Oct 28 2007

StumbleUpon Outage for BigPond Customers

Published by at 1:37 pm under bigpond,StumbleUpon

For over 24 hours now, I’ve had no access to StumbleUpon.

I’m here thinking – this is NOT good for a service that has over 3 million users. But I could see (from my RSS feeds) that other users have been able to stumble.

So I tried it on a laptop with “Unwired” access – and guess what? It worked fine.

I went over to Whirlpool forums and sure enough it’s a BigPond problem (update: it appears this is not a BigPond problem, but is affecting BigPond users. Apparently, other networks in different countries are also experiencing problems).

I just spoke to Bigpond tech support and they acknowledged there is a problem. I had to submit a support request on their web site and include the results of a trace route.

He said it could be a couple of days before it is fixed, but he doesn’t really know.

I really don’t understand how a network can just block access to a website as if it doesn’t exist…. Can anyone explain this to me?

Update: Anthony has suggested in the comments that this problem may be caused by StumbleUpon blocking the Telstra network, and Will indicates it may be a BigPond router problem.

Update 2: I had to add this brilliance from Megan:

At first I was afraid, I was paranoid
kept thinking I could never live without stumble on my side
but then I got so many errors rating urls’s, oh terror
that I grew strong and knew that Telstra must be wrong.

And it’s not back, in cyber space
I’ve just stumbled in to find no green thumb stuck wildly in my face
I should’ve changed my internet carrier, I should’ve given back the key
If I’d known for just one minute lower stats would hassle me.

Love it :)

Update 3 30/10 I heard back from SU:

Thanks for contacting us. Really sorry to hear you can’t connect.

We certainly don’t have our Australian members blocked!

There is a problem – somewhere in the internet – that is preventing some of our members from reaching us. Our guys are trying to work out just what – and where it is.

and also

The guys are on it. It seems like it is not in our network, but “out there” somewhere, and they are trying to work out just what, and where :(

It looks like it is localised, at the moment, to some ISPs in some countries – but we’re still trying to pin that down.

They seem to have resolved some issues, but it’s still not working here.

31 responses so far

31 Responses to “StumbleUpon Outage for BigPond Customers”

  1. # Kinon 28 Oct 2007 at 1:54 pm

    Oooh, so THAT’s why it’s not working! That explains everything, right down to why my house is so much tidier than normal…

  2. # Anthonyon 28 Oct 2007 at 2:13 pm

    Is not that Bigpond is blocking your access to StumpleUpon, it is more than likely just a problem that Telstra has with the network that is supplying access to the datacentre where StumpleUpon is hosted. Either a physical break or some technical glitch or maybe someone hasn’t paid their bill or even the network StumpleUpon is hosted on just isn’t allowing Bigpond traffic through for some reason like DOS attack.

    If you open up the command prompt on your computer then type:
    tracecert http://www.stumbleupon.com

    It will do a traceroute which will show you exactly where the break is occurring.

  3. # Anthonyon 28 Oct 2007 at 2:19 pm

    Sorry, to do a traceroute I should have wrote…

    If you open up the command prompt on your computer then type:
    tracert http://www.stumbleupon.com

  4. # Megon 28 Oct 2007 at 2:33 pm

    Hi Anthony – thanks for the explanation (and the correction, couldn’t work out what I was doing wrong!).

    Tracing route to http://www.stumbleupon.com [69.36.233.10]
    over a maximum of 30 hops:

    all 30 “request timed out”

  5. # Megon 28 Oct 2007 at 2:33 pm

    Kin – LOL 😀

  6. # Anthonyon 28 Oct 2007 at 2:44 pm

    Hmmm. Don’t know then. If it doesn’t even let you get to one hop it is more an issue at Telstra’s end.

    You can also do a traceroute via Telstra’s network here:
    http://www.telstra.net/cgi-bin/trace?www.stumbleupon.com

    I just did one and it makes it all the way across the pacific and only breaks when it reaches the data centre where StumbleUpon is hosted in Connecticut. Would seem from that then that StumbleUpon or their host or network has blocked the entire Telstra IP range from getting to the StumbleUpon web site.

    I just did another traceroute to StumbleUpon ‘s web host
    http://www.telstra.net/cgi-bin/trace?www.layer42.net

    And it got through fine. So that means the entire network is working but Telstra is being blocked from specifically getting to StumbleUpon.com

  7. # Anthonyon 28 Oct 2007 at 2:48 pm

    Sorry, best way to get it fixed. Don’t bother Telstra they can’t do anything.

    Tell StumbleUpon that the bigest ISP in Australia with some 5million+ users is blocked from accessing their site and to tell their host/network to do something about it.

  8. # Willon 28 Oct 2007 at 2:53 pm

    Like what Anthony says… it’s more than likely a routing problem somewhere along the chain.

    Given it’s timing out at the start, then you’ll probably find one of Bigpond’s routers has a problem and can’t find a route.

  9. # Megon 28 Oct 2007 at 2:54 pm

    Anthony – many thanks for looking into it. I’ll send them an email.

  10. # Megon 28 Oct 2007 at 3:14 pm

    Thanks Will

    I’ve sent an email, will see how it goes.

  11. # Colin Campbellon 28 Oct 2007 at 6:16 pm

    Scandalous. I love the opportunity to blame Telstra for anything, regardless.

  12. # Megan over at Imaginifon 28 Oct 2007 at 7:52 pm

    At first I was afraid, I was paranoid
    kept thinking I could never live without stumble on my side
    but then I got so many errors rating urls’s, oh terror
    that I grew strong and knew that Telstra must be wrong.

    And it’s not back, in cyber space
    I’ve just stumbled in to find no green thumb stuck wildly in my face
    I should’ve changed my internet carrier, I should’ve given back the key
    If I’d known for just one minute lower stats would hassle me.

    Ummmmm, me too. No stumbleupon :(

  13. # Megon 28 Oct 2007 at 8:00 pm

    Megan,

    Truly brilliant 😀 – updated my post to include your gem (thanks for the laugh)

  14. # Megan over at Imaginifon 28 Oct 2007 at 8:11 pm

    lol…I just called Paul in to hear my little ditty and there it is in your post. How embarrassment!

  15. # Megon 28 Oct 2007 at 8:13 pm

    Megan – It was worthy of extra attention 😀

  16. # Colin Campbellon 28 Oct 2007 at 10:09 pm

    I made sure to Stumble your post.

  17. # Megon 28 Oct 2007 at 10:15 pm

    Thanks Colin – glad you were able to 😉

  18. # Megon 28 Oct 2007 at 10:18 pm

    It’s still down – maybe if I made Stumble Buzz they might notice!

  19. # Buzzing with Angeon 29 Oct 2007 at 4:02 pm

    LOL Megan, that was a good ditty. I feel lost without stumbleupon. Thanks Meg for your post. I was starting to get paranoid too!!

  20. # Megon 29 Oct 2007 at 6:23 pm

    Hi Ange – it sure is a good ditty 😀

    Nice to meet you and your blog :)

  21. # darklooshkinon 29 Oct 2007 at 9:04 pm

    funny that, but i managed to access stumbleupon using an unblocked proxy service… what did telstra do to piss SU off?

  22. # Megon 29 Oct 2007 at 9:11 pm

    Darklooshkin – LOL – I’m not entirely sure exactly whether the problem is with Telstra or StumbleUpon. My email to SU has not been answered (any stumbles welcomed – they might notice it then).

    How does one go about accessing via an “unblocked proxy service”?

  23. # darklooshkinon 29 Oct 2007 at 9:22 pm

    just follow this link:

    http://iamunblocked.com/

    and type in stumbleupon.com. you won’t be able to use the toolbar, but i bet a well-placed word or two in the forums will wake ppl up to what’s going on down-under. this is why i love SU: i stumbled this site a few months back.

  24. # Megon 29 Oct 2007 at 9:24 pm

    Thanks for that :)

  25. # Megon 29 Oct 2007 at 10:25 pm

    I heard back from SU

    “Thanks for contacting us. Really sorry to hear you can’t connect.

    We certainly don’t have our Australian members blocked!

    There is a problem – somewhere in the internet – that is preventing some of our members from reaching us. Our guys are trying to work out just what – and where it is. ”

    and also

    “The guys are on it. It seems like it is not in our network, but “out there” somewhere, and they are trying to work out just what, and where :(

    It looks like it it is localised, at the moment, to some ISPs in some countries – but we’re still trying to pin that down.”

  26. # goldcoasteron 30 Oct 2007 at 9:07 am

    I still can’t stumble. It seems it is still blocked, sent an email to Stumbleupon just to see if that helps any.

  27. # matteoon 30 Oct 2007 at 10:38 am

    I am really glad that I found this post, I live in Italy and am having the same problem. The funny thing is that I have the web provider, one at home, where I can’t stumble, and the other at work where it works just fine. I guess we will all just have to wait and see!

  28. # Megon 30 Oct 2007 at 10:58 am

    Hi Goldcoaster – they’re aware of the problem, and working on it. It appears that it’s affecting a few ISPs in different countries.

    Matteo – glad that the post was helpful. Strange that one is ok, but not the other!

  29. # Maartenon 30 Oct 2007 at 11:11 am

    Just wanted to mention that not only australian people are experiencing this. I’m having the exact same problems here in the Netherlands.

  30. # Megon 30 Oct 2007 at 11:31 am

    Thanks Maarten, it seems there are a few countries affected.

  31. # Megon 30 Oct 2007 at 4:43 pm

    Seems like StumbleUpon is working again.