Issues with South African Websites, almost certainly a Spark Issue.

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Issues with South African Websites, almost certainly a Spark Issue.

PaulZA

314 posts

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#175850 13-Jul-2015 22:13

Hey Geekzone.

I've been having strange issues with South African websites.
The two big ones I've tried, are South African Airways (flysaa.com), and Their Dept of Home Affairs Website. (www.home-affairs.gov.za) fail to even load. I have reported this issue to the MyBroadband (The SA Equivalent to Geekzone), as I first thought it was their side, and they said they were working fine, then I blamed Unotelly, as that's known to act up on occasion, but I changed the DNS servers, still nothing, then I used a USA VPN, and I attempted, to try that way, and hey bravo both websites come up perfectly, and I was able to do what I needed to do.

So I'm sure the issue is Spark side.

Can someone please look into it, and confirm if there's a problem.

Both Mobile data, and fixed line VDSL have the same issue.

Thanks

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#1342659 13-Jul-2015 23:00

dont load here spark VDSL

cbrpilot

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#1342666 13-Jul-2015 23:27

Well I can spot one and potentially another issue here.
First up, I cannot resolve that domain name using Spark DNS.
Google DNS resolves it to 164.151.130.210
I cannot surf to that IP - but then again that may not be 100% indicative of an issue as when you try to surf to an IP there is no host name in the HTTP Get. Depending on the web server that may or may not be an issue.

Cannot ping that IP. Again may not be an issue.
Trace route shows nothing after 41.161.79.90. That IP address is in South Africa.

So my advice would be to log a fault that Spark DNS is not resolving that host name first up, and see if you can access after that gets fixed.

My views are my own, and may not necessarily represent those of my employer.

michaelmurfy

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#1342667 13-Jul-2015 23:39

I don't think it is just Spark - on Snap those sites don't load.

Michael Murphy | https://murfy.nz
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ubergeeknz

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Vocus

#1342670 14-Jul-2015 00:06

Both working here, Orcon UFB.

Zeon

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#1342671 14-Jul-2015 00:13

I have found in the past that sometimes routes get dropped by the tier 1 carriers to African countries. I remember a spammer once signed up to our web hosting from Benin using a Gmail address but then couldn't access our servers as the routes dropped in the US - probably because the address ranges are such a big source of spam.

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Inphinity

2780 posts

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#1342713 14-Jul-2015 08:13

I can load the home affairs one (it looks like a spammy tabloid...), but not the other (although it resolves and appears to load, including a title on the browser tab, but the page is blank), on Vodafone fibre.

CYaBro

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#1342718 14-Jul-2015 08:27

I can load both sites OK on NorthPower Fibre with UberGroup.

Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer.

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PaulZA

314 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1345073 15-Jul-2015 23:27

Still not working.

No experience with logging Spark faults, via the website as most of my reporting I find easier to use Geekzone, as if I had to report it via phone or any other method, they'll ask me to do a checklist, and whatnot, and everything else is working, it's just those websites.

So frustrating..

l43a2

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#1345083 16-Jul-2015 00:01

the 2 sites work for me now on Spark VDSL, a bit slow, but loaded.

quickymart

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#1345103 16-Jul-2015 03:41

Neither working for me, and I'm on Xtra (Spark) fibre.

sbiddle

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#1345113 16-Jul-2015 07:56

The issue isn't Spark so there isn't necessarily going to be a lot Spark can do.

ubergeeknz

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Vocus

#1345222 16-Jul-2015 10:02

sbiddle: The issue isn't Spark so there isn't necessarily going to be a lot Spark can do.

Why say that? If it's not them it's with their upstream providers.

Jase2985

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#1345296 16-Jul-2015 11:18

ubergeeknz:
sbiddle: The issue isn't Spark so there isn't necessarily going to be a lot Spark can do.

Why say that? If it's not them it's with their upstream providers.

it didnt work with snap either, see one of the above posts. so it does kinda lead to a common point between the 2 companies as opposed to both the companies

sbiddle

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#1345420 16-Jul-2015 13:22

Jase2985:
ubergeeknz:
sbiddle: The issue isn't Spark so there isn't necessarily going to be a lot Spark can do.

Why say that? If it's not them it's with their upstream providers.

it didnt work with snap either, see one of the above posts. so it does kinda lead to a common point between the 2 companies as opposed to both the companies

I've tried it on another couple of connections and they don't work either.

Vocus upstream seems to be a common denominator in a couple, but it doesn't seem Snap's upstream traceroute goes via Vocus so they can probably be eliminated.

Aredwood

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#1345454 16-Jul-2015 13:44

I thought Snap use spark global gateway for traffic to the USA. So that will explain why spark and snap don't work. (Guessing traffic to SA would go via USA).

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