what the fuck is wrong with this? (internet q)

[wring]

In our little apt, there's two computers I use. One's a netbook, sitting near a chair by the tv. The other is across the room, a laptop, sitting on the dining table. Same internet access, both are wifi.

I belong to a local library group, and use it all the fucking time. Every time I log in on either device, I log into my account there. It's not through the library site per se, but something they call 'overdrive'. But anyhow.

2 days ago, I couldn't get in. (I usually am at the laptop). Connection timed out on that particular website only. Contacted that web site. sure enough folks were having trouble, they had the site down for a while. Later that night, I got in, while I was sitting in the chair, through the netbook. Figured, great, it's all ok again.

Not so fast. went back to the laptop across the room, and again, the overdrive site timed out. Have tried multiple times. contacted the library folks, they can log in as me w/o problem.

Here's what I've tried: while I typically brought the site up as a logged into my account to the 'loans' page, I have tried logging into the main site where I'd have to enter my account info and password. I have tried emailing my self the page from the netbook page in case there's something weird about how I was logging into the site. I've cleared cookies from my laptop.

I'm using Chrome browser for both. I don't understand why on ONLY the laptop, the site won't load up. Everything else is the same. same isp, same website.

anyone have any idea what I can do? (I prefer to use the laptop for this application since my hands are shitty and I have a really tough time with the netbook navigating things, not to mention my eyes are shitty and the laptop's screen is much, much bigger, therefore easier for me to see).

[Jaglavak]

If it's an https web site it could be a certificate thing or a DNS thing. Unfortunately it appears that Chrome doesn't allow the user to see the DNS settings. If your version happens to allow it, you'll find it under Settings>Advanced>Network. Try setting your DNS server to 8.8.8.8.

At this point I would install a different browser on the laptop and see if that works. Firefox is the usual and it's free. If the problem goes away it's down to that installation of Chrome.

[wring]

yeah, so using a different browser works. so that takes care of my biggest concern (wanting to be able to use the laptop to deal w/my library account).

Still don't understand why now, why this one site suddenly has developed an allergy to Chrome. bah humbug. but thanks, like I said, I really prefer to use the lap top for library-ing.

[wring]

huh. following your map, I couldn't find what you were suggesting (or at least nothing I saw looked like what you were talking about), but found a thing that said "reset at factory settings", so clicked on that, and eureka, sure, I had to re- log in, but it loaded up and all is good in my little world again. Thanks a lot, you helped immeasurably.

[Inna Minnit]

It may see you as trying to log in twice on the same account?

[BJMoose]

Computers be weird. For about a year some background program - it was impossible to tell what - apparently always got stuck in a loop and chased its tale to the tune of half of the processor time. But that stopped a couple of weeks back, doubtless with the update of some program. And until a few months back, the printer would sometimes choke while printing something. No pattern to it. And nothing to do but shut off the printer, reboot the computer, and let it try again. My guess is the print spooler got spooked whenever someone else cut into the processor line.

With so many companies trying to cram so much stuff onto our computers, it is a wonder they work at all.

[wring]

yeah, they can be strange. who knows why re-setting it works - I know one of my usual things to try is always turn off the computer and turn it back on again.

[SmartAleq]

Doing a reboot closes memory leaks, that's a good source of stupid intermittent problems. When you have a lot of things running, the individual apps stick a little bookmark/dibs onto chunks of memory they think they might need, should you start using them again. Enough apps and websites doing that and pretty soon they start running over each other and causing all sorts of stupidy conflicts as the various apps fight over who owns what sector of memory. Pretty soon the computer is a centipede trying to figure out how it keeps track of all those legs.

I'd guess it's some sort of browser related cookie problem, try clearing out the history on the laptop, see if that fixes it. Alternately, always use a different browser ONLY for that particular website so it's less likely to have itself a little conniption over two devices from the same IP having logged in. Some sites are picky AF about that.

[tunaman]

Originally Posted by Jaglavak

Unfortunately it appears that Chrome doesn't allow the user to see the DNS settings.

At least not any more. It used to be you could type

chrome://dns/

into the address bar and get that information, but Google removed that for some stupid reason. From a support point-of-view, it was much easier asking clients to type that into the Chrome address bar than to get them to open the command processor and type IPCONFIG.

Originally Posted by Jaglavak

If the problem goes away it's down to that installation of Chrome.

Chrome has a "reset settings" option, and believe it or not, it's fixed several problems I've had in the past. Specifically, I'd get the thing where pages would take 30-90 seconds to even begin loading, and the status bar would say "Waiting for cache..." the whole time. Resetting the settings would fix that... at least until it'd happen again a few weeks later.