So, the issues affecting access to the site yesterday seem to be fixed (I think). I’m still not sure what happened. I have access to three networks for testing connectivity to the site: my home network (Verizon Avenue DSL), my work network (PaeTec Communications), and my wireless phone network (AT&T 3G). The site stopped working on my home network some time yesterday and wasn’t working again until this morning.
What’s strange is that the site, the whole time, worked just fine from the work network (I logged in through the VPN) and my phone. Most of the rest of the Internet was working from home, so it was something about the unique combination of Verizon Avenue DSL and my web site.
My first inclination was that there was a problem with the Verizon DNS servers routing my connections to the wrong place. But I confirmed that all my connections were hitting the correct IP address. Just to be extra sure, I switched my home network to point to several non-Verizon public DNS servers and had the same problem with each, so I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a DNS problem.
All I can figure is that, for some reason, Dotster (my hosting provider) was actively blocking Verizon Avenue DSL connections, or Verizon Avenue DSL was actively blocking connections to Dotster. I’m not sure why either would do that, and neither tech support office has responded to my inquiries. Weird.
Let me know if you have any idea what might have been going on, or if you had any problem accessing the site (and what ISP you use to connect to the Internet). Thanks!