Windows won't connect to Free republic(Vanity,Help)

self | 03/16/21 | self

[Bob434]

[[I did not say that “he had trouble with all three browsers.”
I said, “These 3 Internet browsers have the problem:]]

Nope- he said he had problems with all three- could connect with some but not log in- this could be, as mentioned an indication of something in common- and narrows down the possibilities- if it was just one browser and not the others- then that could indicate the problem unique to just that browser of course-

anyways- you found the issue- it’s solved- good call on it being the file- -

[Augie]

I manage 1000+ Windows and Linux servers in an enterprise environment. Unplanned downtime is, to put it lightly, frowned upon.

My risk tolerance level is zero. Obviously yours is higher.

[Carriage Hill]

My tolerance is low. I have 2 identical HP Compaq 6000 Microtowers; one is a back-up. The 4 WD external drives have identical data as the HDs.

Kudos to you for being able to manage all those machines.

[linMcHlp]

After looking over several tcpdump results, this morning, it seems that the problem is DNS.

The home (NTT America, Inc.) for the old FreeRepublic.com IP address: 209.157.64.200 , still remembers that IP address refers to both:

freerepublic.com
www.freerepublic.com

And some things on your computer, that mentions those two names in relation to the old IP address: 209.157.64.200

Like a hosts file, some cache file, a bookmark file, a firewall rule, a routing entry.

This morning, I found a clue in one of the tcpdump results, that led me to dig further into my own computer’s hosts file . . . and hidden therein (down among several entries made over the years), I have had an INCORRECT pair of entries:

209.157.64.200 freerepublic.com
209.157.64.200 www.freerepublic.com

Those two entries did not occur to me; I failed to remember that I had added those some years ago. I failed earlier, to search for those possibilities. Major Duh!

And, my apologies for not getting to that discovery, earlier.

BTW, Freeper “rarestia” is correct in regard to TLS - the FreeRepublic.com connection uses TLSv1.2

Microsoft Internet Explorer - how to enable that:
https://help.hotschedules.com/hc/en-us/articles/360020184072-Enabling-TLS-1-2-on-web-browsers

[linMcHlp]

More precisely, the problem is name resolution.

[Bob434]

Thanks for the update. “Host file” is what I was trying to think of for the dns stuff, i couldn’t remember the name of the file. I just don’t deal with this stuff enough to remember. Perhaps you mentioned it before, but it didn’t register at the time. I’m on a tablet right now, not sure where the fi,e is there, but will check my co outer host file when I get home, see if it has those old entries or not too

Thanks for keeping us updated on this. Connection and other computer issues seem to crop up fro. Time to time and family comes to me to try to fix, so this will be good to know to look for in the future

[McGruff]

You shouldn’t need to edit your hosts file. The DNS Server should give you the right IP Address.

[linMcHlp]

I tried to find a hosts file for the Apple handheld devices, but apparently one must hack the device (I forget the name for that hack).

[Bob434]

Yeah tablets like to are it hard to get to files like you can with a computer. My tablet even has programs on it that I can’t get rid of. Samsung won’t allow it evidently. There might be a way, a hack, but oh well, I just disabled them and hopefully they won’t keep reenacting with updates