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I have a terrible problem that I have tried to solve since three days ago:

I browse my own web site and after a while I cannot access the web site. AT ALL! I can only see a 501 error message: "Method Not Implemented. GET to / not supported. Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request."

Once I get that error the site is totally and permanently inaccessible in that browser!! Reboot, browser restarts, clear cache, clear all history and cookies, etc., are not working.

I have reproduced it in 4 different computers. Three computers are in one city, the 4th is in another city. Two different ISP's also. One computer is Linux, the others are on Windows (XP and 2000). Browsers are FF 3 to FF3.5 and IE 8.

The error is ALMOST reproducible on demand (for me at least). It appears when I browse the forum under certain circumstances. I don't know which are these circumstances, but if I browse it long enough (10 sec to 5 minutes) it eventually appears. Just to make it clear, once the error appears (while browsing the forum) then the whole web site become inaccessible, not only the forum!

My host is not willing to help because they say they cannot reproduce the error. I sent screenoshots but they don't care.

NEWS

Reseting browser's settings from the 'Tools->Clear private data' din't worked. However! When I have cleared the same settings (more exaclty) cookies from the special menu that appears when you right click website's icon, it worked. So it was something related to a cookie BUT it manifests in all browsers (FF, IE, Opera). So it cannot be a browser related problem.

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When you say "reboot", are you rebooting the server that is hosting your site, or just a computer browsing the site? What sort of things do you see in the error and access logs? What software are you running (more particularly, what sort of blog/cms/wiki or what have you are you running, and what web server is it running on?) Have you called your host when the error condition is occurring, and they were unable to reproduce it? – Clinton Blackmore Oct 23 '09 at 18:02
I cannot reboot the server and their CPanel is very rudimentary - it doesn't provide much info. The host keeps saying is not their fault and don't care much about doing any tests. My site is plain HTML plus a phpBB forum. Nothing fancy. – altar Oct 25 '09 at 18:56

closed as too localized by jscott, Mark Henderson♦ Jul 10 '11 at 0:55

This question is unlikely to help any future visitors; it is only relevant to a small geographic area, a specific moment in time, or an extraordinarily narrow situation that is not generally applicable to the worldwide audience of the internet. For help making this question more broadly applicable, see the FAQ.

2 Answers

up vote 0 down vote

Does a reboot of the computer allow you to regain access? If not, but it is still accessible from other computers, then something is probably blocking your IP address from the server.

If a reboot DOES resolve it, then look at what is being cached on the client - dns, cookies, etc. for clues. The problem is obviously on the server end, but could be as simple as a bad dns entry or cached link.

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No. Anything that is related to PC reboot, clearing browser cache and cookies, etc is not solving the problem. Strange is that from the same IP/computer one browser was working while the other one was not working (well, until I made it not to work also :) ) – altar Oct 23 '09 at 13:52
up vote 0 down vote

Does the site utilize cookies? Is it a standard application or something custom? What cookies do you see in the browser when this happens. Is the site private, or could you possibly post the URL for everyone here to examine? My guess is that it is a bug in the site code. Other possibility is a mis-configured load balancer but they are rare for CPanel hosts.

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Something tells me that for a question that's over a year old, he's not coming back to answer you. – GregD Jan 14 '11 at 3:56
Ouch, good point. I'd swear it appeared on the home page. I must have done something weird. – mfarver Jan 14 '11 at 20:26