Can't figure out why some websites don't load

[ksz]

This may be a tough problem to solve. I've Googled and Yahooed for days in search of an answer, but no luck.

Problem:
I have a wireless 802.11g Netgear router connected to DSL service from SBC-Yahoo. Some websites refuse to load when running Safari on Mac or Internet Explorer on Windows.

Sites that don't load: (All I get is "opening page http://..." followed by a browser timeout; no part of the website loads)

1. ebay.com
2. microsoft.com
3. mac.com
4. dell.com
5. msn.com (pretty much everything by Microsoft including msdn.com)
6. mcafee.com

Sites that load properly (never had a problem with these):

1. apple.com
2. symantec.com
3. pcworld.com
4. pcmag.com
5. anandtech.com
6. tomshardware.com
7. cnn.com
8. yahoo.com
9. google.com
10. intel.com
11. amd.com
12. many many others

I don't know what is common to the non-working group that renders those sites inaccessible. However, there are 2 interesting exemptions:

1. There is no problem connecting to ANY website if I use the browser built in to AOL.

2. AOL 9.0 SE for Windows installs "Port Magic" which somehow solves the accessibility problem with Safari and Internet Explorer! Port Magic, however, conflicts with Google's Desktop Search engine and appears to be inconsistent in starting up. I can try to fool around with it, but I'd rather figure out what the root cause is.

I've tried changing MTU on my router and Windows PCs to no avail. It's currently set to 1500, but I tried 1492 and 1454.

Have you had a similar problem? Were you able to fix it? Are you having a similar problem now? Any experts know what might be going on?


EDIT: Aarg, this needs to move to the Help Forum.

[angelneo]

What happens if you do a traceroute? can you cut and paste the result here?

Just in case if you don't know,
on Mac:
open Terminal
Type in "traceroute www.microsoft.com"

on Windows:
click Start, click run
Type in "cmd", hit enter
Type in "tracert www.microsoft.com"

[ksz]

Here's traceroute from the Mac:

$ traceroute www.microsoft.com
traceroute to www.microsoft.com.nsatc.net (207.46.199.30), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets
1 wgt634u (192.168.1.1) 33.289 ms 1.369 ms 1.199 ms
2 adsl-63-201-95-254.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net (63.201.95.254) 10.263 ms 11.045 ms 9.461 ms
3 dist2-vlan50.snfc21.pbi.net (206.171.134.131) 11.689 ms 10.369 ms 10.25 ms
4 bb2-10g2-0.snfcca.sbcglobal.net (216.102.176.226) 10.234 ms 15.091 ms 20.268 ms
5 bb1-p4-0.snfcca.sbcglobal.net (151.164.190.189) 13.702 ms 12.255 ms 10.999 ms
6 core1-p14-1.crsfca.sbcglobal.net (151.164.242.65) 11.608 ms 16.94 ms 13.098 ms
7 bb1-p8-0.crsfca.sbcglobal.net (151.164.243.2) 11.866 ms 10.077 ms 22.589 ms
8 ex1-p13-0.pxpaca.sbcglobal.net (151.164.40.146) 11.886 ms 11.839 ms 14.585 ms
9 151.164.249.58 (151.164.249.58) 12.569 ms 11.987 ms 13.565 ms
10 207.46.41.129 (207.46.41.129) 11.086 ms 13.132 ms 15.145 ms
11 pos6-2.tuk-76cb-1a.ntwk.msn.net (207.46.34.173) 189.407 ms 125.801 ms 198.043 ms
12 pos1-0.iuskixcpxc1202.ntwk.msn.net (207.46.36.146) 31.448 ms 29.412 ms 29.203 ms
13 pos1-0.tke-12ix-1b.ntwk.msn.net (207.46.155.5) 39.049 ms 30.328 ms 30.154 ms
14 po11.tuk-65ns-mcs-1a.ntwk.msn.net (207.46.224.216) 30.022 ms 31.688 ms 29.984 ms
15 * * *
16 * * *
17 * * *
18 * * *

[Doctor Q]

I had a problem just like that. It turned out that my firewall device had a built-in list of "approved" domains and sometimes wouldn't let traffic through to others. I can't explain the "sometimes" part, but once we turned off the feature everything worked fine.

Might your router have a feature like that?

[ksz]

And here's the same from Windows:

C:\>tracert www.microsoft.com

Tracing route to www.microsoft.com.nsatc.net [207.46.199.60]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 9 ms 3 ms 1 ms WGT634U [192.168.1.1]
2 10 ms 11 ms 9 ms adsl-63-201-95-254.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net[63.201.95.254]
3 11 ms 10 ms 13 ms dist2-vlan50.snfc21.pbi.net [206.171.134.131]
4 10 ms 10 ms 12 ms bb2-10g2-0.snfcca.sbcglobal.net[216.102.176.226]
5 11 ms 10 ms 10 ms bb1-p4-0.snfcca.sbcglobal.net[151.164.190.189]
6 11 ms 11 ms 10 ms core1-p14-1.crsfca.sbcglobal.net[151.164.242.65]
7 10 ms 11 ms 10 ms bb1-p8-0.crsfca.sbcglobal.net [151.164.243.2]
8 11 ms 14 ms 11 ms ex1-p13-0.pxpaca.sbcglobal.net[151.164.40.146]
9 17 ms 13 ms 17 ms 151.164.249.58
10 14 ms 12 ms 15 ms 207.46.41.129
11 32 ms 30 ms 30 ms pos6-2.tuk-76cb-1a.ntwk.msn.net[207.46.34.173]
12 * 30 ms 30 ms pos1-0.iuskixcpxc1202.ntwk.msn.net[207.46.36.146]
13 30 ms 31 ms 30 ms pos1-0.tke-12ix-1b.ntwk.msn.net[207.46.155.5]
14 29 ms 31 ms 30 ms po10.tuk-65ns-mcs-1a.ntwk.msn.net[207.46.224.151]
15 * * * Request timed out.
16 * * * Request timed out.
17 * * * Request timed out.

[ksz]

I had a problem just like that. It turned out that my firewall device had a built-in list of "approved" domains and sometimes wouldn't let traffic through to others. I can't explain the "sometimes" part, but once we turned off the feature everything worked fine.

Might your router have a feature like that?
Although my WGT634U router has a built-in firewall, there is no impact to this problem if that firewall is enabled or disabled.

[angelneo]

I read up on Port Magic, and it states something about managing the ports. Maybe if you try to set the computer you are currently using as your default "server" on your router, just to check whether if it is the port forwarding that is causing the problem.

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

Really puzzeling...

When I traceroute, I get more or less the same result as over, but accessing www.microsoft.com using Firefox or Safari the page loads in fractions of a second... :confused:

Using an iBook G4 with 10.3.9, Safari 1.3 and Firefox 1.0.3

[angelneo]

Really puzzeling...

When I traceroute, I get more or less the same result as over, but accessing www.microsoft.com using Firefox or Safari the page loads in fractions of a second... :confused:

Using an iBook G4 with 10.3.9, Safari 1.3 and Firefox 1.0.3
so sorry, microsoft.com is a bad example to do traceroute. but ksz tracert has shown that his dns is still working.

[ksz]

Thinking that the problem might be with either the service provider, the router or my computer, I tried isolating the problem by first replacing the router with an older US Robotics model that I had lying around. Immediately the problem went away and all websites load just fine.

I've had the Netgear WGT634U for about a year and, well, I'm just really disappointed by it. I didn't think the problem would be with the router, but I'm not surprised given that their firmware has been buggy and they've been posting a number of updates. The USR8054 is working flawlessly.