What's going on with Jointed Rail website?

Still makes no sense to us. Ive been on our site the entire time during when you both posted here that its timing out. No issues on this end. We'll reach out to our host again, theres got to be something up somewhere

When you advertised the sale first time this morning the site timed out when I tried to visit Jointedrail but has come good since then, I know that doesn't help but yeah all good here again now.
Mick.

Was working for be before, but when I tried tonight, no luck. Could not get main page or payware page. I got the freeware page, but nothing there worked. Could not login or click on any downloads.

Still timing out this morning. The home page loaded but that was it.

jointedrail said:

Still makes no sense to us. Ive been on our site the entire time during when you both posted here that its timing out. No issues on this end. We'll reach out to our host again, theres got to be something up somewhere

Click to expand...

I'd say something is definitely wrong with your hosting site. Perhaps a switch/router is acting up. What is hard to figure is that the DNS listing service also drops your name the same time the site is unavailable. This would indicate something even worse is going on. When your site times out, a PING command returns "No path to distant end."

Bill

HiBaller... have you tried a different computer on the same internet connection? How about same computer on a different internet connection. I would think that would help the folks trying to resolve this issue if it's local computer related, or ISP related.

Also, if running a windows machine, are you up to date with your patches? Do you have patches that are installed but the computer needs a reboot? We've been experiencing some strange windows functionality... or lack thereof when older computers have not had a reboot after patch installation.

Lastly, is your computer reaching the internet through wi-fi or a wired connection? If wi-fi, and you have the ability to plug your computer directly into an open port on your router, you may want to give that a try. We've also seen unusual network / internet connectivity issues when wi-fi cards start to go bad.

cnwfan said:

HiBaller... have you tried a different computer on the same internet connection? How about same computer on a different internet connection. I would think that would help the folks trying to resolve this issue if it's local computer related, or ISP related.

Also, if running a windows machine, are you up to date with your patches? Do you have patches that are installed but the computer needs a reboot? We've been experiencing some strange windows functionality... or lack thereof when older computers have not had a reboot after patch installation.

Lastly, is your computer reaching the internet through wi-fi or a wired connection? If wi-fi, and you have the ability to plug your computer directly into an open port on your router, you may want to give that a try. We've also seen unusual network / internet connectivity issues when wi-fi cards start to go bad.

Click to expand...

Yes to everything. You have no way of knowing, but I've been working with computers since 1963, a total of 58 years. This was long before the Internet was even born. We used Arpanet, which had its own set of unique problems. When the JR site begins to misbehave, I try several of my computers. Some are laptops (using Wi-Fi), a couple are desktops (Mostly hardwired), and one is a server for my web site (hardwired). One runs Windows 10 using both Wi-Fi and connected by wire to my house LAN. it also passes the test for Windows 11. The rest run Ubuntu Linux. My choices of browsers include Firefox, Opera, Chrome and, rarely, Edge. In every case, the JR site will act exactly the same way with every computer. My ISP is AT&T uVerse at the highest speed they offer (Fibre-optic).

On good days, I can log in, go to any page I desire, and download content. On bad days, nothing connects.

Working for me today. Was able to login and get what I wanted to get.

IP Blocking from DNS at hosting site might be the problem

I have have been experiencing the same troubles as others here in this thread.

There is definitely a problem with accessing jointedrail.com.

Mitigations efforts that I have tried:

1) Change your IP address! This works only partially. Basically if you change your IP address you will be able to access the site. However, multiple attempts using this "new" IP address will result in the long run of not being able to access the site. Often if I wait a day, and try to access the site I will be allowed exactly ONE contact with the site. After that it fails. Unless you change your IP address again.

2) The findings in 1) lead me to believe that your IP address is being blacklisted for some unknown reason. As proof of concept, I tried an online proxy server, with connections points in the US. When I use the proxy server I can access the jointedrail site at will. BUT, be forewarned, there is NO WAY that I am going to use some unknown proxy server as a go between to log into jointedrail! I suggest that you do NOT do this either.

3) It is not clear what DNS service the jointedrail hosting site is using, nor is it clear if they are blacklisting certain IP address ranges, etc. Nor is is clear if jointedrail is using a IP address blocking provider which is erroneously filtering legitimate site access request from its customers. While filtering is understandable given the amount of hacking that is is going on (I have daily SYN Floods from bad actors trying to break into my router here), there should be a mechanism where customers can contact jointedrail to inform them that the filter is affecting them. You can do this by creating a ticket on the jointedrail website, but you need to be able to access the website first, before you can log in. This is of course a rather big problem.

4) Given 3), I decided see if my IP address was blocked somehow, some anti-spam database, etc at this location:

https://whatismyipaddress.com/blacklist-check

When I input my IP address there is one AND only one server, dnsbl.spfbl.net, which has my IP address listed as bad/blocked. Again, since we do not know what service the hosting provider jointedrail is using, but this could be a problem if a similar list is being used. I am NOT a spammer or hacker. But maybe someone in some past had the IP address from my service provider that has been allotted to the MAC of my router and the collateral damage is that on dnsbl.spfbl.net I am listed as a blacklisted. This is a proof of concept.

Last but not least, I would not gauge the severity of this by the complaints noted here. Often, and this includes myself, I post here very infrequently. This does not mean that there are not others like me, who will just give up.

Another proof of concept is access to:
https://forums.auran.com/trainz/sho...-2-s-62ft-Bulkhead-Flatcars-and-Clubcar-items

In the past the images from jointedrail would load..always..today it showed up exactly once..but if I use a proxy server it loads everything as expected.

I will me more than glad to recant this speculation if the problem is resolved with an explanation other than what I have shown here.

dnsbl.spfbl.net is also listing my IP address as bad as well. odd that the blacklist check will not accept IPv6 addresses -- only IPv4

Bill

Tried from a completely different IP address and was only allowed the first initial connection. Everything after that receives a timeout error. It's beyond frustrating at this point.

Thanks for the above, we're still looking into it and just working on things here and there as directed by our provider. While I dont think its any of what they want us to look at, were doing these bits first.

HiBaller said:

Yes to everything. You have no way of knowing, but I've been working with computers since 1963, a total of 58 years. This was long before the Internet was even born. We used Arpanet, which had its own set of unique problems. When the JR site begins to misbehave, I try several of my computers. Some are laptops (using Wi-Fi), a couple are desktops (Mostly hardwired), and one is a server for my web site (hardwired). One runs Windows 10 using both Wi-Fi and connected by wire to my house LAN. it also passes the test for Windows 11. The rest run Ubuntu Linux. My choices of browsers include Firefox, Opera, Chrome and, rarely, Edge. In every case, the JR site will act exactly the same way with every computer. My ISP is AT&T uVerse at the highest speed they offer (Fibre-optic).

On good days, I can log in, go to any page I desire, and download content. On bad days, nothing connects.

Click to expand...

Just trying to help. Your 58 years of IT experience trumps my 25 years in the field, and it sounds like you have things well under control, so I will bow out and let brighter minds take the reigns on this dilemma.

And just in case Jointed Rail is reading this post.... I've never had any issues accessing your website from multiple computers on multiple operating systems both in a LAN and wi-fi arrangement over multiple ISP's in a residential and enterprise environments both with point to point and fiber connections.

HiBaller --

Have you tried accessing the JointedRail site through a VPN? From memory Opera has (or had) a free VPN built-in.

Phil

Hmm. I've checked Opera's menus. Couldn't locate any VPN, which isn't to say it isn't there. My daughter down in Texas uses a VPN regularly. I'll ask if she will try and see what happens.

Bill

I can access the site through a VPN.

@HiBaller. Click Menu left top of Opera browser. Drop down menu..select settings. Bottom of page, click advanced. You will see VPN settings.

Some changes have been made on our hosts side to try and remedy the issues if its even related to their suggested changes. Since we cant even replicate the issue on our end that those of you who cant access the site are having, we're not sure if that will fix the issue or not. We've sent some of the above info to them though as well to look into.

Still dead. I seemed to get logged in, went to the Freeware pages. The third page I tried timed out and after that everything else timed out. I have no idea if I'm still logged in or not. Bad situation for sure.

Bill

Tried it from here in the UK on 2 PCs using Firefox and edge on both, flushed DNS, changed DNS server, Edge just times out resulting in a taking too long to access message, Firefox does nothing other than the loading indicator goes on indefinitely, https://www.isitdownrightnow.com/ says it's fine, I'd guess that's based on pinging it though, checked here and it's pinging fine, no problems with tracert either. tried accessing on the IP, that went to a default webpage thus.