Don’t Block the Blog

Speaking up Against Internet Censorship, the world over

June 1, 2008

Blogspot inaccessible from Pakistan

Late last night there were reports that blogspot.com was being confronted with a network error when trying to attempt access to any sub-domain on that particular site. First instinct was the new DST time change which came into effect midnight yesterday and could have been the contributing factor to perpetuating this error, but a number of users reports that they saw similar problems even earlier at around 3pm on Saturday afternoon 31st May 2008.

Accessing any sub domain on blogspot give the following error [orthodontist.blogspot.com]

Network Error (dns_server_failure)

Your request could not be processed because an error occurred contacting the DNS server.
The DNS server may be temporarily unavailable, or there could be a network problem.

For assistance, contact your network support team.

Screen Capture:

Which is little different then accessing which produces a TCP error

Network Error (tcp_error)

A communication error occurred: “No route to host”
The Web Server may be down, too busy, or experiencing other problems preventing it from responding to requests. You may wish to try again at a later time.

For assistance, contact your network support team.

Screen Capture:

On a personal note I can access blogspot without any problems on my Mobilink Blackberry browser but am unable to do it on MaxCom (KHI) while reports also have come in with similar issues on WorldCall & PTCL (LHR).

Additionally Tee Eee has also stumbled across a worrisome outage on PKNIC.NET.PK which should also raise some alarm bells as it is Pakistan’s only registrar

Traceroutes to all sites produce the same results as follows with not problems in en route


traceroute to orthodontist.blogspot.com (72.14.207.191), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets
1 192.168.0.200 (192.168.0.200) 50.743 ms 51.646 ms 53.614 ms
2 10.0.0.138 (10.0.0.138) 56.596 ms 58.578 ms 59.560 ms
3 129.108.181.58.dynamic.max.com.pk (58.181.108.129) 97.557 ms 98.533 ms 100.510 ms
4 192.168.1.41 (192.168.1.41) 105.499 ms 107.481 ms 111.479 ms
5 192.168.10.14 (192.168.10.14) 117.461 ms 121.455 ms 125.434 ms
6 192.168.3.5 (192.168.3.5) 126.415 ms 40.854 ms 46.356 ms
7 khi77.pie.net.pk (202.125.137.49) 47.283 ms 49.256 ms 53.236 ms
8 khi77.pie.net.pk (202.125.128.141) 56.222 ms 60.205 ms 63.189 ms
9 rwp44.pie.net.pk (221.120.250.246) 66.159 ms 70.142 ms 73.144 ms
10 t2a1-p2-0.uk-glo.eu.bt.net (166.49.170.17) 217.180 ms 220.154 ms 222.140 ms
11 t2c1-prc1.uk-glo.eu.bt.net (166.49.135.139) 227.134 ms 230.110 ms 233.024 ms
12 t2c2-p4-0.uk-lon1.eu.bt.net (166.49.208.146) 191.952 ms 223.928 ms 182.897 ms
13 t2a5-ge2-1.uk-lon1.eu.bt.net (166.49.135.115) 186.828 ms 188.801 ms 191.777 ms
14 gi5-1.cr2.th.hotchilli.net (166.49.214.134) 242.779 ms 241.760 ms 240.750 ms
15 209.85.255.175 (209.85.255.175) 214.714 ms 192.876 ms 209.85.252.76 (209.85.252.76) 188.818 ms
16 64.233.175.213 (64.233.175.213) 265.817 ms 284.795 ms 66.249.95.146 (66.249.95.146) 268.774 ms
17 72.14.236.219 (72.14.236.219) 291.772 ms 72.14.233.113 (72.14.233.113) 290.103 ms 216.239.46.25 (216.239.46.25) 294.014 ms
18 72.14.236.183 (72.14.236.183) 306.999 ms 309.980 ms 66.249.94.90 (66.249.94.90) 312.963 ms
19 72.14.236.130 (72.14.236.130) 304.931 ms 319.920 ms 66.249.94.50 (66.249.94.50) 318.899 ms
20 eh-in-f191.google.com (72.14.207.191) 313.879 ms 315.865 ms 273.492 ms

6 Comment(s)

  1. Fluoride | Jun 1, 2008 | Reply

    Problems are with other sites as well. Maybe something to do with daylight savings time.

  2. Fluoride | Jun 1, 2008 | Reply

    Working fine through a proxy.

  3. | Jun 2, 2008 | Reply

    1. Working fine in Pakistan if using services that bypass the PTA-controlled Internet backbone, e.g., Mobilink Blackberry and some WorldCall users

    2. Getting new error now: general time-out error

    3. Almost 50 hours now since the blackout started

  4. ALoha | Jun 2, 2008 | Reply

    Here in the US it is giving us problems as well.
    I get:

    502 Server Error
    The server encountered a temporary error and could not complete your request.

    Please try again in 30 seconds.

    Same error on 6 different sites I tried to access this morning.

  5. Shezad Mannan | Oct 29, 2008 | Reply

    I think its in the beta form thats why we face problem sometimes.

    Shezad Mannan
    http://www.laask.com (get everything Free)

  6. saleem | Jan 13, 2009 | Reply

    No its only due to problem with the servers in pakistan. and Pakistan internet backbone controllers are extremely lasy people to solve the problem.

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  1. Aug 8, 2009: Committee to Protect Bloggers » Blogspot Blocked in Pakistan

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