Virgin Media Community

[IndigoJo]

Hi everyone,

I run a blog using a shared hosting service (Total Choice Hosting, an American provider). Over the past two weeks I've been unable to access it through my Virgin broadband even though it works when I use 4G (EE) or a VPN (Windscribe). There is no error message; it just times out.

I am in New Malden (south-west London).

The site name is www.blogistan.co.uk and the IP address is [removed] The traceroute is as follows:

traceroute to blogistan.co.uk (208.76.80.45), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
 1  192.168.0.1 (192.168.0.1)  10.647 ms  4.180 ms  3.714 ms
 2  10.53.35.89 (10.53.35.89)  14.066 ms  21.247 ms  25.852 ms
 3  croy-core-2b-xe-0014-0.network.virginmedia.net (81.96.225.145)  14.314 ms  13.510 ms  20.011 ms
 4  croy-core-2a-ae1-0.network.virginmedia.net (81.96.226.9)  14.136 ms  15.818 ms  19.596 ms
 5  * * *
 6  m686-mp2.cvx1-b.lis.dial.ntli.net (62.254.42.174)  16.137 ms  17.698 ms  16.598 ms
 7  213.46.174.118 (213.46.174.118)  15.525 ms  18.165 ms  22.882 ms
 8  * ldn-bb1-link.ip.twelve99.net (62.115.122.188)  118.808 ms *
 9  * prs-bb3-link.ip.twelve99.net (62.115.123.69)  126.777 ms *
10  det-b1-link.telia.net (62.115.113.35)  118.738 ms  111.274 ms  107.760 ms
11  managedway-ic-339279-det-b1.c.telia.net (62.115.63.49)  110.371 ms *  117.401 ms
12  det-b1-link.telia.net (62.115.113.35)  141.977 ms
    core10.totalchoicehosting.com (208.92.220.228)  112.396 ms  113.220 ms

The trace always hangs at the fourth stage, "croy-core-2a-ae1-0.network.virginmedia.net" (81.96.226.9). This leads me to believe that the problem is at that host, presumably in Croydon.

I am not the house owner and don't have the password for the VM online account (I have the password for the router and couldn't find anything there that might have been a problem). I had been advised to look into the WebSafe settings but I haven't had any error messages that would indicate that access is blocked. It just hangs, then times out.

I use two Macs, an iPhone and an iPad. One of the Macs runs MacOS and Linux. I use Safari on all Apple OSs and Chrome on Linux. The problem affects all the devices I have if they're connected to Virgin, regardless of OS or browser. So, it's not a problem with my cache either.

I'm not having any problems accessing other websites at present.

[MOD EDIT: Personal and private information has been removed from this post. Please do not post personal or private information in your public posts. Please review the Forum Guidelines]

[Z92]

Seems like 5 is just blocking pings, which is normal as not every house responds to them, it does manage to connect the site itself further on as you can see. 

So the traceroute works, so it's most likely the hosting provider themselves blocking access to you. Ask them to remove the block. 

[IndigoJo]

Why has the IP address of my remote website been edited out? It's not my personal address, it's a web server in a data centre in (if I remember correctly) Michigan.

[IndigoJo]

I've checked with my web host and my IP was indeed blocked at their end. They couldn't tell me why as it happened on 2nd Jan. (This was a surprise as I would have thought the IP address would have changed since then as we've rebooted or restarted the router at least twice, and DHCP.)

[Z92]

IP address changes are rare, if you reboot the router and your address is still available you'll get the address again. Typically the address will only change if some core networking equipment is rebooted, a network resegment takes place, you change the MAC address of the router, and so on. 

Next time you have a similar problem, put the hub into modem mode and connect a single piece of equipment to it (preferably with firewall enabled), you'll get a new IP address. Once finished put the hub back into router mode and chances are you'll go back to your original IP address.