”), then open up “network connections”.
(If you have Vista, open the “Network and sharing center”, then select “Manage network connections” on the left side of that window)

You should be looking at a window similar to this:

You’ll see that one of your connections is lit up. If you use wireless internet, it will say something like “wireless network connection”, and if you use wired internet through an ethernet cable, it’ll say something like “Local area connection”. Right-click the one that you’re using to connect to the internet (in my case, Wireless network connection) and select “Properties”.

You’ll see something like this:

Scroll down in the section under “This connection uses the following items:”, and select “Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)” and click “Properties”.
NOTE: If you see 2 “TCP/IP” listings, select the one with “V4” in the name, NOT “V6”

When the properties box opens up, you should see something like this:

The important part is the “Preferred DNS server”, and “Alternate DNS server” boxes. Yours may obtain your DNS server’s address automatically through your default gateway, but either way you should select “Use the following DNS server addresses”, and then type in the numbers shown above. 208.67.220.220 for the Preferred DNS, and 208.67.222.222 for the Alternate DNS. Click OK, then OK again. The last step is to flush the old DNS settings out, and pull over the new ones.

First, hold the windows key, and hit “R”. This should open up the Run dialog. In that window, type “cmd” and hit enter. That should open up a DOS command prompt.

Once in the DOS command prompt, simply type the following:

ipconfig /release [enter] (then wait for it to finish, and…)
ipconfig /renew [enter] (then wait for it to finish, and…)
ipconfig /flushdns [enter] (then wait for it to finish, and…)
ipconfig /registerdns [enter] (then wait for it to finish, and…)
exit [enter] (and the command prompt should close)

That should flush out all of your old settings, and renew them with the new information, using OpenDNS. Now, just to be sure, reboot and then try going to a web page.

2: If the solution is the HOSTS file, simply go to the directory above (C:\WINDOWS\System32\Drivers\etc), then right-click “hosts”, and click “open with…”, then select notepad. This is necessary, because the HOSTS file has no extension to tell the system what kind of file it is, and thus won’t have any program associated with opening it.

Next, simply highlight and delete everything BELOW “127.0.0.1       localhost”, then save the file, reboot, and that should fix the problem.

Remember, if you have any questions that need answers, just ask Tim the IT guy! You can email me at tim@timstechtips.com and I’ll try to answer every question on the site. Thanks for reading!