Inaccessible Stardock Sites

Published on October 6, 2005 By NixonMcJinx In WinCustomize Talk

In regards the connectivity issues with Stardock Central, Stardock.Com, Wincustomize.Com and other sites which Stardock hosts/owns.

At this time, Level 3 Communications and Cogent Communications are at odds. As a result, any net traffic exclusively through Level 3 connections to the Cogent network is not making it to its destination.

We'll see over the coming little bit whether they come to an agreement or other peering relationships are established to bypass to blockage.

The problem is neither on your end or our end. We are unfortunately stuck in the middle.

-- Nick [OrbitJuice]
[Stardock Technical Support]

Comments (Page 2)

Kevin_C

on Oct 06, 2005

GoodMorphing,

I'm with you in being extremely ticked off by this whole escapade but I'm quite happy with my RR service. After having DSL through SBC for nearly 6 years I like the extra speed and lower price I'm able to get through RR. I really don't know who to blame for this because it seems that both companies are acting like spoiled brats picking their toys up and leaving because they don't like how the other kids are playing.. I read some of the Slashdot posts from the link you posted and there was a comment in there from a guy who works at L3 and apparently they were still routing traffic to Cogent but that traffic wasn't coming back, so it appears this isn't just a case of L3 flipping the switch.

Good luck in your search for a new ISP, and if you learn any good info on how to shield yourself from something like this in the future make sure to let us know!!

GoodMorphing

on Oct 06, 2005

There is a link in there to an old article. From memory, both level three and cogent knew this was going to happen a month ago. From what I understand cogent spent this time rerouting what they could and preparing for what may come. Level three was silent.

I'm not saying that I believe this is the whole entire story. It may be, the article seemed authentic. But there are always two sides to everything.

Yeah, for sure if I find something better I'll let people know.

horizon

on Oct 07, 2005

some.
people.
need.
shot.

but once again i get off with having no problems

LADY LUCK STRIKES AGAIN!

tjesterb

on Oct 07, 2005

Goodmorphing,

Thanks for the links, interesting reading.

One of the posters on Slashdot, who works for Time Warner (Roadrunner) said that they use Level-3.

Here is a trace route from Wincustomize, whose host obviously uses Cogent.

Tracing route to 66.28.242.218 over a maximum of 30 hops

1 2275 ms 10 ms 12 ms 10.64.224.1
2 16 ms 16 ms 13 ms srp9-0.mtgmoh1-rtr3.cinci.rr.com [24.29.0.129]
3 24 ms 28 ms 23 ms son0-0-1.ncntoh1-rtr0.neo.rr.com [65.25.128.233]

4 35 ms 33 ms 33 ms so-2-1-0-0.gar1.Chicago1.Level3.net [67.72.120.1
]
5 36 ms 35 ms 39 ms ae-1-52.bbr2.Chicago1.Level3.net [4.68.101.33]
6 34 ms 35 ms 34 ms so-7-0-0.edge1.Chicago1.Level3.net [209.244.8.14
]
7 35 ms 33 ms 33 ms 4.68.127.130
8 35 ms 34 ms 36 ms p12-0.core02.ord01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.2.
241]
9 35 ms 33 ms 35 ms p12-0.core03.ord01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.3.
154]
10 36 ms 33 ms 34 ms p2-0.core01.ord04.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.3.4
2]
11 34 ms 35 ms 35 ms g3-1.hc01.ord04.atlas.cogentco.com [204.6.150.30
]
12 36 ms 34 ms 34 ms StardockCorporation.demarc.cogentco.com [38.112.
15.250]
13 37 ms 33 ms 33 ms 66.28.242.218

Trace complete.

That explains why anyone whose ISP relies in Level3 is/was having trouble accessing Stardock sites.

tjesterb

on Oct 08, 2005

Looks like Level3 has restored connections with Cogent, at least temporarily.

http://news.com.com/Net+backbone+outage+fixed%2C+for+now/2100-1036_3-5891274.html?part=rss&tag=5891274&subj=news

aimzzz

on Oct 13, 2005

It it OK to unpin this thread?

DigitalDanes

on Oct 17, 2005

UPDATE:
“We don’t like to think of the Internet as fragile. It relies on Internet service providers and telecommunications carriers to pass traffic from one network to another. Without those relationships, the Net can fall apart.

That became evident Oct. 5 when Level 3 Communications Inc., an ISP that calls itself “the network partner you can rely on,” got into an escalating financial feud with fellow ISP Cogent Communications Inc. and cut the connections between the two networks. For two days, some of both companies’ customers–businesses and consumers–were blocked from up to 45 million Web sites and an uncountable number of E-mail addresses.”

read more: http://tinyurl.com/87s9a

Holosynthetic

on Oct 17, 2005

I can see a lot of people aren't really worried about this for now, but from my standpoint (being a roadrunner customer on level 3) I wasn't able to access this site for about 2 days because of this past incident. This I think could be a problem for the subscription drive WinCustomize is having because I am not currently a subscription holder and when I heard about helping the site out I was going to contribute until the news of connections being lost again in november which for me would render a subscription useless because I couldn't view the website any longer.

Perhaps I'm going a bit far by jumping to that conclusion, and most likely i'll have to see what happens come Nov. 9th, but until then I'm sure I'm not alone in holding off on purchasing a subscription in fear I'll never be able to take advantage of it.

a worried user..but i'm very casual about it

aimzzz

on Oct 18, 2005

Is it OK to un-pin this thread?

Jafo

on Oct 20, 2005

Probably...

tjesterb

on Oct 28, 2005

In a news release today, Level3 and Cogent announced that they have negotiated a new peering arrangement.

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/10-28-2005/0004199017&EDATE=

The temporary arrangement in place now was set to end on Nov. 9th.

So all of us who connect by a Level3 ISP will not have to worry about our connection to Wincustomize and other sites whose ISP is Cogent.

....and this thread should finally be able to fade into obscurity.

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