Forum Discussion

Fluffgar's avatar
Fluffgar
Tuning in
8 months ago

Search Engine Randomly Blocked

One of the search engines I regularly use for work is, today, blocked. I am in charge of the router and associated account. None of the settings there have been altered.

I can only conclude that virginmedia itself is responsible.

The search engine is DuckDuckGo, which largely relies on Bing (which itself is not blocked, confusingly).

Please advise.

  • Roger_Gooner's avatar
    Roger_Gooner
    Alessandro Volta

    I can access the website. Also, here's my trace route.

    C:\>tracert duckduckgo.com
    
    Tracing route to duckduckgo.com [52.142.124.215]
    over a maximum of 30 hops:
    
      1     1 ms     1 ms     1 ms  192.168.0.1
      2     *        *        *     Request timed out.
      3    17 ms     8 ms     8 ms  haye-core-2b-ae36-650.network.virginmedia.net [80.3.178.221]
      4     *        *        *     Request timed out.
      5    11 ms    14 ms    14 ms  tcl5-ic-7-ae0-0.network.virginmedia.net [213.105.11.198]
      6    12 ms    14 ms     *     ae65-0.lts-96cbe-1a.ntwk.msn.net [207.46.219.212]
      7    36 ms    21 ms    26 ms  ae23-0.icr03.lon24.ntwk.msn.net [51.10.1.13]
      8    25 ms    20 ms     *     be-104-0.ibr01.lon24.ntwk.msn.net [104.44.32.24]
      9    21 ms    23 ms    23 ms  be-3-0.ibr01.dub08.ntwk.msn.net [104.44.30.47]
     10    26 ms    22 ms    20 ms  ae106-0.icr04.dub08.ntwk.msn.net [104.44.23.185]
     11     *        *        *     Request timed out.
     12     *        *        *     Request timed out.
     13     *        *        *     Request timed out.
     14     *        *        *     Request timed out.
     15     *        *        *     Request timed out.
     16    21 ms    23 ms    22 ms  52.142.124.215
    
    Trace complete.
  • While I am exceedingly glad that this issue is not affecting others, I am no closer to a fix. My trace route is a field of "Request timed out."

    No other site seems to have trouble so far as I've found. Though occasionally things seem slower to load than I'd expect.

    I have checked with more than one browser, on more than one device.

    Additionally, I noticed a console in the house had retrieved the wrong date and time. Though another item, a TV, was finding the correct ones.

    Going to depower the router for a time and see if that helps at all. And, yes, I have switched it off and on again. And even checked to see if anything wanted to be updated.

  • jpeg1's avatar
    jpeg1
    Alessandro Volta

    1. Check if your IP is a problem by switching router/modem mode

    2. Change the DNS on your device

  • The problem seems to have vanished on its own.

    Only thing I did was switch the router off while I was out. The problem returned the next day. Tried the same thing again and the problem has yet to return.

     

    Unfortunately this leaves me with no insight that could help others facing this sort of thing.

  • Hello Fluffgar.

    Thanks for your post and welcome back to your community.

    Sorry to hear you were having an issue with DuckDuckGo. I did check to see if we've had any reports from our side from any other customers. Sadly nothing has been raised in the the last 2 weeks.

    The main thing is it sounds like you're okay now with no more time outs.

    If it happens again, please let us know.

    Gareth_L