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Unable to access A Specific Website

scrookes
Aspiring Pro
Posts: 188
Thanks: 45
Fixes: 4
Registered: ‎29-04-2013

Re: Unable to access A Specific Website

Thanks for confirming it is resolved.

kjpetrie
Aspiring Pro
Posts: 214
Thanks: 31
Fixes: 5
Registered: ‎19-12-2010

Re: Unable to access A Specific Website

Changing the IP mask would be what fixed the problem. As the person who suggested that spotted, your computer was routing that address internally to itself, and also telling your router it was the default destination for that address, so all your devices were trying to find the website on your PC!

The pings weren't even reaching your router because your PC was trying to find the IP on itself, and couldn't.

Alex
Community Veteran
Posts: 5,500
Thanks: 921
Fixes: 13
Registered: ‎05-04-2007

Re: Unable to access A Specific Website

Interesting. Now I could be wrong, as I am not a network expert, but from I understand is.

The subnet mask determines whether the network traffic is local or not (i.e. within your one). If it isn't then the traffic is routed to the default gateway (typically a router IP), to be sent externally.

Usually this will be the internet, but I was advised by a sysadmin that you can have multiple subnets within a network but you have to set up routing manually via the default gateways which I was told is a pain. 

Someone can correct me as I am probably wrong Tongue

kjpetrie
Aspiring Pro
Posts: 214
Thanks: 31
Fixes: 5
Registered: ‎19-12-2010

Re: Unable to access A Specific Website

No, I think you're probably more accurate than I was. But if the PC thinks an address is on the LAN it will presumably need to tell the router that or the router will not know to look for it there, and if the router thinks it's on the LAN it's going to look for it there for all devices that ask for it.

The problem here was that the netmask set included the address of the external website, so that was being looked for on the LAN when, of course, it was on the WAN. The tracert showed the gateway wasn't being consulted (neither the router's nor the external IP was involved in the hops) which could only mean the computer expected to find that address locally and when it wasn't there gave up and declared it unreachable.