Site won't come up using MacBook Pro

[purplemagpie]

Here's a weird one.

I've put up a landing page for the site I'm working on while we continue developing the main site.

senseofplacepress.com

It comes up fine on my pc and didn't work on my Mac, but now does. However, the person whose site it is can't get it to come up on her MacBookPro. Keeps getting weird "not there" sort of things.

The guy at Blue Host said there wasn't a reason on their end, but that Safari had suffered some server problems earlier and that may be why it didn't work for me but now it does (on the MacBook Pro), but has always worked for me on my pc and droid phone.

Could someone with a MacBook Pro try the link and see if you have problems, please?

Anyone got any ideas? Does the Mac have some sort of screener thing that blocks sites for some reason?

senseofplacepress.com

Thanks,

Maggie

http://senseofplacepress.com

[Bill Murray]

The devil is in the details.

Keeps getting weird “not there” sort of things.

You'll need to provide the exact message. Servers respond with HTTP status codes. With the status code, you can either read the info at that link, Google the code for more info, or someone here can explain to you what they mean.

Safari had suffered some server problems

Either you misunderstood what the person at Bluehost communicated or that Bluehost person had no clue how to effectively diagnose your problem. Safari is a browser and has nothing to do with servers.

Connectivity to a site has nothing to do with the type of PC you're using (Mac vs Windows-based) or the browser - unless the site is configured to block certain browsers or certain user agent strings (what a browser provides to a server to identify itself). It would be highly unusual for someone to have configured a server that way so it shouldn't be the first place you look to understand this, but it's technically possible. It is only tied to the local computer in that computers have something called a hosts file that can control the address to which a site tries to connect when you type it into you browser.

Therefore, if the site consistently does not come up for 1 person, you can start by investigating the hosts file on that computer or by attempting to run a trace route to the site from a browser on that computer. To run a trace route (also known as a tracert), visit this site, select Trace in the left menu, enter your domain name in the box (http prefix is ok), and press the Go button. Your site should resolve to IP 69.81.31.169, which is a server at Bluehost.

If it now works for that person, but didn't before, it's possible that the person was seeing DNS propagation issues if you VERY recently changed the address of your server. If each of you had different internet service providers with separate DNS servers, it's possible that 1 of you didn't have the most recent DNS information, and thus couldn't reach the site. Anytime you change your DNS, you will see inconsistent connections until all DNS servers are updated with the most current information.

Hope that helps.

---

Web: https://wpperform.com or Twitter: @wpperform

We do managed WordPress hosting.

[purplemagpie]

Bill,

Wow, thanks for all that info. Now I'll need to sit down and figure it all out.

I'm willing to bet that I misunderstood the Blue Host guy, so let's blame me and not them. They are always so helpful, and always so cheery at 2 am.!

We did just recently activate the URL by turning the DNS servers from GoDaddy to Blue Host early Monday. So maybe that's it.

I just checked and we do have different Internet service providers (You can tell by our email addresses which provider we use.)

I will ask my person to send me the exact things she's getting when she goes to the URL so I can research it more.

Thanks again, Bill.

Maggie

[Bill Murray]

"Helpful" & "cheery" does not equate to being correct. Nothing against Bluehost, but not all technical support people get everything right all of the time. It can be a tough job.

If you changed your DNS from Godaddy to Bluehost, what you saw was likely a DNS propagation issue. DNS propagation is the process where your DNS change (from Godaddy to Bluehost) has to spread around the internet. Within the continental US, most DNS updates propagate within 2 hours. Globally, a very high percentage (probably above 99%) is updated within 2 days. But I doubt it ever reaches 100%, because every day we see visits that are the result of stale DNS information that is stale my many, many months.

The simple thing is to ask the person with the problem if it still persists. If it's gone, you can write it off as DNS propagation. If the problem is still there, have the person do the trace as I outlined in my previous response. If the trace returns bad information, you'll have to dig deeper and examine that computer's hosts file. If the person didn't intentionally change the hosts file, you need to understand that changing a hosts file is a common technique of malware. In other word, your friend's computer might be infected with malware. It's unusual that the change is affecting this site, because the changes are normally to block access to search engines (to prevent one finding info on removing malware) or to anti-malware sites (to prevent you from downloading tools to remove the malware). Therefore, it's not likely that it is the hosts file or malware, but when you're diagnosing you have to be open-minded.

And speaking of being open-minded, there is another reasonable possibility: that your friend's site (server) has malware. Since you mentioned that the site is your friend's, a hacker could have modified the site to block your friend's access but that block wouldn't affect others. If you moved the content from Godaddy to Bluehost, you may have moved any hack that was previously installed. If nothing else pans out, you can go back to Bluehost and ask them to see if there's anything unusual in your htaccess file (which is the most common way to create the result you're seeing).

Good luck.

---

Web: https://wpperform.com or Twitter: @wpperform

We do managed WordPress hosting.

[purplemagpie]

Bill,

It's still doing this today.  She sent me screen grabs of the two things she gets.

One deals with verification of the site and the other a 404 page.

I've posted them at this page

http://alaskamagpie.com/sample-of-wierd-stuff-at-senseofplacepress-com/

I'll be out but will reread your most recent post and have Blue Host on my list to call when I get back.

Thanks again,

Maggie

[Bill Murray]

Your first screenshot has nothing to do with connecting to a website. It means that the negotiation of the security "handshake" (for lack of a better term) between that computer's browser and the site triggered a red flag. That's why it says the certificate is invalid. You can also read this, because it happens to others on Macs and other computers. The next question to ask is whether this happens to your friend on just this 1 site or every site. If it's every site, it probably has nothing to do with Bluehost. It's a Mac issue. One of the takeaways from that thread is to have your friend check the computer's time/date because that can trigger the invalid certificate warning. I am also assuming that you are NOT accessing your site securely (via HTTPS), because this error is more common when using HTTPS vs HTTP.

Here are some other things to check:

- Make sure you're not using a proxy server. You should find this in your Safari settings, but I can't be more specific because I don't use Safari.
- Double check your certificate authority; to do this, visit the Applications folder, then Utilities, then run Keychain Access (I don't have a Mac or Safari so I can't be much more help here, but this thread might help you)

Your 2nd screenshot shows a 404 error code. 404 is an HTTP status code (see my original reply) that is returned when a web URL is not found. Web URL's are case sensitive. When you get a 404 error, it means you've reached the site, but the specific URL you are trying to reach is not valid. Hopefully, that means you just had a minor typo and were NOT trying to reach the home page. Given that the site's homepage is reachable for others, I'd have your friend double check the URL or have someone else check that URL. Unless you're getting a 404 error on the home page, it's probably not connected to the 1st error.

Hope that helps.

---

Web: https://wpperform.com or Twitter: @wpperform

We do managed WordPress hosting.

[purplemagpie]

Bill,

Just to get back to you.  Thanks again for you good info.

We got together to compare settings on our Macs, but hers was a different model so we couldn't figure out which of her settings were different from mine.

But, since her Mac was less than 6 mo. old, I suggested she call Mac and ask them. She did, they told her to change a setting and PRESTO! That fixed it. Now she can see her site using her new Mac.

Thanks again.

Maggie

 

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