Inconsistent site access. Please help.

[Actoco]

Hi all. Hoping someone can help me out. Our site was running smoothly up until a month ago. I suspect its a DNS issue.

 

The site is www.mctimoney-college.ac.uk. 

 

• Myself and others can access the site at the office though not at home.
• Others can access the site at home, though not at the office.
• Myself and others can access the site through mobile networks, others can't.
• My friend can access the site at home though not at work.
• Another friend can access the site at a coffee shop though not at work.

 

These are the 2 errors I've seen:

 

• Connection error: ‘Connection is not secure. Cannot Complete Request. Additional information about this problem or error is currently unavailable. [Try Again]’
• 'DNS error' - just says exactly that in red at the top left of the screen.

 

Our web hosting company cant replicate the issue. They've tracked no downtime on our site. They think migrating the site from a shared to dedicated server will help.

Edit* - When I'm on a system that can't access the site. If I enable a VPN, i can then access the site.

Edited July 3, 2023 by Actoco

[manikyath]

20 minutes ago, Actoco said:

 

Our web hosting company cant replicate the issue. They've tracked no downtime on our site. They think migrating the site from a shared to dedicated server will help.

incredibly convenient of them.. "we cant find the issue, but i'm sure that if you pay more it'll go away"

 

on a sidenote, it appears the DNS entry was last changed 2 weeks ago, potentially something is either not set up right, or hasnt propagated correctly.

 

also - if your partner of choice "is unable to" reproduce the issue, just flood them with examples. ask everyone who's reported it internally to keep their own log of when they tried to access it, where they tried to access from ("where" being work/home, and if from home which ISP) and if it did or did not work, then toss that pile of information on their support desk. if that's not enough, repeat the same process and tell them that no fix means no customer.

[Aaron_T]

16 minutes ago, Actoco said:

They think migrating the site from a shared to dedicated server will help.

They are trying to get more money from you. If shared hosting servers behaved this badly as a default they wouldn't exist.

It sounds like a DNS record propagation error to me, which could be from a bad config or a hosting issue or just a time delay, but hard to tell without having direct access to the hosting myself.

I would do the following. From a working device, look up what DNS resolver IP you're using, write it down, then from a non-working device that gives the "DNS error" message, also record the DNS resolver IP being used. Now swap those DNS resolver IP's on the working and non working devices to determine if the DNS resolver records are to blame. If you discover some DNSs work and others don't, then your options are:

1. Wait a few days and see if it resolves itself through DNS propagation
2. If it doesn't, then inform your host that some DNSs have incorrect records and see if they can force and update
3. If they can't or don't know how, then change something yourself, like change the host IP (A record), or add a subdomain and a CNAME record. This is an attempt at making a change and forcing a propagation update yourself.
4. Also, triple check spelling, IPs and general correctness for all your DNS records.

 The "connection is not secure" error some are seeing is, I suspect, a symptom of the DNS issue. But something you can do just in case, is make sure that if you are using "https" for your site, you have a current (not expired) certificate from a trusted issuer.

[FI Fheonix]

1 hour ago, Actoco said:

Hi all. Hoping someone can help me out. Our site was running smoothly up until a month ago. I suspect its a DNS issue.

 

The site is www.mctimoney-college.ac.uk. 

 

• Myself and others can access the site at the office though not at home.
• Others can access the site at home, though not at the office.
• Myself and others can access the site through mobile networks, others can't.
• My friend can access the site at home though not at work.
• Another friend can access the site at a coffee shop though not at work.

 

These are the 2 errors I've seen:

 

• Connection error: ‘Connection is not secure. Cannot Complete Request. Additional information about this problem or error is currently unavailable. [Try Again]’
• 'DNS error' - just says exactly that in red at the top left of the screen.

 

Our web hosting company cant replicate the issue. They've tracked no downtime on our site. They think migrating the site from a shared to dedicated server will help.

The DNS error message could be caused by a number of things like misconfiguration of the DNS settings, an outdated browser, temporary server outage that could render the DNS unavailable. Regarding the "Connection is not secure" error message could be caused by a firewall that blocks sites that aren't secured with SSL. 

[BiotechBen]

Was able to click and access site earlier today, now it appears it is down. Only difference was wifi vs mobile data. I agree with the others and suspect it's a host side issue. 

Current error says: 

 

This site can’t be reachedwww.mctimoney-college.ac.uk unexpectedly closed the connection.

Try:

 

Checking the connection

ERR_CONNECTION_CLOSED