Cannot access UNIX.com with new cable modem

UNIX macOS
1

Hi.

I have a very strange problem, so strange I don't even know which sub-forum to post it to.

Last week, my cable modem broke, so I took it back and got a new one.

The new one doesn't work with my old router so, for now, I have to connect the modem directly to my Mac with an ethernet cable.

Everything works fine, except that I cannot access unix.com in Safari or in Firefox. every other website is fine!

If, however I use Firefox on Linux in a VM I can get to the site.

I've cleared the cache, cookies and everything else I can think of.

I simply replaced the old modem with the new one, and changed nothing - and every other website works fine.

Could anyone possibly have a clue? I'm confused, and it's driving me up the wall.

Thanks.

(I would upload graphics, but Grab only saves TIFF's and they're not supported as attachment types.

Safari:

Safari can�t open the page.
Safari can�t open the page �http://www.unix.com/� because the server where this page is located isn�t responding.

Firefox:

The connection has timed out

The server at www.unix.com is taking too long to respond.

    *   The site could be temporarily unavailable or too busy. Try again in a few
          moments.

    *   If you are unable to load any pages, check your computer's network
          connection.

    *   If your computer or network is protected by a firewall or proxy, make sure
          that Firefox is permitted to access the Web.
2

Can you reach unix.com from proxify.com?

1 Like
3

Never heard of that!

But yes, I can (although I certainly wouldn't log in through it!)

The problem is most certainly on my computer... but where.

4

Are you able to gather any more information from the Safari activity monitor.

WINDOW > ACTIVITY

jaysunn

1 Like
5

Hi jaysunn.

Thanks for your help.

The only output is:

If I go to any other website, say the BBC website, I get loads of "useful" output:

6

@scottn,

Have you resolved your issue yet? Is it related to DNS? DNS is the only protocol / service that can be related to your issue in my humble opinion. Please let use know what you come up with.

jaysunn

7

Hi jaysunn.

Still not.

Given that I have no idea what I'm doing, I did this:

  • rebooted
  • made a cup of tea
  • flushed the routing table
  • flushed the disk cache
  • manually stopped and started en0
  • made another cup of tea
  • rebooted a few more times
  • looked at the syslog

What exactly should I do, or be looking for, with DNS (remembering that it's only UNIX.com that I can't access)?

Thanks.

PS: I had a mad theory that I accessed UNIX.com so often with my old modem, that the route has burned itself into the ethernet card on my Mac :smiley: This probably goes to show that I know nothing about hardware, or networks!

8

"Modem" has a very specific meaning in a PC context, a device to dial into another PC or network over telephone service. I'm not sure what you're calling your modem here, but I'm pretty sure it's not actually a modem if you're using an ethernet card!

9

Hi Corona,

It's a cable modem. It plugs into the cable outlet on my wall and gives me telephone and internet service. I used to plug a router into it and everything was just dandy. But the new (cable) modem doesn't work with the router, so for now I use an ethernet cable to connect the (cable) modem directly to the ethernet port on my computer.

10

Can you ping unix.com ? If so DNS trouble seems unlikely...

11

I can't ping it.

Sorry, I should have mentioned since it's about the first thing I tried :o

$ ping unix.com
PING unix.com (81.17.242.186): 56 data bytes
Request timeout for icmp_seq 0
Request timeout for icmp_seq 1
...
12

Since you can ping it... try a traceroute using port 80 and post the results.

13

Hi Neo.

I cannot ping it. traceroute shows time-outs too if I recall. I'll post the output when I'm back home.

Of all the websites, in all the World, why this one! :confused:

14

Ah! Sorry, I misread your post.

If you can't ping or traceroute to this site, but can get to the rest of the world, and since DNS is obviously working, seems the problem might be in your Mac somewhere. I have had problems on my Mac from time to time that required a reboot and it still did not clear until some unknown TTL passed (still have not got a handle on it).

Still, you should either ping and record the route or use traceroute and determine the last IP address you can hop to and then look into that device for the problem. Please post back what device is the last device there the datagram resides.

15

Hi.

Here's the traceroute output:

$ traceroute unix.com
traceroute to unix.com (81.17.242.186), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
 1  * * *
 2  217-168-56-77.static.cablecom.ch (217.168.56.77)  10.163 ms  7.398 ms  7.705 ms
 3  172.31.208.69 (172.31.208.69)  14.959 ms  14.678 ms  31.482 ms
 4  ch-zrh01a-si1.aorta.net (213.46.171.18)  14.610 ms  14.771 ms  25.087 ms
 5  gi9-47.ccr01.gva01.atlas.cogentco.com (130.117.14.93)  16.784 ms  18.636 ms  15.084 ms
 6  te1-4.ccr01.lys01.atlas.cogentco.com (130.117.48.213)  20.597 ms  19.923 ms  21.178 ms
 7  te0-1-0-3.mpd21.par01.atlas.cogentco.com (130.117.2.185)  40.557 ms  39.609 ms  37.704 ms
 8  te8-7.mpd02.lon01.atlas.cogentco.com (130.117.3.6)  40.867 ms  40.249 ms
    te0-0-0-7.ccr21.par01.atlas.cogentco.com (130.117.3.241)  37.173 ms
 9  te9-7.ccr01.lon01.atlas.cogentco.com (130.117.51.29)  46.326 ms
    te3-8.ccr01.lon01.atlas.cogentco.com (130.117.1.133)  40.442 ms  40.311 ms
10  te1-2.ccr01.dub01.atlas.cogentco.com (130.117.0.130)  50.647 ms  48.946 ms  50.315 ms
11  * * *
12  * * *
13  * * *
14  * * *
....
....

I've finally had time to got a new router and everything is working perfectly fine with that.

However, if I switch AirPort off and connect directly to the cable modem via ethernet, it still doesn't work.

It's obviously a problem with my Mac somewhere, but it's working with the new router, so I'm happy again :slight_smile:

Thanks to everyone for their valuable input.