Power Surge Blocks Access To Server?
May 23, 2008 – 9:48 am | by jaygaulardcom
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Last night around 8PM, I heard the surge protectors/battery backups that we have for the computers beep. It’s the first time I heard that since we have been here. I am pretty used to it because they are rather sensitive. Any power fluctuation causes them to beep. It is comforting.
I didn’t think anything of it. Then, a little while later, I tried to access some websites that I have on one of my servers. I couldn’t get on. I tried again a little while later and still couldn’t get on. I asked Laura if she was able to get to the sites and she said no. She told me that she was working on one of them when she couldn’t get to it anymore. I figured the hosting company’s monitoring “red light” would’ve gone off by now and the server would be brought back on line by them. Nothing. I decided to submit a support ticket.
The hosting company responded to the support ticket informing me that they could access the server and all the sites just fine. I then called my sister down in Chapel Hill, NC to see if she could log on to the sites. She could access them just fine too. The strange thing is that I was able to see all the websites on my other server like nothing was wrong.
I responded to the hosting company ticket and let them know that I could not access the servers from only my location, but it seems like the rest of the world was looking at the sites without issue. I felt so left out. They asked me for my IP address so they could check the firewall. That was fine. Then, they asked me to do a traceroute to the server. I did that and the connection timed out at the server. Then, they did a traceroute from the server back to me, and the connection was timing out at my location.
This was all getting kind of odd. They asked that I power cycle the modem. I did and the problem was solved. I was able to access the server again.
What I find puzzling is that I was only blocked from one server in the world…mine. How did this happen. After thinking for a while, I remember right at the moment of the power hiccup, the issue began. Could being on a website at the time of a power surge (or failure) make your modem block you from the website (server) you were looking at?
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Tags: access server, access servers, backup, backups, battery backups, chapel hill nc, computer, Computers, firewall, fluctuation, hosting company, ip address, modem, power, power cycle, server, servers, support ticket, surge protectors, traceroute, website, Websites
8 Responses to “Power Surge Blocks Access To Server?”
By Paul on May 23, 2008 | Reply
Was your cable TV working during all this?
By jaygaulardcom on May 23, 2008 | Reply
Everything was working except for accessing that one server. It’s like the IP was blocked by the modem somehow.
By Hannigan on May 23, 2008 | Reply
Don’t you like how Jay posts these topics? He posts for answers and I always get wonderful responses when I email him….
My guess is that your routing table got corrupted while you were in transmission when the power went out. You needed to reset it to get the routing table back from your ISP’s gateway router to go back to communicating. You need to place a battery backup on your modems and router. Funny things happen to routers and modems when they lose even just a bit of power.
Most likely only your host noticed you were unavailable since they were in transmission with you because Laura was working on them. Once you reset it, you got the routing table and your route was republished as available within the time line of the protocol, which some of them could take a few minutes to make it all the way through the series of backbone routers.
Once again, without really doing the troubleshooting myself this is my best guess.
By jaygaulardcom on May 23, 2008 | Reply
Why thank you Joe. As always, I appreciate your help.
By Hannigan on May 23, 2008 | Reply
Pretty soon you can get these answers on NetworkAdmin.info……
Mind if I post this on there as a question and then my answer?
By jaygaulardcom on May 23, 2008 | Reply
You may if you add a link back to my original post.
By Hannigan on May 29, 2008 | Reply
WOW, another koinky-dink with your blog and myself, this just happened to me.
I was on my sites posting etc and then all of a sudden they wouldn’t load. Everything else worked but my sites. I was about to flip out on my host and then I remember this post. So I logged on a server at work and tested and all was fine. Rebooted my Linksys router and poof all is well again. I am REALLY starting to hate Linksys products, they have lots of wierd issues lately. Stick with D-Link or something more expensive like SonicWALL, Netgear has a horrible interface.
By jaygaulardcom on May 29, 2008 | Reply
My other router is a D-Link. I am not so fond of them, so I switched to Linksys.
Also, in my case, it was the modem that needed to be restarted.