Reality
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*** Use this at your own risk!!! ***
I know it has been explained in other threads but I see some people are still having problems and do not understand what is going on.
The Dallas Cowboys apparently forgot to renew their domain (dallascowboys.com) a few days ago and when the domain name expired, the DNS for the domain was changed to that of their registrar's choosing. Even though they have renewed their domain and it has been fixed, the IP addresses for their site is cached in many DNS caches on the internet.
The reason the site works for some people and not others is because 1) they did not try to access the site during the outage so they never got the bad IP address 2) they got the bad IP address but their upstream DNS server(s) have since flushed out the old IP address and now have the correct one or 3) the IP address was only cached locally in their computer or their router and a reboot of one or both cleared the problem.
For those of you who have had it work at one point, then not work later, that is due to being sent to different DNS cache systems where some have the updated IP addresses and others do not. Typically, when this happens, it means that they should all have the updated IP addresses soon though it may require you rebooting your computer(s) and router.
For those who do not know, DNS servers basically tie domains to IP addresses. They actually do more than that but for the most part, that's their main purpose. To reduce the latency (time) required to look-up new domains and host names, previously looked up host and domain names are cached at various places. This reduces the time it takes to pull up a site and also reduces the load on DNS servers. There are many locations of DNS cache including your computer, your router, your upstream DNS provider (usually your ISPs DNS servers) and possibly their upstream provider as well. You can only flush the DNS cache on your own computers and routers. If you contact your ISP and ask them to flush or reset their DNS cache, they're going to laugh at you so don't waste your time.
Fortunately, there are two ways around this problem. It's not a good practice to do this if you're not computer savvy because you can create future problems by circumventing the default DNS servers with your ISP. The first option you have is to use a third-party DNS server such as OpenDNS.com's servers. For those of you who have young children in your house and you have static IP addresses (it never changes), this is a good way for you to block most (not all) unwanted content.
That being said, the easiest, fastest and most definitive method of fixing the problem, is to hard code the host name to IP addresses in your hosts file. The downside to this is if DC.com ever changes their IP addresses, you will no longer be able to access their site. Another downside is that most high traffic sites use load balancing (multiple servers serving one site) and you run the risk of hitting an already over loaded server during high traffic periods causing slow surfing of their site.
So, my suggestion is this .. use this method temporarily and then remove it a few days from now when the rest of the DNS cache servers on the internet have all flushed.
How to Edit Your Hosts File on Windows 7 (likely Vista and XP as well):
1) Run "Notepad" either from the Accessories section on the Start Menu or choosing "Run" from the Start Menu.
2) Choose File then Open and in the box type:
Code:
c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts** if you have windows installed on a drive other than "C:", replace the drive letter with the driver letter where it is installed.
3) Move the cursor to the very bottom of the file and add the following:
Code:
69.164.5.136 www.dallascowboys.com
66.111.108.133 dallascowboys.com4) Choose File then Save
5) Close ALL browser windows
6) Run "Command" from the Start Menu or from the Accessories section on the Start Menu.
7) At the "C:\>" (or whatever drive you have windows installed on) type:
Code:
ipconfig /flushdns8) Close the command window, open a browser and it should work.
-Reality
