Some pages cannot be displayed

[Guest]

I´m facing a strange problem. For some few sites, I cannot access their
pages, I receive "the page cannot be displayed" message. For instance for
pinnaclesys.com or the drivers area of ATI.com. But my friends can access
them.
I have a XP pro sp2, IE6 sp2, MS antispyware, PC-cillin 2002.

Java is installed and it seems to work fine with several other sites. I´ve
IE advance settings as follows:
Control Panel> IE Options>Advanced Tab>Browsing section> "disable script
debugging"-> Checked ; "Display a notification about every script
error" unchecked

I also cleaned my temporary internet files

What could be the problem?

Luis

 

[Guest]

Frank Saunders listed a number of helpful sites in post titled Accessing
Secure Pages. The one that worked for me was doing EVERYTHING in the
following:

"How to troubleshoot problems accessing secure Web pages with Internet
Explorer 6 Service Pack 2"
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=870700

I sometimes still get This page cannot be displayed, but I just have to hit
refresh and it loads (a nuisance, but not a showstopper).

 

[Guest]

Thank you for the hint. This is a very useful check list.
I tried all the procedures written there, but those sites still don´t want
to appear.

Regards
Luis

 

[Robert Aldwinckle]

....

What could be the problem?

Start by checking your DNS lookups.

I´m facing a strange problem. For some few sites, I cannot access their
pages, I receive "the page cannot be displayed" message. For instance for
pinnaclesys.com

telnet 80 there shows that that site assumes HTTP 1.1

Also there is an immediate redirect to
<example>
Location: /publicsite/us/

or the drivers area of ATI.com.

Hovering over the Drivers and Software menu shows that those links
access a different server named support.ati.com using https protocol.

My nslookup shows that that is an alias on a completely different domain:

<example>
Non-authoritative answer:
Name: ati.supportcenteronline.com
Address: 63.236.105.206
Aliases: support.ati.com
</example>

When I tried using the canonical name instead I got redirected
to a login page at Parature. YMMV.


HTH

Robert Aldwinckle
---

 

[Guest]

Hello
It is a little complex for me what you're explaining. Could you pls describe
those steps for a guy with less knowledge about internet?
The only thing I know is that I can use telnet and nslookup in the prompt
windows.
But I don´t know what for.

Thank you

Luis

 

[Guest]

Hi again
I cannot enter www.parature.com

regards
luis

 

[Robert Aldwinckle]

(interleaved reply elaborates on previous remarks)

Hello
It is a little complex for me what you're explaining. Could you pls describe
those steps for a guy with less knowledge about internet?
The only thing I know is that I can use telnet and nslookup in the prompt
windows.
But I don´t know what for.

Thank you

Luis

Enter in the cmd window:

telnet pinnaclesys.com 80

Wait for the screen to clear and start typing at the top:

GET /

(That's GET<space><slash><Enter>. You will not be able to see your typing.)

Here are the first few lines of what I see when I do that:

<example>
HTTP/1.1 302 Object moved
Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2005 16:25:15 GMT
Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0
X-Powered-By: ASP.NET
Location: /publicsite/us/
</example>

The first line shows that the server *assumes* that the connection
is HTTP 1.1 protocol; so if you don't have that set in your Options
Advanced tab, try changing it.

The last line that I quoted shows that you might get a better or at least
faster connection by avoiding the redirect by entering this full URL
in your Address bar:

http://pinnaclesys.com/publicsite/us/

In fact, evidently there is yet another redirect somewhere because
here is what ends up in the Address bar after I tried that:

http://pinnaclesys.com/PublicSite/us/Home/


If instead (after a *long* wait) you get an error message,
post the error message. That would be proof either that
your DNS doesn't know this lookup or it is getting the wrong address
or the site is blocked for you for some reason.

You could use nslookup to check on the lookup:
E.g. enter in your cmd window:

nslookup pinnaclesys.com

When I do that here is the lookup:

<extract>
Non-authoritative answer:
Name: pinnaclesys.com
Address: 198.37.36.40
</extract>


If you are blocked you might get some clues about that from tracert
E.g. enter in your cmd window

tracert pinnaclesys.com

Mine gets this far before it is blocked:

<example>
11 1652 ms 1357 ms 1974 ms dcr2-so-2-0-0.SanFranciscosfo.savvis.net [204.70.192.90]
12 1666 ms 1322 ms 1509 ms bhr1-pos-0-0.SantaClarasc8.savvis.net [208.172.156.198]
13 1392 ms 1330 ms 1604 ms csr2-ve243.SantaClarasc8.savvis.net [66.35.194.51]
14 1589 ms 1603 ms 1329 ms 66.35.202.86
15 * * * Request timed out.
</example>


I'm not worried about this being blocked because tracert uses the same
kind of ICMP packet that ping does and that protocol is often blocked
by large companies as a defense against moronic denial of service "exploits".


You don't really need a definition of canonical name to figure out
that I mean the other (non-alias) name here.


....

 

[Guest]

Hello again

My telnet says:

HTTP/1.1 302 Object moved
Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2005 22:46:24 GMT
Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0
X-Powered-By: ASP.NET
Location: /publicsite/us/
Content-Length: 136
Content-Type: text/html
Expires: Wed, 16 Nov 2005 22:46:24 GMT
Set-Cookie: ASPSESSIONIDSABQTRAD=DBKCFAGBGFFDAJEPOCMONDAK; path=/
Cache-control: private

Similar to yours.
If I use the links you sent me I easily enter pinnacle site.
I have HTTP1.1 active.
NOw I´m confused. Why can I enter pinnacle through your link and note from
the main one? What do you think I can do to solve this?

I tried also telnet support.ati.com 80 ( or ati.supportcenteronline.com) and
then GET / and I received a black screen (not even a word).

Regards
Luis

(interleaved reply elaborates on previous remarks)

Hello
It is a little complex for me what you're explaining. Could you pls describe
those steps for a guy with less knowledge about internet?
The only thing I know is that I can use telnet and nslookup in the prompt
windows.
But I don´t know what for.

Thank you

Luis

Enter in the cmd window:

telnet pinnaclesys.com 80

Wait for the screen to clear and start typing at the top:

GET /

(That's GET<space><slash><Enter>. You will not be able to see your typing.)

Here are the first few lines of what I see when I do that:

<example>
HTTP/1.1 302 Object moved
Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2005 16:25:15 GMT
Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0
X-Powered-By: ASP.NET
Location: /publicsite/us/
</example>

The first line shows that the server *assumes* that the connection
is HTTP 1.1 protocol; so if you don't have that set in your Options
Advanced tab, try changing it.

The last line that I quoted shows that you might get a better or at least
faster connection by avoiding the redirect by entering this full URL
in your Address bar:

http://pinnaclesys.com/publicsite/us/

In fact, evidently there is yet another redirect somewhere because
here is what ends up in the Address bar after I tried that:

http://pinnaclesys.com/PublicSite/us/Home/


If instead (after a *long* wait) you get an error message,
post the error message. That would be proof either that
your DNS doesn't know this lookup or it is getting the wrong address
or the site is blocked for you for some reason.

You could use nslookup to check on the lookup:
E.g. enter in your cmd window:

nslookup pinnaclesys.com

When I do that here is the lookup:

<extract>
Non-authoritative answer:
Name: pinnaclesys.com
Address: 198.37.36.40
</extract>


If you are blocked you might get some clues about that from tracert
E.g. enter in your cmd window

tracert pinnaclesys.com

Mine gets this far before it is blocked:

<example>
11 1652 ms 1357 ms 1974 ms dcr2-so-2-0-0.SanFranciscosfo.savvis.net [204.70.192.90]
12 1666 ms 1322 ms 1509 ms bhr1-pos-0-0.SantaClarasc8.savvis.net [208.172.156.198]
13 1392 ms 1330 ms 1604 ms csr2-ve243.SantaClarasc8.savvis.net [66.35.194.51]
14 1589 ms 1603 ms 1329 ms 66.35.202.86
15 * * * Request timed out.
</example>


I'm not worried about this being blocked because tracert uses the same
kind of ICMP packet that ping does and that protocol is often blocked
by large companies as a defense against moronic denial of service "exploits".


You don't really need a definition of canonical name to figure out
that I mean the other (non-alias) name here.


....

 

[Robert Aldwinckle]

Hello again

My telnet says: ....
Similar to yours.
If I use the links you sent me I easily enter pinnacle site.
I have HTTP1.1 active.

Good.


NOw I´m confused. Why can I enter pinnacle through your link and note from
the main one? What do you think I can do to solve this?

I don't know. Clearly it's not a straight DNS issue.

FWIW I have long suspected that IE has some undocumented
timing parameters which cause extremely short timeouts for the lookup
phase which could include the time taken for doing redirects.
If true this would explain a lot of issues that users have,
including Red-X and related problem symptoms.

I think the only way to try to find out for sure would be to trace
the request and all the redirects it generates. Depending on how
reproducible the symptom is in different configurations you could
try using a proxy tracer such as FiddlerTool or, since you have XP Pro,
you could use its netcap utility (from the Support Tools package) and
then use Ethereal (freeware) to format the resulting .cap file.

The Ethereal formatter would be the best because the netcap trace
would be the least invasive and thus the least likely to have an effect
on the thing which was being traced. It would also give you quite
accurate timing for all of the parts of the transaction, including control
packets (i.e. not just the HTTP requests and responses).

I tried also telnet support.ati.com 80 ( or ati.supportcenteronline.com) and
then GET / and I received a black screen (not even a word).

That's odd. Here's what I get for both:

<example>

HTTP/1.1 302 Object moved
Server: Microsoft-IIS/5.0
Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2005 06:38:48 GMT
X-Powered-By: ASP.NET
Location: https://support.ati.com/ics/service/login.asp
</example>


When I specifically request HTTP/1.1 (by appending that to a request)
I also have to enter: Host: support.ati.com
or Host: ati.supportcenteronline.com
and another empty Enter.

and when I do that I get... exactly the same thing for the latter case(!)
and this for the first Host: case:

<example>
HTTP/1.1 302 Object moved
Server: Microsoft-IIS/5.0
Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2005 06:49:40 GMT
X-Powered-By: ASP.NET
Location: https://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894
</example>


Since that would be the one that IE would be most likely to encounter
you could try it as a workaround too. Notice that the protocol changes
from HTTP to HTTPS so if you need to use telnet to test connectivity
for it you would have to use port 443 instead of port 80 and I suspect
that the only thing that you would see would be the screen clearing
(indicating that the connection worked). AFAIK it would not be valid
to try entering plain text GET requests to that port.


HTH

Robert
---