page can not be displayed errors

[RandomJoe]

Over the last few weeks I have been getting more and more "page can not be displayed" errors.  At the bottom of the page it says "Server not found or DNS error."  Now I do computers for a living, so let's not discuss the obvious.  There were no problems to speak of before 2009, now the problem has been getting worse and worse.  The Verizon support folks were not helpful, of course they tried to blame me for the problem.  No changes on my side though during that time, just increasing and increasing "page can not be displayed" errors.  If you refresh a few times, they get found of course and it seems to come in batches, meaning if things are smooth, they are smooth, if one page can not be displayed error shows up, lots occur at the same time. 

I am at the point where I am going to stop paying for my service and then go elsewhere.  I'd like to keep FIOS, but its becoming too much of a problem to stay.

Any ideas?

[prisaz]

Could be the lousy NAT table in the router. Are you doing any P2P? I know my daughter likes to do a few online games and the connection log gets very large now that I can see it. I am not running the Actiontec as my primary router. And what I am running shows every connection through the tables. I would see that from time to time before. Now it never happens. I hope my response was not the obvious. You could try to use opendns in your router for your DNS provider. If that fixes it then I would say it's Verizon's DNS. But if not, it may be a router issue.

Message Edited by prisaz on 03-01-2009 01:04 PM

[RandomJoe]

No, no P2P and no specializations on the router.  There is a Wii attached.  The Nintendo DS's won't attach with the ActionTec, never have.  The house has been working fine until the last month.

[cjacobs001]

sometimes the obvious gets missed, or ignored.  Whether it's "Now I do computers for a living.." or otherwise, without discussing the obvious up front, I could be chasing the same tail that you could be chasing

[RandomJoe]

I understand, ask away any questions.  I have flushed my dns cache on my PC and that didint stop the problem.  I reviewed error and status logs on the PC and the router, no change.  I will say that cycling the power on the router seems to help for a while, but that isn't a scientific observation, just anecdotal.  The pattern seems to be random, but when it happens, it seems to happen for a few minutes then lets up, and it happens for any pc using the internet at the time.  I suspect that its the DNS server at verizon, but that is an unfounded belief of course.  Would problems at the local office bounce DNS requests to another office causing a delay and a time out?

[Justin46]

If it is really the Verizon DNS servers, you could try using OpenDNS, which is free. I switched to OpenDNS months ago, not for the problem you are experiencing but because the Verizon DNS seemed to have gotten very slow. Switching to OpenDNS seemed to improve DNS performance quite a bit. Plus some security sites say that OpenDNS updates their servers better than most ISPs, and have some tools to help manage spam and viruses.

http://www.opendns.com/

Trying OpenDNS would at least eliminate Verizon DNS if the problem continues.

__________________________________
Justin
Verizon FiOS TV, Internet, and phone
IMG 1.6.0, Build 06.89
Keller, TX 76248

Message Edited by Justin on 03-02-2009 11:32 AM

[RandomJoe]

I've read about solving DNS problems with opendns or treewalk.  I'd like to use straight verizon, somewhat because I'm concerned that using something else might impact the FIOS TV and FIOS phone (I'm a triple play customer).  I know that these things shouldn't affect the other services, but I'm still leary.  Things were working fairly well in December and January and then changed in February, so I'm thinking that something must have changed at Verizon in February 2009.  Has there been any changes at Verizon FIOS during Feb 2009?  I'm in the Pittsburgh area.

Thank you for the suggestion though.

[CharlesH]

I tried using opendns...works great!  I like the little shortcuts you can make and the stat tracking. Does not impact FiOS TV.

[Justin46]

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@RandomJoe wrote:

I'd like to use straight verizon, somewhat because I'm concerned that using something else might impact the FIOS TV and FIOS phone (I'm a triple play customer). 

---

I have the triple play, absolutely no effect on my phone or TV from using OpenDNS, just better internet website access. I suggested OpenDNS because you said you thought it might be DNS related, this would be an easy way to determine whether that is what it is or not. If it did turn out to be Verizon's DNS, you would then have some ammunition to go to Verizon tech support with.

Just my $.02 worth....

__________________________________
Justin
Verizon FiOS TV, Internet, and phone
IMG 1.6.0, Build 06.89
Keller, TX 76248

[RandomJoe]

After 5 refreshes in the course of 5 minutes, I think you are right.  If opendns works on one pc and not the rest, then its real obvious then eh?  Can I simply set up my DNS in my laptop's IP config so only it uses open dns?