CenturyLink Issues ....
 

I've been having trouble, with CenturyLink, for the past couple weeks not being able to find website. I typically get the message that the website cannot be found. The problem seems to be very intermittent and even though I can't access some sites, others are fine. I'm thinking a problem with the DNS server.

In all fairness, it could be something on my end too, so the reason for my post.

Anyone else having these issues???

Thanks!

Are you having trouble finding all websites, or just the CenturyLink website?

All websites, but very intermittently. For example, I'll try to go to MSNBC and I get the messages. During the time I can't get there, all other website work normally. Then, I finally get to MSNBC and I click a video and get the message. Doesn't seem to be a clear pattern...

We have Century Link and are not having the issue you mention.

I am finding that the download speed is occasionally dropping in the evening.

Last night Netfilx was stalling and my speed was down to around 3Mbps from the usual 10Mbps - now its back up to 10.

I spoke to them this morning and was told its probably a bandwidth problem with more activity on the Internet loop.

I am going to check the issue with another technician.

Same issue here. Sometimes the site come up and sometimes not. Usually take a couple tries. More of an issue on my ipad than the desktop.

In Response to your question, I wrote a blog about this specific problem(hope you don't mind) and how to go about troubleshooting the problem.. The Original article can be found on our website, here: Internet Connectivity Problems.. DIY fix - Central Florida Geek- Computer Repair, Web-Design, Home Theater, iPhone repair, and More!

I included some images on how to do some of the steps on our site.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Internet Connectivity Problems.. DIY fix
Written by: Eddie Boscana Technician at CflGeek.com
Date: 12/19/2012

This problem could be a result of The Speed of your Internet Connection, and/or the reliability of it...

A Little Back Story


Think of our internet connections like interstates.. Each interstate is designed to manage a maximum amount of vehicles. Exceed that amount and you get what we call; Congestion, Traffic Jams, and occasionally accidents. Thankfully, eventually, if given enough time congestion lightens up, and we are on our way again.

However, when it comes to the internet, it works a little differently. Our data connections, are a ONE way street as it appears. There are only two ways that these one way streets can function.. Send, or recieve. In this way, our data connections world more like railways than they do interstates. Computers don't send out streams of information, that would be useless because you would have to wait until the entire stream was sent before anything else could be sent or received. And don't forget, outside of your home, everyone else in the world needs to use the same one way railway as well, which complicates things futher!

So instead, we have designed our data streams to break apart the streams of data that we send and/or recieve and send that data out as small bits of information (AKA packets) and reassemble them on the other end. By doing this we are able to accommodate everyone in the world on one giant network. This works great, because our system are designed to further route and reroute this information to get the data packet their safely! However, even this system has it's limitations. The question is; how big is your railway, and how fast can your train go?

In contrast to the interstate, if unexpected traffic congestion happens with a train, that train usually doesn't make it to the other end, and usually someone ends up dead (hypothetically speaking of course!) The same is true with data. If our connection speed or reliability destabilizes, even for a millisecond, our data can collide and be lost forever. So when our computer attempts to reassemble all the packets, something will be missing.. hence the dreaded 'website cannot be found'.

In Most cases, of your experiencing VERY intermittent connection losses or disruptions, it is likely a problem with either;
A. Your internet Speed(How fast your train can go) and/or
B. Your internet reliability(problem with your hardware and/or your internet service provider(ISP)'s hardware.

The Solution

I always start with the first option, mainly because it's the most likely, and secondly, it's the cheapest/easiest to diagnose and repair. The next time the issue occurs follow these steps, and see if you can't resolve the issue, or at the very lease discover the problem.

The Speed Test

A Speed test can tell you alot about your connection, and can be preformed at ANY TIME! But for the sake of this article, we recommend to run this test any time you are experiencing this problem.

1. Go to Speakeasy Speed Test or a similar website. We recommend this one, because it is tried, tested, and true. And best of all, its FREE!

2. Click on one of the Cities that are listed. I always choose, SEATTLE, WA., not for any particular reason, but I just like Seattle, and it happens to be first on the list! The Test will automatically run. It will show you how much speed your currently getting. There are two numbers to look at. First the Download Speed, and secondly, the Upload Speed.

Download Speed- This is used to RECEIVE INFORMATION. Every-time you visit a website, you must download that site and all it's content, so that you computer can view it. If you are viewing a website or video that is 100 Mb(mega bytes) in size, and your internet speed is 20Mbps(mega bytes per second), than it should take you roughly 5 seconds to download and subsequently view that data, depending on your computers performance.

Upload- This is used to SEND information. It is typical for this number to be much lower than your download speed, because we rarely, if ever Send, nearly as much as receive An exception to this would be the popular program, Skype. If you are web chatting with a friend, assuming that you both are using the same equipment, you both will be sending just as much as you are receiving.

3. Compare the speeds that you are getting to the speeds that you have been sold by your ISP.

Option A: The Speeds are much lower than the speeds that I'm paying for.
If they are significantly lower, there is probably a hardware problem that needs to be addressed, probably by them in their network, somewhere between you and their towers. This could be in the form or an outage, or damaged cable line, or you internet provider may be simply 'throttling'(intentionally lowering) your speeds because of usage.. Regardless of the reason, you should contact your ISP, and tell them that you want the speeds that you are paying for. You will be transfered to tech support and if necessary, they will send a technician out to your home.

Option B: The Speeds are low, but that is what I'm paying for.
If this is the case, you are probably paying for basic cable/internet, or worse; DSL. As time goes on, internet content, will continue to raise speed and bandwidth demands. You will eventually be forced to upgrade, why not now?! For just a few dollars more a month you can often times increase your speed by exponential amounts! If you want to increase your internet speed, all you have to do is contact your ISP, and ask them to upgrade you to the second lowest tier highest speed that they offer. The second lowest tier of any highspeed internet service provider is usually the best bang for your buck and is more than enough bandwidth for what you will need.

If none of this solves your problem, there could be a number of things wrong, including but not limited to malfunctioning router/modem, Switch, or wireless connectivity errors. In most cases you may need a trained professional to come out and help you in person..

Hey... Why not us?!?! CflGeek.com is a great local Technology company that has built it's business around mobile and remote technology help. Give us a call, and let us take the NO out of Technology for you!

Century Link Problems
 

As the saying goes; get in line"... I have been wrestling with my Century Link Internet speed for over a month. I do have a TV posting that you might want to view. I entered into a contract with Century Link PC Services who went completely thru my computer and found nothing. Century finally determined that me not being able to load my home page and E Mail was a problem on their end. For a while when calling tech support you would hear a recording that said "we are experiencing difficulties in the Ocala area and we expect the have the problem resolved shortly. ". The internet speed is somewhat better at this time, several weeks ago it could take hours before the home page would come up, now it is still slow and can take a minute before the home page will be displayed. I certainly don't have high speed internet service.

ha ha.... I might "get in line" at Comcast for Internet. Prices for 20Mb/s is about the same as my 10Mb/s now. RIght now, my home internet is 1/2 the speed of my phone on Verizon and LTE.

So cool I have your business info

thank you

Interesting info about speed but the OP was talking about his browser not finding the site. You, the OP, are not the only person having this issue. Both my wife and I have this issue with numerous web sites using two different laptop computers. Some of the sites are the weather, MSN, CNN, ESPN, Health, TOTV, just to name a few. It usually presents a box with lots of unhelpful words that boil down to "You either typed the URL wrong (from a Favorites list?) or the site doesn't exit, or some other (unspecified) problem exists. It then offers a Try Again button which sometimes works right away or more often doesn't work after several attempts. Sometimes it works only when the Enter key is pressed and you don't try to select Try Again with the mouse pointer. My laptop is set to use Firefox 32 bit as the default browser on Windows-7, 64 bit. Wife likes Internet Explorer as her default browser on Windows Vista, 32-bit. She also has problems when using her iPad with Safari. So it doesn't seem to be directly related to type of browser or computer platform. We live in Santiago Village - that might be a factor I suppose.

Internet speed is important but whether it is fast or slow, seems like the ISP should be able to reliably find the URL requested. Not sure of other ISPs (other than CenturyLink) are having these issues now or not.

Update to what I wrote yesterday:
My Firefox browser became highly unstable this afternoon and changed from a windows style display to a "DOS" looking display. I did the usual scans and found nothing wrong. Then I did a "Boot Scan" with my antivirus program (avast!) which starts a full scan on startup. It found problems with my Java installation. I deleted the problem files, then deleted all the Java applications, and installed a clean version of the most recent Java. Might not be the problem but I might be related. You might explore this info with your system.

Thanks...I'll look at that.

I'm off the reservation for about a week, using WiFi in other locations. So far, I have not had the page loading issue one time, but I've only been gone for a day. If I don't have the issue, when traveling and it returns at home, I'm pretty sure it's a CenturyLink thing.

I'll report back in a week....

I will be quite interested in the results of your off-campus experience. I fixed up my Java files but that "fix" didn't last long. Oh, the Java is still fine but the "Could not find" issue is back with a vengeance.

I also have CenturyLink and have been having problems. Keep getting the message "Microsoft internet cannot display webpage" Then I press the bar to diagnose problem and it finds nothing and eventually I can get it. This is almost everything I do. Early in the morning or late at night I don't have the problem. Wonder if it could be amount of people using their computers.

OK, for those of you have this page loading issue, I believe I can safely say it's strictly a CenturyLink problem. I have been gone from the Villages for several days and have used multiple WiFi networks, including using my iPhone as a WiFi hotspot. During this time away from CenturyLink, I have not had the page loading issue one time.

When I return to the Villages, I will be calling CenturyLink to try and troubleshoot the problem with them. I suspect they are having trouble with their DNS server, which translates the web addresses.

Merry Christmas..... Mike

I use Century Link on my iPad, occasionally have slow download speeds but haven't experienced web pages loading issues.

However, I use the Google Public DNS - 8.8.8.8, 8.8.4.4

This is a good idea! I might try this before calling CenturyLink..

Thanks!

Just an Update . . .
 

I have returned to TV after a little more than a week away. During the time I was gone [from CenturyLink], I did not have the page loading issue one time. I used several different WiFi networks, including using my phone as a WiFi hotspot, while on the road.

So, since I have suspected the DNS Nameserver is the issue, I went looking for a DNS service to replace it. I looked at Google and OpenDNS as potentials. For various reasons, I choose OpenDNS... The have a Premium service that is free, so I signed up for that. The service allows parental controls and provides stats for your internet usage. You are also able to block certain types of sites, if you wish, like social media sites, etc.

When you signup, they have a website that shows how to change your DNS settings, no matter what operating system or browser you might be using. It's about a 2 minute endeavor to switch everything over and it very easy, even for a novice. I recommend you write down your current DNS server address, just in case you have an issue and need to revert back.

VERDICT: So far, I am very impressed with OpenDNS. I have NOT had a single issue with "Webpage not found" and pages are loading faster than ever. I didn't realize how much a bad DNS server could slowdown your internet response time.

If I find OpenDNS becomes an issue or if the "Web Page cannot be Found" returns, I'll repost to this thread.

Mike

I'm having the same problem with Centurylink. I use the Firefox web browser and get the same problems as mentioned above.

Century Link problems
 

As I posted earlier. My Century Link was less han satisfactory. They sent a tech to my home, He immediately determined that my desk top was the culprit. He said; desk tops are ment to be hard wired and when converted to wireless as yours is, you will lose at least half the signal and likely more in the evenings. At his suggestion, I purchased a much higher capacity wireless USB adapter than the one Century Link installed and this seems to have done the trick. Century Link high speed is delivered at 10 mbps and I am now at a 8+ and performing much better. Oh yes, I purchased the Netgear N900 adapter for $35 online, Walmart's cost for this same adapter is $65 plus tax.

Warren... I believe we're talking about two different issues here. I don't have a speed issue, when checking speed with speedtest.net. I have the 10Mb/s service and that's pretty much what I get. So, no complaints with that.

My issue, as well as some other folks on here, has been the instances of getting "Webpage not Found" when trying to access a site. If they have a DNS problem, it slows down the loading of pages, so you would have the effect of a slow internet.

Glad you issue is fixed... Mine seems to be corrected also [with new DNS Nameservers] and only time will tell.

I am off of 466 and can't get anything from Embarq/CenturyLink except the slow. Nothing else available, have checked on availability from several in area. Now CenturyLink is installing fiber in several places (mom just got it in Santo Domingo) and the offer included TV, internet, and internet. I can't wait until something comes our way. Centurylink charges me $59 for internet bundled with my TV (additional cost) due to me dropping my land line. Time to go surfing for cheaper slow internet.

Century Link Issue
 

I also have Century Link and started having trouble accessing TOTV website starting Wed. I finally called Century Link IT support Friday morning and they could not access the website either. I was on hold for almost an hour while they were trying to fix the problem. They finally said they would continue to investigate and come up with a solution rather then keep me on hold. I suspect their DNS server had a problem but am glad it was later fixed on Saturday.

We're having the same problem (lately) and we HAVE ( the upgraded Mb/s) Comcast.
I have a Mac and FMF DOC has a regular PC. My Mac is affected more often than his PC, even when we are online at the same time.
Maybe it's gris-gris.

Yes unfortunately many local residents could not access TOTV due to a Century Link issue. We called them as well and hope all is resolved so everyone can now access the site again.