DNS misdirect or adware?

[bowstock]

I have a site hosted by Fasthosts and when I navigated to it with Firefox today I got sent to http://searchportal.information.com and some sort of ad rubbish.
I am scanning with adaware now and the site files seem ok when checked via FTP. Anyone else had this?

[leehack]

Ok for me, probably something on your PC.

[CymraegKev]

Sounds like a hijack of your DNS cache.

Try ipconfig /flushdns to flush out the cache and try again. Whats the actual domain name that you are having the problem with?

Also - try from a machine external to your network to eliminate issues on the actual hosting server (and isolate it to your local pc/network).

Kevin

[bowstock]

The domain is http://www.bloggsgarage.biz

and it should show a normal front page.

CWShredder & Adaware drew a blank, I can't check from outside the server at the moment so I'd be grateful if you would.....

I did a flush of the dns cache but this didn't help.

[Darren B]

steve i cant see anything at the http://www.bloggsgarage.biz

not found

D

[TraceyHand]

it's not opening at all here in FF or IE7.

[leehack]

Try keeping up on the payments for your domain registration, all will be solved then, you get nothing for free in life, apart from this advice. Remember that key saying at Christmas:

"A domain is for 2 years, not for life"

Once you have got your coppers out, you will need to refresh the website to get the home page back.

[CymraegKev]

According to: http://whois.domaintools.com/bloggsgarage.biz the domain expired last week!!!!

I get a standard page not found (which makes sense), so it looks like your PC has had its DNS cache hijacked somehow.

A good way to check this is to try browsing to a domain that doesn't exist (I just tried one www.nsc-global.com - I know it doesn't exist and I've just plucked that one out of thin air) - do you get the hijacked search page again for that? I suspect it's not your domain that is the issue, rather something on your PC....!

[bowstock]

The first thing I did was run a WHOIS check and I didn't even spot the expiry.

Give me the pistol - I know what to do.
Thanks guys,

[CymraegKev]

Your domain asside, you may still want to check out this link - which talks about issues with that specific search page hijacking technique.

[jont]

ipconfig /flushdns

I use that in a .bat file to launch at startup as have issues not being able to see sites with some hosts.

[Darren B]

I use that in a .bat file to launch at startup as have issues not being able to see sites with some hosts.

Tracey has this problem with a particular host but only from her office location, never have quite understood what causes these issues

D

[bowstock]

Well, I coughed up the dosh and renewed my domain registration and 10 mins later all was well. However, the browser here at my day job was the only one that showed the search portal rubbish so I guess the browser is somehow tampered with. All other browsers showed 'Not available' error page.
A search of the forums shows this to be quite a common problem.

[TraceyHand]

Tracey has this problem with a particular host but only from her office location, never have quite understood what causes these issues

D

and only one particular server with that host too (typically, the one my own sites are on )
I can view other sites hosted on different servers with them...very weird. I've given up trying to analyse it now (it's been going on for 3-4 months now) and just make a point of not using/working on those sites when I'm at the office (It prevents me from doing design work at the office when I should be doing BB stuff anyway so it's probably a good thing!)

[CymraegKev]

and only one particular server with that host too (typically, the one my own sites are on )
I can view other sites hosted on different servers with them...very weird. I've given up trying to analyse it now (it's been going on for 3-4 months now) and just make a point of not using/working on those sites when I'm at the office (It prevents me from doing design work at the office when I should be doing BB stuff anyway so it's probably a good thing!)

I had a similar issue with one of my clients viewing all the sites on my server. Everybody else had no problem at all, my server was fine - I checked the DNS both on the server and on his machine (when he brought his laptop to me it worked!).

I was baffled. Eventually, I did a tracert and there seemed to be something a bit odd with the routing from his machine. I went across the road to Starbucks, connected to their wireless network and had exactly the same issue.

We eventually solved it by speaking to the local internet provider (in this case BT), and they investigated and it was actually a problem on one of their local routers (specifically to the Chelsea area). They said that the IP block that my server fell into had been cached and corrupted on their local routers. They did some ISP Jiggery Pokery and all was well.

It was very odd as it was a geographical issue and so I figured it must be something to do with the provider or local infrastructure.

Kevin