topic Re: Internet Archive getting blocked by plusnet. in Everything else

Internet Archive getting blocked by plusnet.

scopecreep — Thu, 23 Oct 2025 21:22:28 GMT

Hi,

Is the internet archive getting blocked by plusnet. I use it everyday as part of my job and its been reliable until a few months ago when it was hacked obviously. Then it became unreliable until eventually I couldn't access it. I was able to access it at work no problem but can't at home. Its just seems to timeout, blank screen and then the standard message, check your internet. I decided to try a vpn tonight to see what would happen and set it to an American server and it popped in a New York second, instantaneous. I seems to be blocked at the ISP level, because I've changed DNS, browser, laptop, PC, everything and it doesn't work.

So is plusnet blocking the internet archive at archive.org because it seems to be the only reason?

Bob

Re: Internet Archive getting blocked by plusnet.

quelquod — Thu, 23 Oct 2025 21:45:42 GMT

Working fine for me on PlusNet FTTP.

same results with or without VPN.

Re: Internet Archive getting blocked by plusnet.

Anonymous — Thu, 23 Oct 2025 21:51:27 GMT

I appear to be able to access it. No timeouts, no blank screen, and no standard message of "check your internet". No VPN here.

For the sake of clarity, are you referring to the wayback machine, or some other internet archive. What IP address does the domain resolve to?

the domain i'm accessing is https://web.archive.org/

web.archive.org resolves to 207.241.237.3

(full fibre connection with Plusnet, using Plusnet's DNS servers)

Re: Internet Archive getting blocked by plusnet.

Townman — Thu, 23 Oct 2025 22:20:06 GMT

Are you using Plusnet’s safeguarding services?

Re: Internet Archive getting blocked by plusnet.

dgh — Thu, 23 Oct 2025 22:37:53 GMT

I have SafeGuard turned off, and have the same issue reported in the first post. I also have a full fibre product, and am using the Plusnet DNS servers (getting `207.241.237.3` for `web.archive.org`)

The Internet Archive loaded a couple of times 2 weeks ago, I didn't use my connection last week, and this week it's been almost completely unavailable, taking ages to get a `ERR_CONNECTION_TIMED_OUT`.

IA worked fine through my work's connection, I just want to listen to 20-year-old podcasts at home…

Re: Internet Archive getting blocked by plusnet.

plusnettony — Fri, 24 Oct 2025 07:12:15 GMT

Funnily enough a colleague was telling me he had a customer who had the same issue.

This doesn't appear to be IP related, but a simple reboot of the router resolved it.

Re: Internet Archive getting blocked by plusnet.

dgh — Fri, 24 Oct 2025 11:43:05 GMT

> a simple reboot of the router resolved it

I assume they got a new dynamic IP address? Maybe IA has some overly-restrictive traffic rules and is silently dropping some Plusnet IPs.

I'm not using the Plusnet router, but when I stop and start my PPP connection I can then connect to the Internet Archive. Maybe it's working because I got a new IP?

Re: Internet Archive getting blocked by plusnet.

Townman — Fri, 24 Oct 2025 11:56:47 GMT

Probably.

Such was one potential consideration ... after eliminating parental blocking.

Re: Internet Archive getting blocked by plusnet.

nich7503 — Fri, 24 Oct 2025 19:45:26 GMT

Hi scopecreep, I am having the same issue. I have looked at Plusnet Safeguard, reset the router and no joy. I have taken my computer to another house (and therefore not a PlusNet internet) and it connects. What has changed since last week please? Like scopecreep, I use archive.org regularly and it is stopping me from doing my job.

Thanks,

Re: Internet Archive getting blocked by plusnet.

customer38 — Fri, 24 Oct 2025 20:31:51 GMT

I have the same problem. The Wayback Machine used to work and now it doesn't and I get the same symptoms as has been described. It comes up right away on my phone which isn't connected to Plusnet.
It would be nice if Plusnet could acknowledge that there is a problem and get it fixed.

Re: Internet Archive getting blocked by plusnet.

Townman — Fri, 24 Oct 2025 21:29:24 GMT

Can you find your IP address and share the first three octets.

Tgen power down the router for 90 minutes. Reboot and check the IP address. Hopefully it will be something markedly different … then see if it works.

This has the hallmark of bad geolocation data.

Re: Internet Archive getting blocked by plusnet.

dgh — Fri, 24 Oct 2025 21:39:17 GMT

It’s not to do with geolocation.

I haven’t made any changes and still have the same IP as yesterday, when I disconnected and reconnected. And now my connections to Internet Archive are timing out.

This has all the hallmarks of automatic IP blocking in response to abuse detection, and might be broad blocks to catch a bad actor hopping between dynamically-assigned IPs.

Time to check my egress traffic to check if some host is requesting an IA page in a loop & hitting some requests-per-minute limit.

Re: Internet Archive getting blocked by plusnet.

Anonymous — Fri, 24 Oct 2025 23:45:49 GMT

I'll "share" that. As you have previously alluded to the subnets are allocated.based on location (unless the IP is historically part of the fixed IP range(s) )

31.185.163

That'd be the /24

However it is sometimes a /23

(Within 31.185.162 and 31.185.163, two octets)

Rebooting the wouter doesn't move to allocated address out of the /23.

Re: Internet Archive getting blocked by plusnet.

customer38 — Sat, 25 Oct 2025 07:11:30 GMT

Some additional data for others to compare to:

Right now at 08:02 archive.org is loading. I've seen this before and it hasn't lasted.

grc.com "Shields up" service is reporting my public IP as 212.159.79.xxx

It was the same IP as last night when it wasn't working.

Re: Internet Archive getting blocked by plusnet.

nich7503 — Sat, 25 Oct 2025 08:54:35 GMT

Thanks Townman. I left the router unplugged all night, much more than the 90 minutes suggested! The IP address stayed exactly the same, but this morning I can access and upload to the Internet Archive. One change I did make in the Safeguarding service to specifically allow archive.org as an internet address. Maybe that has worked? I'll need to wait and see how it behaves over the coming days.

Re: Internet Archive getting blocked by plusnet.

customer38 — Sat, 25 Oct 2025 21:56:01 GMT

Drat. It's back to :

"Hmm. We’re having trouble finding that site"

.... This evening.

It isn't as though I'm not reaching there...

Pinging archive.org [207.241.224.2] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 207.241.224.2: bytes=32 time=140ms TTL=46
Reply from 207.241.224.2: bytes=32 time=139ms TTL=46
Reply from 207.241.224.2: bytes=32 time=139ms TTL=46
Reply from 207.241.224.2: bytes=32 time=138ms TTL=46

Ping statistics for 207.241.224.2:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 138ms, Maximum = 140ms, Average = 139ms

Re: Internet Archive getting blocked by plusnet.

Anonymous — Sat, 25 Oct 2025 23:11:17 GMT

That error in your web browser might indicate that you are using Firefox.

If so, what are the settings for DNS resolution? Tools -> Settings -> Privacy and security. Then HTTPS-only mode and DNS over HTTPS

Re: Internet Archive getting blocked by plusnet.

Anonymous — Sat, 25 Oct 2025 23:12:47 GMT

My settings are -

Don’t enable HTTPS-Only Mode

DNS over HTTPS: off

Re: Internet Archive getting blocked by plusnet.

customer38 — Sun, 26 Oct 2025 09:00:58 GMT

Dear Grumble: Thanks for taking an interest.

My setting is Firefox are mostly the same as yours except "Enable DNS over HTTPS using:".
I will try it "off" but for the following reasons I don't think that is the problem.

Archive.org is back available this morning without having to change anything.

When I can't get a response using Firefox, I can't get it using MS Edge either.

I can still resolve the IP when I ping, which suggests DNS is working

I was using Plusnet's DNS but I changed that to 8.8.8.8 to see if that helped, and it didn't

An additional data point, when Plusnet will not bring me archive.org and it "times out", my mobile data provider can on my phone, so I doubt that it is archive.org is generally busy, but I do wonder whether their service provider takes umbrage with incoming plusnet traffic at times?

Re: Internet Archive getting blocked by plusnet.

Champnet — Sun, 26 Oct 2025 09:14:36 GMT

For Info : No problem here. Win 10 & Edge browser. Plusnet connection using Plusnet's DNS settings.

Router is a Netgear D6400

Forgot to add IP address is 212.159.18.nnn