Windows 7 Repeated server not found with all browsers

Inga Klaus

New Member
Joined
Jan 2, 2011
Okay this started about 4 days ago, I am connected to the internet, but I cant seem to get anywhere without repeated presses of the refresh button, no matter what browser I am using. I get server not found, I hit refresh 5 or 6 times I get the page to load. Next page will be okay , page after server not found message press refresh 10 times to get page to load. There is another computer on the network and it is just fine. I have scanned and scanned again, I have went thru the steps to check firewall and proxy. I was close to resetting the computer to factory settings but thought I would try again to see if anyone can help me fix it.Any suggestions would be great Thank you!
 
Inga Klaus;
Hello and welcome to the forums.
Sounds like something is not working correctly to resolve DNS queries.
First try this;
type 64.233.169.99 into the address bar of IE8 and hit enter. If google opens first time everytime then the problem is almost certainly with DNS. So;
first open taskmanager, processess tab, check box to show processess for all users, look for mDNSresponder.exe. If present let us know and we will help you address that issue.
Second go hear C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc and open the file titled "hosts" (use notepad) what you should see is twenty (20) or so lines all preceeded by a pound sign/hash mark "#", these are all commented lines with information regarding how the hosts file works and a couple examples. If you have lines present in the file that are not preceeded by the #sign then delete them and save the file.
Third try setting the DNS server addresses in the properties of IPv4, in the properties of your network interface card manually to a public DNS server like Googles (8.8.8.8 preferred and 8.8.4.4 alternate) just in case the router is not reliably forwarding DNS queries.
There's a fourth but I think you have already addressed that by clearing out the entries regarding proxy servers in the connections tab, lan settings button of IE8.
So keep us posted
Keep us posted
 
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Hi,
I seem to have the SAME problem as the OP, so was a bit dissapointed this thread wasnt solved. I am also connected to the internet (on my laptop) but get 'Server not found' messages in browser. I see you mention something about mDNSReporter? I checked and i do have this running in my processes, i dont know what this means but was hoping you could eleborate on what youve previously said to Klaus.

Sorry for being a noob, but any help is appreciated. :)
 
The service that I was referring to was mDNSresponder.exe (not "mDNSReporter").
mDNSresponder.exe is an addin, a product of having installed one of serveral software products
Bonjour or Adobe Version Cue CS3 Client or Bonjour Core for Windows or Adobe Asset Services CS3 or Gizmo Project or Rendezvous or Adobe GoLive 9 are examples of a few such software products that will add a service called
Bonjour or ##Id_String1.6844F930_1628_4223_B5CC_5BB94B879762##
type
services.msc
into the search or run function box and hit enter
find either or both
double click either or both instance
change the startup type to disabled and click the stop button
See if that improves your particular problem.
 
Hi there Trouble, cheers for the response,

I did what you said and found Bonjour and disabled/stopped it, but couldnt find the other one you said. It hasnt had any affect, and infact now i cant get an internet connection atall. It may not be directly linked to that as it was being quite intermitent and changing between 'internet acess' and 'no internet access' before. It will probably change again before i finish writing this. :)

Im just not sure what it is, one day it was working fine, and the next it just refused to work, and i cant remember changing any settings proir to the problem.

Cheers for your help, welcome to any other ideas you have!
 
Well I can pretty well advise that disabling the Bonjour service will not likely negatively impact you ability to connect to the internet, so just leave it disabled for now.
Try to determine what you can and cannot do
try pinging the inside edge of your router, try pinging another node on the network perhaps the machine you are using now to post here.
Then try pinging 64.233.169.99
Let us know the results.
Open a command prompt on the problem machine and type
ipconfig /all > C:\users\johnsmith\desktop\iptext.txt (replace johnsmith with your username) this will produce a text file on your desktop called iptext.txt, which you can attach to your next post after moving it to a working machine.
 
You'll have to excuse my lack of tech speak knowledge. By 'ping the inside edge of your router' i can only glean that you want me to flick the edge of my router box? Jokes aside, i assume ping means write the ip address into my browser address bar?
Router IP adress works, i can access the router settings page.
The address you gave me works, and brings me to google home page.

Ive attatched the ipconfig file for your perusement.

Thanks for your continued support.
 

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Sorry sometimes I assume too much and sometimes to little;
You need to open a command prompt.
Start Orb->All Programs->Accessories->Command Prompt, right click and choose "Run As Administrator" (not really necessary now, but good to know how in case at some pointed in the future you are met with a message "requires elevation").
Now at the blinking cursor type
ping
followed by a space
the the IP address of the inside edge of your router, which in your case is 192.168.1.254, at least according to the text you attached, but that includes a strange unuseable address for the DHCP Server information, which makes me wonder how you are receiving DHCP information and from what, but apparently you are so we won't dwell on that.
So type or copy and paste this
ping 192.168.1.254
and then hit enter
we're looking for a response of something like sent 4, received 4, lost 0
let us know.
If that seems to work correctly then type or copy and paste this into the same command prompt window at the blinking cursor
ping 64.233.169.99
same deal let us know the results
 
This is the result i get;

Pinging 192.168.1.254 with 32 bytes of data:
PING: transmit failed. General failure.
PING: transmit failed. General failure.
PING: transmit failed. General failure.
PING: transmit failed. General failure.

Ping statistics for 192.168.1.254:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4 (100% loss),

im not sure if your familiar with it but i have a program called hamachi which sets up its own private networks, which may be giving you the wierd results? If not, was just going to mention it just incase.
 
Not familar with hamachi, but it would seem to me that either some third party software firewall or perhaps even the built in windows firewall is blocking pings, of course it's always possible that the router itself is configured not to reply to ICMP Echo requests so I guess you need to check your router documentation as well as determine if you have any third party software that is acting as a firewall and preventing your network from functioning properly. I might even suggest as part of a temporary test, disabling the Built In Windows Firewall for a brief period to see if you can ping then. If you have another machine on the network, determine its' IP address and see if you can ping it and see if it can ping the router or your machine.
The ping utility is one of the most fundamental and broadly used functions for testing a network to see what it can connect to and how fast it performs, without being able to use it successfully at all it will be difficult to proceed diagnostically.
Try a couple other things from an elevated command prompt
type ipconfig /release
and hit enter
then type
ipconfig /renew
and hit enter
see if that accomplishes anything.
If not try resetting the Winsock catalog and the TCP/IP Stack
again from an elevated command prompt type
netsh int ip reset c:\users\YourUserName\Desktop\ipreset.txt (hit enter) (Substitute your actual username)
and then
netsh Winsock reset (hit enter)
Reboot your computer.
As far as hamachi is concerned, I believe it comes bundled as part of the LogMeIn software, neither of which do I have much experience with, except to say that in some instances depending on how your VPNs are configured they may be preventing some things from working on your real local network as sometimes they will grab a default gateway from the network you are attaching to, but that still shouldn't prevent you from pinging another node on your local subnet. The trick would probably be to unistall any third party products that you suspect might be interfering with the proper operation of your network and only add them back once your network was functioning properly. That would include any third party firewall products like ZoneAlarm and or Comodo, and AntiVirus / Internet Security Suites and hamachi.
If you cannot ping another node on your own subnet by IP address then that would indicate that you are not connect to it or something is inhibiting the full fuctionality of that connection. You need to try a get back to the basics and start from there.
Regards and keep us posted
Randy
 
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Ok, first of all ive tried a few pings out;

192.168.1.66 (Home PC)
192.168.1.254 (Router adress)
64.233.169.99

all give the same error message i go before;
PING: transmit failure. General failure.
sent = 4 lost = 4 etc. etc.

Ive also had a look through installed programs on ym laptop and uninstalled any that i think may be interferring, a few McAfee things, hamachi. But so far nothing that helps.

I did the two things you detailed in your last post, the Winsock and TCP/IP stack reset worked fine, but hasnt seemed to have an effect since rebooting. But the ipconfig /release threw up a load of errors;

'No operation can be performed on Wireless Netwrk Connection 2 while it has its media disconnected.
An error occured while releasing interface Wireless Network Connection 2 : An address has not yet been associated with the network endpoint.

No operation can be performed on Local Area Connection while it has its media disconnected.'

Seems i need to find whatever program it is thats interferring with the connection, before we can carry out even simple diagnostics. Is there any way to pinpoint where the fault may be coming from? Like seeing which applications have access to the network, and how much i.e bandwidth etc.? At the moment im a bit scared to uninstall some programs in fear that it may end up being vitally important. So far ive uninstalled all the programs installed in the las 2 months, as that was when the problem first surfaced.
 
Hi

Try running Malwarebytes, and make sure you don't have some kind of Malware. I have seen this happen with certain Malware that tries to redirect the address on what ever link you click on.

Go to Internet Properties in any of you browsers and make sure that Lan settings are set to Connect Automatically. Malware will sometimes change this.

Reset you Router, if you haven't already.

I don't know if any of these will help but it's worth a shot.

Mike
 
In addition to MikeHawthorne's fine advise, you may also want to try further simplifying you network elements by temporarily disabling any installed device you are not presently using.
Just type
ncpa.cpl
into the search or run box and hit enter
select then right click the devices that you are not presently using and choose disable
once you've got just the single adapter that you are actually using enabled you can try any and or all of the utilities again and see if you are still getting the same errors.
Additionally flush your DNS cache
again from an elevated command prompt type
ipconfig /flushdns
and hit enter
then type
ipconfig /registerdns
and hit enter
Keep us posted.
 
Sorry guys for the late reply, but none of the great advise above has worked :(. Still get a yellow warning symbol on my network indicator bottom right. It is connected but with no internet access. So at some point over the last few steps weve gone backwards, because atleast it said i had access before, hence why skype was working, as you explained Trouble. Im out of ideas with what to do!!
 
Hi

Have you called your network provider?

I have had the situation that you are describing several times in the past.
It shows that there was a connection, but I could't actually connect to anything.

No amount of fussing would get it to work.

After trying everything I could think of I called Comcast.

Both times they did something on their end and it started working normally again instantly.

Just recently I was having problems with my connection going down over and over, I posted about it here.
I finally gave up and called Comcast again, the guy came out changed all the connectors outside the house and gave me a new router.

He said that the problem was caused by bad connectors outside that were spiking the signal and causing the router to shut down.

Whatever he did I has worked fine since and it didn't cost me anything.

Anyway the point is that the problem may not be in your computer, I've found that in my case if there is no malware, and Bonjour Services is't installed it usually isn't.

In your case you have one computer that works, in mine both my computers didn't so I don't know but it's worth trying.
They can diagnose the connection from their end and tell you if it's working or not.

Mike
 
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