Blocked Restricted IP Addresses? - Not New Forum S/W Related

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steamship

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Before proceeding with the question, I should state that the question has no relevance to the new forum software introduced this week.

Does the forum have any form of IP blocking in place? I don't use the forum that much, but for the last several months I have been unable to access the forum unless I use a VPN. I'm running Windows 10 and have tried using Chrome, Firefox and MS Edge, all with the same result ... ERR_CONNECTION_TIMED_OUT

I'm not aware of anyone else in the UK suffering from this, and I've been with the same ISP for the past four years. The only change that I've had done to my account is to have a static IP, which was done about a year ago.

I'm not sure about posting my static IP here, but I'm just looking confirmation before I go back to my ISP support again about this issue. I've done a ping to the forum both with and without a VPN.

I've tried inserting an image several times using the 'Insert Image' option, with the URL pointing to the image on my Google Photos, but it returns a message saying 'Something went wrong' and to try again.

Hopefully using the 'Insert Link' option will work: https://photos.app.goo.gl/roystBoFUKk4ZNAP9
 
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Mike@Gendan

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Have you tried using another device (PC, smartphone etc.) on the same internet connection, to discount the possibility of it being something on that specific PC?
 
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Uwe

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We've had one or two people from Singapore with similar issues and went looking for any blocks that we have control over. We didn't find any. Of course it's possible that the company that hosts the forum has some that we can't see or control somewhere in their infrastructure.

@steamship please send an e-mail Support@Ross-Tech.com. include your static IP address and a link to this thread so we can investigate further.

-Uwe-
 
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steamship

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Mike - Never even thought about that, but that's because I hardly ever use anything else to access the internet. I've checked both my diagnostic laptop (Windows 7 with Chrome) and also my Motorola (Android 7) smartphone and both return (eventually) the same error as above.

Uwe - I shall send the email as requested.

Thanks
 
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Dana

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Hi Sean,

Sorry for the delay on our end. We received your static IP via e-mail (back in September) and Santos didn't find an obvious cause on our end ... but due to the new(er) forum he's poking around once more to make sure we didn't miss anything on our end.

If you don't hear back from one of us today please do contact your ISP if you haven't already so they can check things on their end.

Best,
Dana
 
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steamship

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Dana - I finally set aside some time to contact my ISP and I'm glad I did... but not for a good reason. Their waiting time on the phone was a minimum of 45 minutes so I decided to try their online chat instead. I started at 11:15am and finished the session at... 5:20pm! Yes, six hours of trying ridiculous suggestions that had nothing to do with the problem, blaming it on line dropouts that they supposedly tested while I was actually online at the same time, router settings, faulty telephone sockets and who knows what else. The only reasonably sensible thing they did do was to get me to run a traceroute to the forum using my normal connection and then with the VPN connection, which I then forwarded to them. Unfortunately the response at the end was that they couldn't find anything wrong, and their only suggestion was to offer me another static IP. I declined the offer initially as they couldn't offer any guarantee that a new one would work.

There was a comment made by Uwe above which I was wondering if this could be pursued. The comment was "it's possible that the company that hosts the forum has some that we can't see or control somewhere in their infrastructure". Would it be possible to ask this host to check to see if there is a block on my static IP address (which I sent to your support address as requested by Uwe), as that should in theory rule out everything at your end, and if there are no blocks then I can go down the route of getting another static IP and see how that works out. If necessary I can provide both these traceroutes if that would help.
 
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Uwe

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Please e-mail the traceroutes to our Support. Mark 'em to the attention of @Santos who knows how to contact our hosting company and please include a link to this thread.

-Uwe-
 
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