I've been facing a strange issue where, about every month and a half, I suddenly can't access certain websites while browsing. For instance, I can ping sites like google.com, youtube.com, and even xkcd.com, but when I try to ping frequently visited sites like discord.com or imgur.com, it doesn't work. Interestingly, I can look up their IP addresses just fine, so it's not a DNS resolution problem. I've tried changing DNS servers, refreshing my connection using commands like ipconfig /release, ipconfig /renew, and ipconfig /flushdns, and I've even restarted my computer, but nothing helps except for waiting a whole day! The only DNS server I can reliably ping is Google's 8.8.8.8; others just won't respond. Anyone have ideas on what might be going wrong?
3 Answers
This might not be an issue on your side. Remember, different websites use different network protocols. Ping operates via the ICMP protocol. If ICMP is disabled for the website you're trying to ping, it just won't respond, even if the site is otherwise up and running. Some websites manage multiple IP addresses, which may have varying settings for ICMP. That's why you might successfully ping some sites but not others. A better tool than ping for checking site accessibility is traceroute, which can give you a fuller picture of connectivity issues.
You could try using 'nslookup' with one of the sites you can't access right now, like discord.com or imgur.com. Just run 'nslookup 8.8.8.8 ' in the command prompt. It might help you determine if it's a DNS issue.
Have you checked which DNS servers you're currently using? Just run 'ipconfig' in your command prompt and look for the Primary and Secondary DNS entries. If you're only able to reach Google's 8.8.8.8, it might be worth testing out a few others to see if they work for you.
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