Google DNS resolves correctly, nslookup succeeds, but no browser success

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Brad E

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Jan 22, 2010, 7:54:50 AM1/22/10

to public-dns-discuss

Hello All-

I have resided in Japan for about 6 months, and have experienced
difficulty accessing certain US websites. Probably 80% of the websites
my family view are fine... its just the last 20% that never load in an
internet browser. We have tried Chrome, Firefox, and IE.

Initially I figured it might be a funky japanese DNS issue, so I've
tried both OpenDNS and Google DNS servers. Switching to these DNS
servers fixed some websites, but has not completely solved the
problem.

Following Google DNS Server's website instructions, I have tested a
few things. An example website that will not load in my browser is
www.washingtonpost.com

I hope someone may have an answer, because I've been battling this for
quite some time!

nslookup results (excerpt):

==========================================================
QUESTIONS:
www.washingtonpost.com, type = A, class = IN
ANSWERS:
-> www.washingtonpost.com
canonical name = www.washingtonpost.com.akadns.net
ttl = 43172 (11 hours 59 mins 32 secs)
-> www.washingtonpost.com.akadns.net
internet address = 12.129.147.65
ttl = 2 (2 secs)

------------
Non-authoritative answer:
------------
Got answer:
HEADER:
opcode = QUERY, id = 3, rcode = NOERROR
header flags: response, want recursion, recursion avail.
questions = 1, answers = 1, authority records = 1,
additional = 0

QUESTIONS:
www.washingtonpost.com, type = AAAA, class = IN
ANSWERS:
-> www.washingtonpost.com
canonical name = www.washingtonpost.com.akadns.net
ttl = 41967 (11 hours 39 mins 27 secs)
AUTHORITY RECORDS:
-> akadns.net
ttl = 13 (13 secs)
primary name server = internal.akadns.net
responsible mail addr = hostmaster.akamai.com
serial = 1264164497
refresh = 90000 (1 day 1 hour)
retry = 90000 (1 day 1 hour)
expire = 90000 (1 day 1 hour)
default TTL = 180 (3 mins)

------------
Name: www.washingtonpost.com.akadns.net
Address: 12.129.147.65
Aliases: www.washingtonpost.com

==========================================================

Paul S. R. Chisholm

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Jan 22, 2010, 10:03:45 AM1/22/10

to public-dn...@googlegroups.com

Sorry to hear about your problems. If switching DNS servers makes
things better, then your problem might be DNS related, but it's hard
to say.

For what its worth, the www.washingtonpost.com home page depends on a
lot of other web servers (whose hostnames also need to be resolved)
for images, CSS (information on how to format the page), and
JavaScript:
- media.washingtonpost.com
- media3.washingtonpost.com
- fls.doubleclick.net
- leadback.advertising.com
- custom.marketwatch.com
and maybe others.

Failure to resolve those names might, or might not, impact whether or
how the page loads; it depends on which page elements depend on those
hosts, and how those elements are used.

I'm sure you don't want to hear this, but your best bet is:
- Go back to using your ISP's DNS servers.
- Contact your ISP and ask them about the general problem of page loading.

If that doesn't help, and you're feeling ambitious, you could run a
network sniffer and look at everything that's happening, or not
happening, with your network connection. I've used Ethereal in the
past, but there are certainly alternatives. For debugging web pages,
you only need to look at ports 53 (DNS), 80 (http), and maybe 443
("https").