I wrote this because, for the past several days, I have been unable to connect to BF from home anymore, but I can (during the day) from work. I use Firefox, but to exclude the issue as being FF specific, I tried IE -- no luck. My second thought, once I concluding that it isn't browser-specific, was that it might be a DNS issue. I'm running Windows (XP), so I opened up a "DOS box" with cmd, and cleared my DNS cache using:

Then I tried pinging BladeForums:

Even though the ping test led me to believe that I wouldn't be able to connect, I tried FF and IE again; still no joy.

Thinking that perhaps my Internet provider's DNS server might not have the right IP address for BladeForums, I tried setting up to use the OpenDNS webservers:
1) Right-click "My Network Places" and select Properties
2) Right-click "Local Area Connection" and select Properties
3) Scroll down to "Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), click on it, then click the Properties button
4) Change the General tab "Obtain DNS server address automatically" radio button to "Use the following DNS server addresses"
5) Specify 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220 as Preferred and Alternate DNS servers (as noted on the bottom of https://www.opendns.com/start/)
6) Click OK and Close buttons to exit "Local Area Connection" Properties
7) Clear the local DNS cache again: Start -> Run... -> cmd -> ipconfig -flushdns
8) I still couldn't ping www.bladeforums.com nor get a response using a browser.

I had one more place to look, and while I was confident that it wasn't the problem, darned if that wasn't exactly where it was. In Windows, there is a file that allows you to bypass DNS when resolving a URL to an IP address; in Windows XP, that file is:
C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\HOSTS

I found that I had made the entry:

Once I saw that, I remembered that the last time BladeForums did a major upgrade and changed their IP address, my ISP was very slow in picking up the change, which prevented me from getting to BladeForums by URL, so I'd added that entry to my HOSTS file. I commented out the 216.26.177.84 entry and flushed my DNS again, then tried another ping. The ping still times out, but now www.bladeforums.com resolves to IP: 199.85.240.180 and I can reach Bladeforums just fine using Firefox (I wonder why ping doesn't work??).

Anyway, while this is a round-about way of saying that BladeForums changed their IP address on 08-31-2009 -- see http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=671923 (or http://199.85.240.180/forums/showthread.php?t=671923 if that doesn't work for you). Also, perhaps my description of how I went about troubleshooting the problem, and what I'd done to cause it in the first place will be helpful to someone.

Though I don't go into as much detail in diagnosing the problem, Bladeforums is almost ALWAYS slow and lethargic for me. I don't enjoy it...



...but I take it.

I wish they would get their act together.

I'll check it out and report back..

Same here I have had issues with BF on a daily basis...

I was on a day or 2 ago, and it said they were switching servers and upgrading and would be down.

Me,too, and it's very annoying. I am seriously considering no longer paying for my gold membership if they aren't going to use that money on improving the performance of their site.

Somewhat unfortunately, tomorrow is the last day for our Unix sys admin. He's been a long-time contract employee, and he and the company couldn't agree on terms to come on board full-time. Two of his Unix servers are the Web servers, and several others provide services related to the Web, such as DNS and our software version management system (subversion). I'm the primary web programmer and am having to cross-train to cover those of his duties because (at least for a while) they don't plan to replace him.

I'm not looking forward to adding those duties to my own -- I already had plenty to do, but I'm learning a lot about Web servers and networking, which should enhance my value in a somewhat uncertain work environment. I hope that there's recognition that the Web server admin and support took about 1/3 of his time, and since he had a lot more experience than I do, it'll take more of my time than it did his. Also, those duties will introduce a lot more task switching overhead, so that a given volume of programming work will take more than twice as long as it would have in the past.

Anyway, not to say that I'm not long-winded anyway, but being knee-deep in learning about networking topics at work added to my level of detail in the troubleshooting description.

If any of ya do manage to get on I could do with the votes in the Scott Gossman knife design comp <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/bowdown.gif" alt="" />, my #7 is climbing steadily ! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crossfingers.gif" alt="" />

I just tried getting on BF...worked fine for me... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Done !! Got on - found it and voted <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbup.gif" alt="" />. Hopefuly fellow dogs will also help <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crossfingers.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbup.gif" alt="" />-nice design <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbup.gif" alt="" />!!

i get random down times.... from BF often.... my isp blows though

Some places program their routers to not accept or respond to pings. They can be used as a DoS (denial of service) attack. I know we don't allow pings on many of our external facing routers.