Problems accessing ancestry.co.uk

[#1]

I have had some "annoyances" since last November - slow page loading/time outs - but using Win7 instead of Linux (and transferring downloads) was less slow though not convenient. However, since Ancestry introduced their "new improved" site I can only load the initial page and the browser stalls as soon as an attempt to login is made  Win7 still runs but more slowly.
I have tried a number of things, including mint/opensuse13.2, different browsers, a new (clean) user, even going via a UK or US proxy, but the only change that seems to work is altering the MTU. Reducing the router value to 1476 or reducing the OS value to 576 (opensuse has preset values of 576, 1492 and 1500) gets it working fine and probably the fastest it has ever worked
Ancestry is the only site I use that I have found to be a problem and, using tracepath, the route from Plusnet goes via prolexic.com (a company providing security and DDoS protection equipment/routing, I believe) which sometimes returns a path mtu 1476 in the tracepath response for a MTU of 1492. The first tracepath entry after the plusnet entries is unknown.prolexic.com for 576 and blackhole.prolexic.com (DDoS protection?) for 1492.
I have a static 212.159.x.x ip address.
Any suggestions on finding where the problem lies?
Anyone using linux to access ancestry?
Phil

[#2]

Doesn't work for me either on Linux.
I do use an advert blocker, though.

[#3]

I don't have an account but it appears to work for me on both Mac (Safari) and Arch Linux (FF) . I can land on the site and I can then click on the 'Get Started' button having been prompted and accepted cookies.

[#4]

Thanks for that, both.  As a result of posting on a genealogy forum and getting various suggestions, I have found that:
a) using my router (TP-Link TD1043ND v1) there are problems as described
b) using my mobile as a hot-spot (ignoring the PAYG T&Cs  ) the site work fine
c) connecting directly using PPPoE instead of the router the site works fine
d) restoring saved router settings from before the problems started has no noticeable effect
So, it would appear that the router is the culprit - whether configuration or "generic".
Phil

[#5]

That's sound all wrong to me, I'm not implying anything by it but how can a router 'victimise' a website?
P.S. I too have a static addresses.

[#6]

Working for me on Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/44.0.2403.155 Safari/537.36
Static IP
Non-plusnet router.
non-plusnet DNS.

adw@nofate:~$ tcptraceroute.mt www.ancestry.co.uk 443
Selected device eth0, address 10.0.1.20, port 50433 for outgoing packets
Tracing the path to www.ancestry.co.uk (66.43.22.170) on TCP port 443 (https), 30 hops max
 1  10.0.1.254  0.347 ms  0.296 ms  0.291 ms
 2  lo0.11.central11.ptw-bng01.plus.net (195.166.128.171)  14.273 ms  14.479 ms  14.210 ms
 3  irb.11.PTW-CR02.plus.net (84.93.249.18)  47.669 ms  14.399 ms  14.609 ms
 4  ae2.ptw-cr01.plus.net (195.166.129.4)  14.645 ms  48.017 ms  14.670 ms
 5  blackhole.prolexic.com (195.66.224.31)  16.323 ms  16.199 ms  16.305 ms
 6  unknown.prolexic.com (72.52.60.200)  15.277 ms  15.416 ms  15.862 ms
 7  unknown.prolexic.com (72.52.60.205)  32.639 ms  21.922 ms  18.913 ms
 8  * * *
 9  unknown.prolexic.com (209.200.160.136)  146.347 ms  146.522 ms  146.649 ms
10  66.43.22.170 [open]  151.643 ms  152.044 ms  151.650 ms

A router could victimise a website by caching an out of date DNS entry longer than it's supposed to.

[#7]

mine stopped working but have just gone back to the previous unimproved version 

[#8]

http://www.reviewcentre.com/reviews261156.html doesn't give this site a good rating!

[#9]

Quote from: Mook

That's sound all wrong to me, I'm not implying anything by it but how can a router 'victimise' a website?

I don't understand the mechanism but, from what I've read, it is possible for a variation in packet sizes to "confuse" a badly implemented interface. Whether it is the Ancestry configuration or my router is subject to debate, though not using my router removes the problem.

Quote from: avatastic

A router could victimise a website by caching an out of date DNS entry longer than it's supposed to.

Haven't used the router for DNS from well before it was found vulnerable to hacking - it is provided by a Mint based system using OpenDNS with "moderate" filtering (though I used no filtering during testing). There is no difference using Plusnet DNS.
Phil

[#10]

I think this is a Windows only website???
Although it fails with Firefox, it "works" with wget

Quote

wget www.ancestry.co.uk --2015-08-20 00:58:31--  http://www.ancestry.co.uk/ Resolving www.ancestry.co.uk (www.ancestry.co.uk)... 66.43.22.170 Connecting to www.ancestry.co.uk (www.ancestry.co.uk)|66.43.22.170|:80... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK Length: 25407 (25K) [text/html] Saving to: ‘index.html’ index.html                      100%[============================================================>]  24.81K  --.-KB/s  in 0.006s 2015-08-20 00:58:31 (4.05 MB/s) - ‘index.html’ saved [25407/25407]

[#11]

Quote from: vilefoxdemonofdoom

I think this is a Windows only website???

Essentially, yes - they only claim to support "windows PCs and MACs", though they also use "windows" for "Microsoft windows" I have found a couple of other websites that only seem to work with Internet Explorer but not the MS windows versions of Firefox/Palemoon.
I have no problems accessing "www.ancestry.co.uk", it loads fast. It is when I send my account details to login that I get no response from "secure.ancestry.co.uk".
I have had a response from Ancestry "help", attributing the blame to the browser though I didn't have the latest test results when I contacted them.
This AM I applied a factory reset to the router which, as expected, made no difference.
Something that may be significant (or not!) is that I have now found another site with, possibly the same, problems. My energy supplier likes to have customer readings monthly (they also encourage that by donating a small amount to charity for every reading) but, since they updated their website, it has become slow and whilst it accepts the reading it does not return an acknowledgement, just hangs. So that's two very new websites upgrades with problems. It's beginning to look like a backwards compatibility problem
Phil

[#12]

@peegee
Do you have some ad-blocking or on-line security helper?
I have found that some sites will not load pages with forms due to these.  e.g. ofcom.org, Plusnet's chat window.
Try Firefox in safe mode (this can be found on the menu) and see if the issue goes away. If so, the you will need to add the site as an exception to the ad-block or security add-on.

[#13]

Thanks for the suggestion, @georgelnx, and those from others too
It appears there is an incompatibility betwixt my router and Ancestry.
I have spent much of today trying different things and found that by replacing the stock firmware with DD-WRT firmware the problem disappeared and just about everything loaded faster The down-side is the router crashed after an hour or so and I had to "factory reset" to get back in, so I've returned it to the previous state
I don't currently have a spare, so will now have to decide whether a router or a VDSL combo (saving a massive £15 per year) will be better - I've been following the various "what should I get" threads At least that will give me IPv6 capability for when it becomes available (assuming the device lasts that long )
Phil

[#14]

Bad form replying to myself, but......
As I have signed up to Plusnet TV and didn't have 2704n (I declined when changing to fibre) I was automatically sent one
Just plugged it in then changed the WR1043ND to use dynamic IP on the wan interface and plugged that into the 2704n. Not ideal, but it does allow me to use 11n300 wireless
Result - Ancestry now works through the WR1043ND
Phil