FYI: Some people have been experiencing difficulty connecting to the site.

We had a minor SNAFU with our DNS. It has been corrected, and should be working properly soon.

It may take a few hours for the correction to propagate throughout the internet, so a few people may not have access to DU for a while.

Sorry for the problem.

ON EDIT: If anyone is having difficulty, they should be able to access the forum at democraticunderground.net or democraticunderground.org

Skinner
DU Admin

We're back :D

Which per the number of us trying to use Canadian proxies to get in, seems to include most of the Rocky Mountain region, NY, much of the Southeast and undoubtedly elsewhere. Canadian proxies work, but they are slooooooww as molasses.

I am appreciative for Skinner's efforts, but hope he "lit a fire" under his provider if this was a preventable error. Given even a rational, reasonable level of paranoia, it is hard not to think the worst when this happens for such an extended time. It took me hours to find out what happened and I had been wasting all day trying to identify a trojan or other problem. Fortunately, one or more folks were able to get an email message to him from the YAHOO DUpanicroom group, or else, I'd still be running virus scans and undoubtedly causing more problems than I have. Obviously, given attacks on the internet for any number of reasons lately, it was hard to not momentarily consider something more sinister at hand.

--sigh-- I DO appreciate Skinner's being on top of this, but I really think it important to know how wide scale this problem has been. It definitely has NOT been a mere 'few' people locked out and it is STILL NOT SOLVED. END OF RANT

I was afraid we started blocking DU at work (horrors!)

Well I read on the internets that "Democratic Underground's website has crashed or been taken down by the Hacker Anonymous"

:)

I worried that a rightwing hacker had taken down DU. Then I checked an saw that a supposedly left wing site, Huffington Post, was still up and I thought, "Well, that pretty much proves that Arianna's sell out to AOL Time Warner inoculated her against attacks by the right." But Daily Kos was still up, and I was forced to take a look at my paranoia. Glad you're back in operation.

There are very few right wing Neanderthals who would be able to setup a DDOS attack, let alone have the smarts to target DU

Especially right after hearing about the Madison lockout.

There's a lot of anxious DUers on facebook who will be glad to hear this.

I just posted a link to your thread there, so they will know.

nefarious

:) We DO have enemies.

:thumbsup:

I was beginning to wonder... :)

After that, I was able to access. Something people can try if they're still having problems.

Tried everything I could think of and even got help from a computer type friend to figure out what was wrong. I could connect everywhere but to DU, so I thought it was me... :( Whew! :)

Some of my friends were getting a little nervous.

upload.democraticunderground.com - the .net and .com and .org are still not working properly for me - i deleted cookies and flushed the dns. oh well least i can get on this way. for parts of the site you cant' get to just put "upload" before the democraticunderground part and it should work. i don't do twitter - maybe someone can post how to access the site there? :shrug:

an online anonymous web proxy. Don't ask me why that worked but it did.

http://www.the-cloak.com/login.html or any of the other ones.

.org .net and the upload link all failed for me.

Thanks for informing us. I had serious cold turkey for a few hours!

has to be a proxy..

The system was over-loaded. Google crashed and lost a lot of emails, I heard. I think a lot of the overload may have been caused by the multi-thousands of different messages coming out of Wisconsin. People were desperate for information. Somebody shut down the UStream outlet and that was the catalyst, in my opinion. I'm sure there are many opinions.

it sounds for all the world like the A-record for democraticunderground.com was deleted, or maybe the entire domain was accidentally removed. When Skinner says there was a DNS "snafu", there's no indication of anything malicious in the statement. Malicious things could happen with DNS, very true, but I think the site's operator would have mentioned it if he were suspicious of it.

For any given domain, like democraticunderground.com, there's a nameserver that is said to be "authoritative" for a given domain. In the case of DU, the authortative nameservers appear to be owned by "dca.net". DNS servers can be run on a subscription basis, where someone hosts DNS for your widget company or whatever. In a case like that, the end user may have a login to get in and change DNS records. Another way to get DNS services is to have your hosting provider take care of DNS for you. One way or another, it sounds like a clerical error was made somewhere, either entering an incorrect IP address in the "a-record" or deleting the domain by accident, etc. I suppose there could also be a problem with an entity called the reigstry (listed as Dotster for DU), but there are usually checks in place with activities like registrar transfers.

I don't think this had anything to do with the 150K deleted GMAIL mail stores. I think it was an accident, somewhere along the line.

and the only way I am here is going through a Canadian proxy, which is SLOOOOOWWW as molasses.


While I am sure you are right, can anyone explain to me why only some ISPs are still having problems? I like to try to understand these kind of things and that really makes no sense to me.

I think the reason Google lost so much info yesterday was that they are more concentrated in some ISP routers than others. And those of us connected in some way thru that router were affected by the Google "crash". I would bet a lot of computers have been acting squirrelly for the last 24 hours? But I still believe the catalyst started in Wisconsin - with people searching for information frantically when they shut down the UStream "live" camera. Just a theory.

I thought it was regional, but I see from posts in the panic room that NY is out too.

to Google Public DNS

8.8.8.8
8.8.4.4

Just switched the router to Verizon DNS and I'm connecting okay now.

no idea why.

I haven't been able to get here since early afternoon.

or by proxy server. :shrug:

I am using the .org address and a free proxy server but I am happy just to be able two get here!

(Los Angeles time) until about 2 a.m. this morning.

(I'm in the Central Time Zone trying to get through on an AT&T server.)

i live in NC and the .com, .org, and .net all still fail to connect. somehow i can connect to upload.democraticunderground.com but that's it. i've flushed the dns, cleared the cache, cleared cookies, tried the free google dns servers at 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 and still the only way on for me is upload.democraticunderground.com for now. :shrug:

I was certain the fascists had taken over! :evilgrin:

:evilgrin:

:blush:

Access DU w/o trouble, then at 8:35pm it disappeared.

When I hit Refresh, went to a DNS page that stated:

* ns1.dca.net returned (SERVFAIL)
* ns2.dca.net returned (SERVFAIL)


Site came back up for me about 8:50pm or so.

the Du net. or org. doesn't work for me. THANKS to the DU Panic Room on Yahoo groups for the advice to use a proxy!

Had to use this proxyserver link (from Canada?) someone posted on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/l/5e7b5/www.freeproxyserver.ca.

It's very s-l-o-w and some things aren't working properly. I've tried .net, .org and upload and nothing works. Thank goodness for the Panic Room.

Went there this morning and got info about proxy servers. Having to use one now.

Whatever was wrong on my end is fixed. I hope yours gets fixed soon.

I used to get emails from there and now I don\'t.
Thanks,
Melissa G

I'm in Arizona and can't get on the regular way just checked again at 8:05 PM, the proxy I am using is http://www.freeproxyserver.ca.

I tried everything, even found the numeric IP address. That let me view, but not log on.

Contacted isp, flushed DNS, deleted cookies and history, no log on.

Tried net and org: 404 error

Cloked, view only, no log on.

Only the free proxy service let me log on.

Location: Columbus, Ohio

ISP: RoadRunner

and you know from my "history" just what my area is..

at present.

Thought it was the government testing new blocking software at first. :)

Search appears to be disabled, and if I clink a post to reply to it...I just get the whole thread as before.

I can read and post and that is just about it.

Been unable to access DU through IE or Firefox since midmorning, it is now 10:40 PM

Had to go thru proxy server.

Why won't Firefox and IE work?

It's the underlying DNS that they depend on. Goes something like this:

-you put democraticunderground.com in your browser and hit go.
-your pc does a "DNS lookup". It goes to a DNS server and sez, hey, what's the IP address for www.democraticunderground.com?
-your pc sends the "DNS lookup" request to its configured DNS servers. This is usually done automatically by ISP's for home users.
-the DNS servers that your PC goes to looks around, and says, I don't have that IP address.
-that DNS server then goes and asks other DNS servers on the internet, hey, who has the IP address for DU? This person wants to browse there.
-the other DNS servers don't know. The request eventually gets to the Big Boss of DU DNS, the "authoritative nameserver". In this case, it's called "ns1.dca.net". If the server ns1.dca.net decides Democraticunderground is the IP address 4.5.6.7, everyone else has to listen. This server is The Decider. (no, 4.5.6.7 is definitely not the IP address for DU, but this just points out that misconfigurations can and do happen, usually off by just a digit :) ).

-When The Decider (ns1.dca.net) sends out a change regarding DU's DNS (this could be due to the server moving to a different IP address or even a domain accidentally being deleted), this server talks to all its DNS server pals and tells them about the change. Along with this message is something called a TTL, or time to live. If the TTL is set very low (say 60 seconds), then all of the other DNS servers out there should get the new and corrected info about DU DNS in short order.

-BUT, other DNS servers don't always play nice, and they don't always "honor" ttl's. They'll get notification of DNS changes for DU, but they'll wait until 2AM local time to propagate those changes and other changes that have come in from other websites over the course of a day.

-Result: a slow-motion train wreck. The original failure (whatever its nature) didn't hit my local ISP until 7 or so this evening, although the problem has been going on for hours. The actual fix may take up to another day (but probably not that long, in most places). So the fix spreads out all across the Internet at different rates, just like the failure spread. There is no quick and complete fix.

-a note about Anycast. You've seen people here recommending going to Google's public dns servers at 8.8.8.8, etc. This works for some, not for others. But each IP address is individual, and only goes to one server, so everyone should be able to get to it barring big Internet routing problems, right? Not quite. Large companies like Google need to be very resilliant, always up. So the address 8.8.8.8, which belongs to Google, actually goes to a great many servers all over the world. If you configure your DNS for 8.8.8.8, it will go to the "nearest" version of the 8.8.8.8 server (as determined by a routing protocol called bgp). That way, if there's an earthquake in CA or a big undersea trunk that's been cut, there will always be an "8.8.8.8" address you can get to. This is called Anycast. It's a really cool thing, but I think it's leading to confusion in this case. I don't think Google's DNS has fully propagated yet, so some people can get to DU using the Google DNS servers, but some cannot.

The good news is that this will all be fixed; it just may take some time.

I remember seeing something about the last of the original format IP numbers running out about now. If they are trying to implement the new system, could that be causing the problems that have been sporadic across the internet recently?

Which is pretty darn good for me.

I vaguely understood some of it, but the details are much appreciated. However, why, exactly do proxies get past the problem?

Right after 2AM, it came back. Live in Clt NC.

Please explain to us who are computer illiterate how these public servers work and how to access them. Where do we configure the DNS number? I use Firefox.

The operating system accesses these servers behind the scenes. You adjust this setting in your network connections, which depends on your OS. Your default DNS server is defined by your ISP, negotiated behind the scenes between routers. But you can override the default DNS server by pointing to an alternate DNS server.

The best analogy I think that's used is the phonebook. DNS is the phonebook for the Internet. It translates domain names into server "phone numbers". 8.8.8.8 is Google's recent effort to provide its own "phonebook" alternative. When the "phone number" for a site changes, the "publisher" has to push out updates to other "publishers". This takes time. By pointing to another DNS server, be it 8.8.8.8 or any other "phone book", you're hoping that the update for DU has reached that particular "phone book".

(This has all been making me wonder if someone here is testing their ability to shut down portions of our own internets.)

This will not work everywhere, but will work in some locations (due to something called Anycast, which I can explain, if anyone cares to hear it).

4.2.2.2 is working for me. 8.8.8.8 is not working for me, but it looks like it is working for some.

Go to your network settings, find your network adapter (either wireless adapter or, for wired, the most common is Local Area Connection 1). Find the TCP/IP version 4 (not 6) settings in the properties of the adapter. For DNS servers, check the button that lets you specify your own, and enter the 2 addresses above. No reboot required on modern machines. As soon as you make the changes, you'll either be able to get in or not....might not hurt to close IE/firefox, then restart browser after making changes.

Don't have to use the proxy anymore.

You're the greatest! :D

It's the fastest one out there. You can also use 4.2.2.3, 4, 5, and 6. I have tried those, and they all work.
Here's a link to a list of a good number of Public DNS servers. There are some good articles on it. Just remember that google is your friend.

Had to Copy&Paste this page from a proxy in order to login and post. From here, I can't go to any other page. DU.org and .net don't work. Some proxies work, some don't, none of them let me login.

Oklahoma City, Cox communications. Win XP & Firefox 4.0 beta 11.

out since early afternoon in North Carolina...still acting very flaky (was on for a bit using .org and then .net, but those don't work any longer either).

...then ask again.

I added an entry for www.democraticunderground.com in my hosts file, which apparently seems to work. But my question was more along the lines of wondering how posting solutions on a website that is inaccessible to someone will help them fix their access problem. It's kind of like the following BIOS error on startup:

    Keyboard Error or No Keyboard Present Press F1 to continue, DEL to enter setup
 

facebook, by e-mail, and there is a DU Panic Room yahoo group as well. I am sure there are others.

It worked when I got home. I assumed all of DU was down, but when I saw no interruption I thought it might be something else. Glad to hear it's fixed.

through a horrendously slow and laborious proxy.

Are we REALLY sure the problem has been addressed?

I don't know that I have the ability to change it. :shrug:

manual options as it updates its software profile just like a cell phone... It has always set up automatically and all I've been really able to do is try to force a 3G or 4G connection (a laugh, given 4G is really only available on the street and not within enclosures right now :eyes: but that's another story).... so yeah, I think I'm screwed for now.

I have to access from my phone...

:sigh:

I finally connected via a ca proxy but when I clicked on the log-in key icon it wouldn't do anything.
BUT when I clicked to reply to a thread, a log-in box came up.
So if anyone that can read this that is having trouble then give that a try.

p.s. I'm in Texas and still can't directly connect to DU com, net, or org ;(

p.s.s. It's been very stressful today - EIGHT hours without DU !!!

The .net and .org sites do not work here either, just take me to a commercial placeholder site. I feel like I'm running in safe mode or something, weird. I'm sure it will sort itself out eventually.

Still can't connect directly to democraticundergroun.com

http://www.freeproxyserver.ca./ (put DU url in box at bottom)

found that link on a Yahoo group called DUPanicRoom

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DUPanicRoom/messages?o=1

But now everything is back to normal here in Houston.

Sure ruined my day today not having DU ;(

at$t uverse. 1:54am

in using proxy only. DAMN.... Irritatingly slow and doesn't function correctly... won't even pull up a specific post within a thread.

After a few hours, I thought maybe you'd taken the 1st Qtr fund raising drive $ and fled to Uruguay! lol (j/k) ;-)

Approx. 10:40 pm PST.

I hope that some DUers will hop over to Twitter and let everyone know what's up :)
Very few comments regarding DU earlier in the day. Doing a search early today for #DU or #DemocraticUnderGround brought up just about nothing.
One DUer did Tweet (late in the day) that DU was having DNS problems.
I didn't see anything on Twitter about the Yahoo DUpanicRoom until after 10pm (that is where I finally found about using a proxy).
I Tweeted out the proxy link to some folks that were stuck outside of DU.
But all in all there was VERY LITTLE chatter on Tweeter about what was going on at DU or how to get into DU.
Thank goodness things seem to be starting to get back to normal now.

AND Thank God that there is a DU, life without DU is pretty bad :)

Although the concept of a place to communicate with people makes sense, the inability for such a mechanism to correct needed problems means to think it is something to be thankful for would be to accept lack of justice, or lack of compassion.

I am not thankful for measures that are not up to what is due and expected.

That is a delusion of subjugation, and not part of how I think or feel.

I am due beer and travel money and many experiences.


Side note, the post in this song, the shooting out the window, then trained with the silencer, as metaphor, is about not posting here for awhile. Moving on to more effective actions.

sting - shape of my heart
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=locIxsfpgp4

searching on twitter - I think I read one of your tweets.

to get in.

I didn't know about net or org addresses. I googled and the only link I found was at FR where they were gloating about it. Maybe you should send out an automatic email to members when this sort of thing happens.
thanks,

My unfortunate forays into that area via my job have persuaded me that it's best not to fiddle with anything, as it will certainly break. It's more than likely going to break eventually, anyway, but at least if it does that, I'm usually far away from any finger-pointing that'd be going on...

SNAFU=situation normal, all fucked up.

I think it dates from MASH.

SNAFU is an acronym for "situation normal, all f***ed up." This is usually softened to "situation normal, all fouled up" in reference to hardware, and in everyday usage. The acronym is sometimes used as a noun, for example, "This operation has turned into a big SNAFU."

The origin of this term is unknown. According to one story, U.S. combat officers in the Second World War began writing "SNAFU" in large, bold letters on forms they believed superfluous or irrelevant. They then returned the forms, otherwise blank, to the originating bureaucrats.

*Found the above text on the internet.

to the CIA to shut you down. Srsly.

Still having problems here

having problems this morning too.

I had to come in through the ip numbers: 216.158.28.196

AS IF they'd even know how.

imac and 3g iphone working now.

it didn't work all day and evening for me Monday.
just woke up, getting ready for work.

i don't think i can actually function without DU :crazy:

thanks to the info in this post http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x531414

followed these instructions https://www.plus.net/support/software/dns/changing_dns_vista.shtml

but instead of their numbers I entered opendns 208.67.222.222 as my preferred and google 8.8.8.8 as my alternate

Still a no go >18 hours now. Cleared cache and cookies. Still can not connect normally and using a proxy is just not the answer. I'm really getting frustrated as I know we've had DNS mismatch errors before that didn't take 18 plus hours to correct.

Seems to be working fine now. (Agent Mike must have finally gone home.)

Our home Internet is satellite and it was not loading this morning. At work I'm fine.

:cry:

as someone had passed them on to me on Facebook.

Just so's you know.

I gave up about 9pm central last night. Funny thing, though, I haven't been able to get on FB with my cell phone since yesterday afternoon AND a voice mail that says it was sent at 3:15 pm yesterday didn't show up on my phone until 9:30 last night. :crazy: So I don't think it was just DU that was affected.

I'm just glad DU is back up. For a while there, I was worried. :scared:

dg

I was in a hurry to get to the tv and watch the latest report on Charlie Sheen's public meltdown.

DU is a must have 24/7! We can't have it going down just because some important world shaking news is coming on.

Only getting in using freeproxyserver.net. Can only view/post.

stupid DNS. Kill it, kill it with fire!

looking for info on this type of problem, it can sometimes take days (not hours) for DNS corrections to propagate, so some of us might have to use proxy servers for days.

I've never seen a correction take this long, though.

It really doesn't matter specifically what happened, except to know how we might avoid this in the future. One might think it a minor issue to not be able to access a given website. But, if you look at the sheer numbers of people affected and time wasted trying to figure out the problem, correct the problem (or conversely, as was my situation--work on correcting a possible viral infection that had not occurred), it is no minor inconsequential issue.

So, if it was a mix-up with the service provider, perhaps Skinner might let us know what steps they have taken to avoid the problem in the future. Conversely, if it was an unavoidable consequence of a necessary update, then perhaps he could tell us that as well. Placing blame is not the issue, but I would definitely like to know how (if) we can avoid a similar repeat occurrence. It would also be highly desirable if Skinner could designate a few sites where he might post a message as to what is happening, should DU go down again-- (e.g., the Yahoo groups DUPanicRoom, maybe dailykos, or others). :shrug:

It is impossible to get to the site from my home. I am posting this from a remote location.

I've been off since yesterday morning sometime. I was beginning to wonder what the heck was going on here. Now half the features don't work, but at least I'm on.

for sacrifice prior to tinkering with DNS. But being Vegan, I can understand why Elad wouldn't take that advice. In all seriousness, DNS issues are the worst. You have my sympathy gentlemen. The only other time I've seen DU down this long was also a DNS issue, and that was at least five years ago. I think it's a testament to the infrastructure. Even with two DNS episodes, your uptime is at least five nines in ten years.

:applause:

Back to normal this morning. :)

I here I was thinking DU was attacked by ANONYMOUS :)

Were told by Comcast to expect fairly regular interruptions in service through the week, around 10ish every morning, due to solar flares.

all day.

FYI

What's going on?

in du talking about it and that allowed me to get through. My regular bookmark wouldn't open.

I was booted off for about 10 minutes.

Proves how dependent I am upon on DU for not only insight, but the freshest news.

Unable to access most of day and evening yesterday, but access on first try this morning... it will be interesting to learn what actually happened... thank you for all that you do.. :hi:

A friend did some research and advised that. Since putting that in the URL, DU comes up on the computer where I entered it. On my other 2 computers, DU is still trying to access the old IP address. I just entered 216.158.54.197 on my second computer, it it can access DU too now.

This beats having to wait for that IP address to propagate.

I hope that helps.



Edit- on my third computer it loads up DU but fails at the log in page. Weird.

After the initial withdrawal, the break was actually nice.


Edit, I can't log in on my other computers, I get a cookie error. Only this one.

I was just able to log on. I'm in the SF Bay Area.

It's only working on one computer though and I'm not technically qualified to figure out what setting to change in my second one. It gets blocked after I log in telling me there's a cookie problem. I don't want to mess with the host file.

I'm in Guatemala. The servers down here are still trying to reach DU at its old IP, 216.158.28.196or .198

I managed to get it up on this computer bypassing the server routing by entering 216.158.54.197 in the url address bar. A techie friend did some research and suggested that.

Was unable to access all day yesterday and most of this morning. It finally works!

I did not want to change any of my settings. Glad you are back on my regular route now. :hi:

upload.democraticunderground.com can't be resolved for me, even w/ google DNS.

Thanks for getting us back,Skinner.

I can only access either through a proxy or direct IP, but I can only log in and post through a proxy.

earlier they couldn't get it!

but finally found a proxy that would let me log in and post.

naturally a thousand co-workers want to see my pics from the u nion gathering at the statehouse! Blah!

I reset my DNS on my router and it took me completely offline; I had to call TW Cable to get it back up.
This is a serious problem here, we are the third largest city area in the state (Charlotte, Triangle, and Triad) and most ppl are served by TWCable. I'm suspicious.

using proxy again

Gosh, i never thought that i could use a proxy server to get in and thought that DU had technical difficulties ALL OF monday.

with their normal service email me so we can conduct a couple tests?

elad@democraticunderground.com

Thanks.

Moody, irritable, snapping at my family.

They thought I was celebrating Father's Day.

Unable to connect for hours yesterday...

Glad we are back up and running. Tried to use the Google to find out what happened and got linked to the Freepers...so I had to look and they think Anonymous took down DU :) isn't that a hoot!

Thought it may have been an attack from unanomonous

Please pass this on to any groups for people who are still experiencing problems:

to edit this file. I think I know how to do so, but wouldn't feel comfortable advising others. Perhaps you could include the editing steps for windows xp and for windows 7.

On edit, case in point. I brought up my file in notepad, added the line, but was not able to save it as anything other than a text file.

I think, if I recall correctly, in an older version of windows I used you type in "hosts" in the save as selection.

I'm not sure on the older versions. It's been awhile and my brain has archived the info.

and still can't log on via the normal site. Posting via proxy.

# Copyright (c) 1993-1999 Microsoft Corp.
#
# This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.
#
# This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each
# entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should
# be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.
# The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one
# space.
#
# Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual
# lines or following the machine name denoted by a '#' symbol.
#
# For example:
#
# 102.54.94.97 rhino.acme.com # source server
# 38.25.63.10 x.acme.com # x client host

# localhost name resolution is handled within DNS itself.
# 127.0.0.1 localhost
# ::1 localhost
216.158.28.198 www.democraticunderground.com
216.158.28.198 democraticunderground.com

file was saved correctly and not as host.

If I go enter the IP address directly in the address bar, I can get to DU no problem but after logging in, I have cookie problems. Deleting the old cookies didn't work. Am totally confounded and sorry you're having this headache.

Better call these guys:

I got on last night at home. .net and .org not working at office either. Proxy only. Had to hit refresh many times to get the Proxy to post. The Proxy wants to kick me off. It\\\'s like riding a wild horse to post.

In your computer. If you use a Mac, go into network preferences and then go to advanced. Then go to DNS and there will be a window on the left side that says "DNS servers".

At the bottom of that window, click the + sign and then type in 8.8.8.8 and then click apply. If that does not work, go back and enter 4.2.2.2 and click apply.

I don't know the exact way to do the same thing on a windows based operating system.

But if you do this, you should be able to access DU without using a proxy.

It\\\'s not a Mac so I can\\\'t easily follow your directions, but thanks for the advice!
This proxy is inserting slashes into my posts. It is very annoying!

So glad that whatever the issue was for me, was resolved.

Going a day without this site had me strung out, and made me realize how much I would miss this place. I'll even pony up a few bucks on payday for you guys. You're the best.

Been trying to log on from France for almost 24 hours. Have only just managed to conect. On FR, freepers were saying that DU had been attacked and brought down by Anonymous--n'importe quoi! Good to have my best web news source back up & running. Ouf! As the old rock & roll song says, "You don't know what you've got until you lose it!"

Has been down near noon... came back here hoping to find the proxy server someone pointed out that was darn near excellent and found it... Hope it comes back soon or Scott Walker is hindering it. So much for a minor DNS error... 26 hours is not minor

So basically some sort of damage occurred yesterday to the DU network and it caused an error to occur between the DNS server and the domain of DU. Basically a DNS server acts as a "operator" that directs traffic based on the inputed web address and IP address.

The damage caused a large quantity of these DNS servers to record a faulty source based on the input "http://democraticunderground.com". Instead of directing such an input to the website, they are attempting to direct traffic to a false destination.

The error took a good amount of time to propagate throughout the DNS servers worldwide. And the "fix" will take time to propagate as well.

As has already been stated, proxy servers will allow you to access the website. That's because they function as a DNS server.

HOWEVER, you can hasten the fix for your computer by altering your DNS server settings. If you go into the advanced settings for your network, there should be a section labeled "DNS" or "DNS server". Underneath that, you should be able to enter the address for one or more DNS servers.

Both 8.8.8.8 and 4.2.2.2 appear to work. So you can enter those addresses and you should gain access to DU.

If you do not want to mess with your settings, you can continue to wait for the fix to propagate throughout the worldwide network of DNS servers. It will eventually fix itself without any effort on your part. It will just take more time.

at home via time warner. Used a proxy DNS and got in. I could not even get in via the .org or .net

DU is dead on Time Warner

PC at home, and my iPhone. I'm currently accessing DU without a problem on my PC at work, but the iPhone STILL won't allow me to view DU!

I tried the .net and .org addresses, and neither of those worked.

I can't get in here at all except through a proxy.

but when I went clicked on a post to read it, it was gone again. This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

edit: posting from proxy server, obviously.

I'm using Google's DNS server right now. Can't access DU normally. I've tried every posted solution (including editing the hosts file and flushing the DNS) and only two things work: using a proxy server or switching to Google's DNS server.

My ISP is Time Warner (Roadrunner) and I'm not having problems with any other website.

It's very frustrating. :(

By the way ... several people in the DU Panic Room mentioned that they found 4 viruses on their computer after DU crashed. I was also on DU at the time of the crash and I found 4 viruses on my computer, too. My virus protection identified them as "Trojan Horse Java/Class loader". Don't know if that's important or not, but I figured I'd mention it.

I was able to get on DU with my account, but could never login, so I gave my husband an account & am using it..

The ads are making me crazy & I am now worried about the virus thing.. I hope AVG is working overtime for me:)

I have not been able to access normally since 2-27,,,sucks,,

This is really starting to annoy me, and I'm a very patient person.

Yet, for dns propagation to take 3-5 days? I am aghast.