18 replies to this topic

[JMichael]

Since about 11:30 pm on Fri Mar 30, 2012, I have been unable to access this forum via my ISP, Comcast.com. I have connected now via the wifi hotspot on my iPhone.

I filed an Evernote Support ticket and I contacted Comcast support.

Comcast support told me "the site is blocked form our end".

When I attempt to access via comcast I get this error msg:

Server not found
Firefox can't find the server at discussion.evernote.com.

The Comcast CSR did not know why it was blocked.

Have there been any DNS changes for discussion.evernote.com?
Any ideas on how to get this unblocked by Comcast?

[GrumpyMonkey]

wow. i am using comcast. no problems here.

[JMichael]

There appear to be two problems:

• The second Evernote DNS (ns2.ipslink.com) is not providing a proper response to host lookup
• The Comcast DNS servers in the south seem to pull only from ns2.ipslink.com, whereas in the north they pull from ns1.ipslink.com

Corrective action required:

1. EVERNOTE -- fix ns2.ipslink.com
2. COMCAST -- either use ONLY ns1.ipslink.com or if response from ns2.ipslink.com is invalid use ns1.ipslink.com

Response from Comcast DNS Servers in the South:

ping discussion.evernote.com
Ping request could not find host discussion.evernote.com. Please check the name and try again.

ping evernote.invisionzone.com
Ping request could not find host evernote.invisionzone.com. Please check the name and try again.

tracert discussion.evernote.com
Unable to resolve target system name discussion.evernote.com.

Below are the responses from the Evernote DNS servers:

nslookup discussion.evernote.com ns1.ipslink.com
Server: UnKnown
Address: 50.28.27.220

Name: discussion.evernote.com
Address: 50.28.75.134

nslookup discussion.evernote.com ns2.ipslink.com
(root) nameserver = e.root-servers.net
(root) nameserver = f.root-servers.net
(root) nameserver = g.root-servers.net
(root) nameserver = h.root-servers.net
(root) nameserver = i.root-servers.net
(root) nameserver = j.root-servers.net
(root) nameserver = k.root-servers.net
(root) nameserver = l.root-servers.net
(root) nameserver = m.root-servers.net
(root) nameserver = a.root-servers.net
(root) nameserver = b.root-servers.net
(root) nameserver = c.root-servers.net
(root) nameserver = d.root-servers.net
a.root-servers.net internet address = 198.41.0.4
a.root-servers.net AAAA IPv6 address = 2001:503:ba3e::2:30
b.root-servers.net internet address = 192.228.79.201
c.root-servers.net internet address = 192.33.4.12
d.root-servers.net internet address = 128.8.10.90
d.root-servers.net AAAA IPv6 address = 2001:500:2d:
e.root-servers.net internet address = 192.203.230.10
f.root-servers.net internet address = 192.5.5.241
f.root-servers.net AAAA IPv6 address = 2001:500:2f::f
g.root-servers.net internet address = 192.112.36.4
h.root-servers.net internet address = 128.63.2.53
h.root-servers.net AAAA IPv6 address = 2001:500:1::803f:235
i.root-servers.net internet address = 192.36.148.17
Server: UnKnown
Address: 74.86.162.30

Name: discussion.evernote.com
Served by:
- d.gtld-servers.net

com
- e.gtld-servers.net

com
- f.gtld-servers.net

com
- g.gtld-servers.net

com
- h.gtld-servers.net

com
- i.gtld-servers.net

com
- j.gtld-servers.net

com
- k.gtld-servers.net

com
- l.gtld-servers.net

com
- m.gtld-servers.net

com

[GrumpyMonkey]

wow. that is a lot of detail jm, and a little over my head. too bad it is a weekend and evernote staff are out of the office. hopefully, some engineers or tech support staff have caught wind of your problem.

[JMichael]

Until this is fixed, here is a work-around.
Normally the DNS Servers are provided automatically by your ISP.
Change the DNS Servers on your Network/Internet Connection (TCPIP properties).
You can use any reliable DNS Server, but these have been suggested by others:

8.8.4.4 (Google)
4.2.2.1 (Verizon)
208.67.220.220 (OpenDNS)

[Metrodon]

I think you should always try and avoid using your ISP's DNS, it's amazing how often they can frack things up. I've found OpenDNS and Google to be far more reliable.

[jbenson2]

I was down most of last night as well.
All other websites worked fine. The problem was only with this forum.
I'm on Charter Communications

[mdalves]

Down for me too, for many hours. It's ok now.

[Metrodon]

Also down for me for a while today.....

[peterfmartin]

It was down for me too from late Friday to midday today. I emailed Geoff this morning, and he said it was down for him too. He may come around here to explain what happened. I think it's back for everyone now.

EDIT: I don't use Comcast, since, like mdalves and Metrodon, I live outside the U.S. Clearly the problem was bigger than Comcast.

EDIT 2: At the risk of blowing up Geoff's inbox, I'll mention that I guessed his email address and the clever among you can do the same if you need to contact him in the future because you can't access the forums.

[JMichael]

EDIT: I don't use Comcast, since, like mdalves and Metrodon, I live outside the U.S. Clearly the problem was bigger than Comcast.

That is correct. The primary, source problem lies with one of the Evernote DNS Servers. This server was not returning an IP address for the host server discussion.evernote.com. Thus, it appeared to the Browser that the server did not exist.

[deverill]

FWIW, it was down today when I tried earlier and I use AT&T and OpenDNS... just in case it helps but it sounds like JM has given them everything they need to set it right.

[gbarry]

Yeah I was working on this as of yesterday morning. There was an issue with the DNS on our host's servers, and resetting some specific options finally did the trick a little earlier today. Sorry for the interruption. It wasn't ISP related, that's for sure. I'm on FIOS and was impacted. Will put up a note.

It was very much a YMMV issue too, as there was intermittent user activity across the weekend. Tough to nail down the issue initially (and the weekend didn't help either). Cheers.

[JMichael]

Thanks for getting this fixed over the weekend.
Much appreciated.

Hopefully there won't be a next time.

[jbenson2]

Got a couple views of the forum this morning and then was not able to connect to the forum for about 15 minutes.
In the place of the forum was this Evernote message:

There appears to be an error with the database.

If you are seeing this page, it means there was a problem communicating with our database. Sometimes this error is temporary and will go away when you refresh the page. Sometimes the error will need to be fixed by an administrator before the site will become accessible again.

You can try to refresh the page by clicking here.

Return to the index

.

[GrumpyMonkey]

Me too. It looks like the forum is back up now, though.

[gbarry]

Yeah, we had another intermittent issue this morning that was taken care of pretty quickly and unrelated to the weekend outages. I'm checking into things, but our hosts are doing some additional maintenance in the new server environment we moved to about a month back, so it's likely why the forum's been so rocky the past few days. I'm being told things will smooth out.

[Mara]

Until this is fixed, here is a work-around.
Normally the DNS Servers are provided automatically by your ISP.
Change the DNS Servers on your Network/Internet Connection (TCPIP properties).
You can use any reliable DNS Server, but these have been suggested by others:

8.8.4.4 (Google)
4.2.2.1 (Verizon)
208.67.220.220 (OpenDNS)

I love Google DNS. IME, even better than OpenDNS.

[Mara]

Got a couple views of the forum this morning and then was not able to connect to the forum for about 15 minutes.
In the place of the forum was this Evernote message:

There appears to be an error with the database.
.

Oh no.....Evernote sold out to Facebook!
j/k