cannot access netflix.com



MT
07-09-2005, 11:09 PM
Hi,

I have been unable to access www.netflix.com from my laptop at home for
several days but when I use another laptop via wireless connection, I have no
problem.

Representatives from netflix.com and comcast could not solve the problem. I
cleared coockies, temp internet files, scanned for viiruses, changed security
setting for IE but the problem persists. All web sites that I visit including
banks work fine except for this one. Any ideas and help will be greatly
appreciated.

I use Windows XP sp2
IE 6.0
Internet connection: comcast cable
norton internet security

Thanks,
MT

N. Miller
07-09-2005, 11:09 PM
On Sat, 4 Jun 2005 09:45:22 -0700, MT wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I have been unable to access www.netflix.com from my laptop at home for
> several days but when I use another laptop via wireless connection, I have no
> problem.
>
> Representatives from netflix.com and comcast could not solve the problem. I
> cleared coockies, temp internet files, scanned for viiruses, changed security
> setting for IE but the problem persists. All web sites that I visit including
> banks work fine except for this one. Any ideas and help will be greatly
> appreciated.
>
> I use Windows XP sp2
> IE 6.0
> Internet connection: comcast cable
> norton internet security
>
> Thanks,
> MT

You might wish to check your NIS configuration. I believe NIS includes a
firewall with outbound packet filtering. That leaves room for inadvertantly
blocking remote sites from access.

--
Norman
~Win dain a lotica, En vai tu ri, Si lo ta
~Fin dein a loluca, En dragu a sei lain
~Vi fa-ru les shutai am, En riga-lint

Don Varnau
07-09-2005, 11:09 PM
Hi,
Check for a HOSTS file. To check the HOSTS file in Windows XP...
Make sure that Windows is showing hidden files and is
not hiding file extensions for known file types then check for a HOSTS file
at [C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\etc] Open the HOSTS file with notepad. If
there are entries you wish to disable, you can put the pound sign (#) in
front an entry to disable it. Then File> Save. Or you can rename the HOSTS
file to HOSTS.OLD to disable it.
More on the HOSTS file at http://mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm and
http://www.accs-net.com/hosts/

Have you, at some point, shut everything (including the cable modem) down
for a few minutes? This sometimes helps.

Many of the steps in this article are worth a try:
870700 - How to troubleshoot problems accessing secure Web pages with IE 6
[XP] SP2: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;870700

Other possibilities at http://inetexplorer.mvps.org/answers/16.html

Hope this helps,
Don
[MS MVP- IE/OE]

"MT wrote in message
news:640CB903-65D4-472D-A9B9-DB52AF7A540D@microsoft.com...
> Hi,
>
> I have been unable to access www.netflix.com from my laptop at home for
> several days but when I use another laptop via wireless connection, I have
no
> problem.
>
> Representatives from netflix.com and comcast could not solve the problem.
I
> cleared coockies, temp internet files, scanned for viiruses, changed
security
> setting for IE but the problem persists. All web sites that I visit
including
> banks work fine except for this one. Any ideas and help will be greatly
> appreciated.
>
> I use Windows XP sp2
> IE 6.0
> Internet connection: comcast cable
> norton internet security
>
> Thanks,
> MT

MT
07-09-2005, 11:09 PM
Thanks for the suggestion. The config of NIT is set not to block access to
any site.

MT

"N. Miller" wrote:

> On Sat, 4 Jun 2005 09:45:22 -0700, MT wrote:
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > I have been unable to access www.netflix.com from my laptop at home for
> > several days but when I use another laptop via wireless connection, I have no
> > problem.
> >
> > Representatives from netflix.com and comcast could not solve the problem. I
> > cleared coockies, temp internet files, scanned for viiruses, changed security
> > setting for IE but the problem persists. All web sites that I visit including
> > banks work fine except for this one. Any ideas and help will be greatly
> > appreciated.
> >
> > I use Windows XP sp2
> > IE 6.0
> > Internet connection: comcast cable
> > norton internet security
> >
> > Thanks,
> > MT
>
> You might wish to check your NIS configuration. I believe NIS includes a
> firewall with outbound packet filtering. That leaves room for inadvertantly
> blocking remote sites from access.
>
> --
> Norman
> ~Win dain a lotica, En vai tu ri, Si lo ta
> ~Fin dein a loluca, En dragu a sei lain
> ~Vi fa-ru les shutai am, En riga-lint
>

MT
07-09-2005, 11:09 PM
Thanks for the tips Don. I renamed the hosts file to hosts.old but this
didn't solve the problem. I tried other alternatives by changing all possible
setting for IE with no success. I even tried netscape with the same results,
access to all sites I tried but this one.

I'll do more search on the the links you gave me.

Thanks,

MT

"Don Varnau" wrote:

> Hi,
> Check for a HOSTS file. To check the HOSTS file in Windows XP...
> Make sure that Windows is showing hidden files and is
> not hiding file extensions for known file types then check for a HOSTS file
> at [C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\etc] Open the HOSTS file with notepad. If
> there are entries you wish to disable, you can put the pound sign (#) in
> front an entry to disable it. Then File> Save. Or you can rename the HOSTS
> file to HOSTS.OLD to disable it.
> More on the HOSTS file at http://mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm and
> http://www.accs-net.com/hosts/
>
> Have you, at some point, shut everything (including the cable modem) down
> for a few minutes? This sometimes helps.
>
> Many of the steps in this article are worth a try:
> 870700 - How to troubleshoot problems accessing secure Web pages with IE 6
> [XP] SP2: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;870700
>
> Other possibilities at http://inetexplorer.mvps.org/answers/16.html
>
> Hope this helps,
> Don
> [MS MVP- IE/OE]
>
> "MT wrote in message
> news:640CB903-65D4-472D-A9B9-DB52AF7A540D@microsoft.com...
> > Hi,
> >
> > I have been unable to access www.netflix.com from my laptop at home for
> > several days but when I use another laptop via wireless connection, I have
> no
> > problem.
> >
> > Representatives from netflix.com and comcast could not solve the problem.
> I
> > cleared coockies, temp internet files, scanned for viiruses, changed
> security
> > setting for IE but the problem persists. All web sites that I visit
> including
> > banks work fine except for this one. Any ideas and help will be greatly
> > appreciated.
> >
> > I use Windows XP sp2
> > IE 6.0
> > Internet connection: comcast cable
> > norton internet security
> >
> > Thanks,
> > MT
>
>

Robert Aldwinckle
07-09-2005, 11:09 PM
"MT" <MT@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:B85D18F7-3D9E-43C4-B2A0-2AF92684F5D8@microsoft.com
....
>> > I have been unable to access www.netflix.com from my laptop at home for
>> > several days but when I use another laptop via wireless connection, I have no
>> > problem.

> "N. Miller" wrote:
>> You might wish to check your NIS configuration. I believe NIS includes a
>> firewall with outbound packet filtering. That leaves room for inadvertantly
>> blocking remote sites from access.


> Thanks for the suggestion. The config of NIT is set not to block access to
> any site.


Perhaps you should be looking in a forum which supports that product for help then?
Does it have any diagnostics? E.g. to show you what requests are being forwarded
and what is happening to them? Could you do something stronger with it, e.g. rather
than just not block access to this site you could check if it would allow you to give some
kind of preference for it?

BTW a packet trace of a request which starts with just http://netflix.com/
shows that after multiple redirects it ends up here: http://www.netflix.com/Default
Further it shows that allowing Cookies on both sites is probably critical to being
able to use them successfully. That would be another thing you could have your
firewall doing which we wouldn't know about: blocking Cookies.

Also, you could check if the symptom is common to all accesses for that site or only occurs
when you try to use IE. E.g. telnet 80 to either, requesting just GET /
(that's GET<space><slash><Enter>) was sufficient for me to see the first redirect response.
A successful test using a different browser would provide equivalent information.
In any case a different browser may give you better diagnostics and help you understand
your problem symptom better.


Good luck

Robert Aldwinckle
---


cannot access netflix.com