What could cause fluctuating login problems to a specific website?

[bberlin]

Hi guys,

I'm sitting with a very strange problem and this has been going on for almost 2 months now.

I've signed up for a website hosting service and experience temporary login problems. Every couple of days I'm lucky, then I can login and everything works nicely. But most of the times I'm simply unable to login. Instead, I'm getting a "Gateway Timeout" error message.

Cookies are enabled. Deleting them did not solve the problem, and deactivating my antivirus program didn't either. The same problem occurs in Firefox and IE.

When I connected my PC to the internet in our internet café, I could not login either, and I also could not login from the internet cafés' PC. However, this is the only website I'm having this kind of trouble with.

I have contacted the technical support of my hosting service but they could not yet figure out the problem. According to them, I'm the only one having these login problems.

Has any of you got an idea what could cause such a strange problem?

Thanks!!!
Bettina

[techsheaven]

I think you have demonstrated that it is the site. Will you post the entire error? I have a feeling that the authentication is taking too long at the server.

[bberlin]

That's the complete error message:

Gateway Timeout
The following error occurred:

[code=GATEWAY_TIMEOUT] A gateway timeout occurred. The server is unreachable. Retry the request.
Please contact the administrator.

I also thought it must be the site, but they say it can't be if no one else has problems...

[techsheaven]

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/318380

[techsheaven]

Here is some information.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/318380

While I believe thy are trying to keep your business while they sort out the problem, you may want to make sure you have all your updates from Microsoft. Again, I think changing your system would be "barking up the wrong tree."

[bberlin]

Thanks for the info! I sent them the link and it looks like they finally acknowledge there's a server problem. I think there were so many different agents working on this problem that they eventually forgot what I wrote in the beginning. They now say it might be my server is connecting via different routes each time, and some of them work fine whilst many don't. Now they are trying to find out where precisely the problem lies.

I did install all Microsoft updates as you recommended, just to make sure. However, I seem to be unable to install "Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 Service Pack 1". Is that an important one, and do you know a possible reason why I can't get it installed?

[techsheaven]

Here are some general troubleshooting procedures:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/906602

To get more specific, we would need the installation error code (explained in above link).

If you get stuck, post back here and we'll try to help. I guess it should be noted that downloading the full install package from Microsoft and installing it will often work even when the automatic version doesn't.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.NET_Framework

Good Luck

[bberlin]

I tried the troubleshooting but didn't get too far with it. The installation error code you asked for is 0x66A which means that the program I want to update is not functioning or missing.

That's also the reason why the troubleshooting pages didn't help. They all ask to either uninstall and reinstall or repair the program, but when I wanted to do that I noticed that the program is not installed on my PC.

I then downloaded it and tried to install it manually which did not work either. At the end of the installation process, it gets stuck and does not complete the installation.

Is it actually necessary to have this program installed? I got some others installed, and if I understand it right these are newer versions of the .NET Framework 1.1. Here's what I got:

Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 Service Pack 2
Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 Service Pack 2
Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 SP1

[techsheaven]

Would you post your hijackthis.exe report?

[Bob_180_Bob]

Is it actually necessary to have this program installed? I got some others installed, and if I understand it right these are newer versions of the .NET Framework 1.1. Here's what I got: Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 Service Pack 2 Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 Service Pack 2 Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 SP1

Hi,
I could try and explain it all to you and confuse you to no end, go here:- http://ask-leo.com/what_is_the_net_framework_and_do_i_need_all_these_versions.html
and read about there.

Have fun.

[bberlin]

Bob, thanks so much for the link, that article made the confusion quite clear... :)

I've attached the hijackthis file to this post, hope I've done it right because I've never worked with this before. Amazing that you understand what is going on in that report, to me it looks like chinese...

[bberlin]

I had to reinstall my windows because there were some problems. Now at least the update is working. I'm still waiting for these technicians to sort my website out...

Thanks for your help, guys!