Once in a while you go to check out your personal website, or to log into your company web email and you can't. For the average person going about their daily tasks this can be stressful and what to do can be even more confusing. How do you tell if its your computer or its the website itself, maybe its just a blip, or maybe you should contact somebody! If you are part of a small organization, you may be the only one who has noticed, and you won't be able to access the system until somebody is alerted of the problem.
This tutorial is a troubleshooting tutorial. My goal is to help you find out if is the computer, the website, the webserver, or the internet that is at fault, and who you should contact depending. Some people take the troubleshooting to mean doing something techincal, but the goal in troubleshooting is to test possible problems and eliminating the most common and simple problems first.
Step 1 - Make sure you are on the internet and your comptuter is functioning properly.I know you are pretty sure you are on the internet, probably because you are viewing this site. Lets just double check right quick!
The first thing that anyone should do if they can't access a website is make sure you are on the internet. How do you do this... go to another web page then the one that just might be down. Just create a new browser tab in firefox, or if you are using Internet Explorer create a tab or a new window.
Click-> File - > New window... or New Tab
Now you have a new browser window open. For the sake of simplicity, in the address bar, type in jibwa.com. If my page loads and you see my logo then you are on the internet, which you probably already knew, but it never hurts to double check. I am not much of a yahoo user, so I like to type yahoo.com in when I do this step.
'The Address Bar' - I know its probably obvious to some, but for the sake of clarity the 'address bar' is the name of the area you type in a website name in your browser. After you type jibwa.com and hit enter, it automatically changes what you typed to http://jibwa.com
The last thing to do, and this is only if you have the option, is type
in the address on another computer. Its pretty common in a company to
call somebody at another office and see if they can get to the site.
You can also call a friend, or someone you know who is at a computer
and see if they can get to the site.
If they can get to the
site, and you can't, do the right thing and try a restart. Maybe do a
power cycle on your cable modem and router as well if you are at home.
(See home internet troubleshooting tutorial)
Step 2 - Double check your link, try a different part of the site
Most people have a set of links bookmarked, or they start to type the address in the browser address bar and the browser completes what is being typed. Others type the whole name in every time. However you go about it, when you type in the address and press enter, the name stays in the address bar. Check what you have there double check it for typos, spaces, double slashes, double dots, spaces before or after the address....
So it looks good and now we are sure its not mispelled. Lets try and simplify the link that you are using. By simplifying the link we are better able to know that the website is completely down, or just a portion of it. Lets just say that we were trying to go to
jibwa.com/mjp/home2.html
The browser probably says http://jibwa.com/mjp/home2.html.
What we want to know here is whether all of the website is down, or perhaps if the piece we are trying to view has moved, or is malfunctioning? Just to keep it interesting I am going to introduce terms: jibwa.com is what I will call the root of my website. You can't get any simpler then jibwa.com without going to another website, or to a non existant website. If you typed jibwa.co or just jibwa, you wouldn't be going to my website.
So lets simplify your link. I am going to remove all the 'stuff' in my link, jibwa.com/mjp/home2.html , I am going to highlight
/mjp/home2.html and hit delete
Now my browser just says, jibwa.com. Whatever website link you have, get rid of anything after the .com, .org, .net, .tv, or whatever domain you are on.
A 'domain' is a word with many meanings, in this case arizona.edu is on the edu (Educational) domain. mail.google.ru is on the Russia domain, etc.
One of two things can happen here, first the root of the website doesn't load properly. This means you are almost done. Goto The root didn't load
Two, the root loaded, you are also almost done.The root loaded
The root didn't loadSo it looks like more then just your link is broken, the site is probably completely down and somebody needs to be notified. If you have an IT department or guru, call them, tell them that you are sure you are on the intenet, and not just your link or bookmark, but the whole site is not responding. If you get any guff ask them to type the root in the browser. They won't be irritated and will get the site up as soon as possible, or contact someone who can. You might even get a new respect or maybe even a new monitor!
If you don't have IT to contact then you have a few options depending on the situation. I'll try to cover the most common options... after I define another term
Hosting company - The company that you, or somebody in your organization paid to put your website on the internet. You may have also bought your domain name from them. I bought my domain name jibwa.com from google.com, but I have my website hosted by a company called Rackspace. It is common that somebody else set this up and has left. When this happens it can be tricky to track down your hosting company. Check records and ask anyone involved with the site, someone has to know, if not there will be a seperate tutorial for finding hosting and DNS information!
-Is it possible that nobody paid the bill to the hosting company? This happens a lot and when that happens the hosting company shuts your site down. Find out who your hosting company is and contact their customer support
-Has there been anybody working on the site recently, has it been moved, or has it been having other issues? It might be that it is down for a reason. You should contact whoever is working on it, or someone who knows that person/organization and tell them the whole site is down. It happens from time to time that a web designer meant to only disable a small piece and accidently brings the whole thing down.
-The other two options don't fit? Figure out who the hosting company is and call them or find someone that can.
The root of the site loaded
Here is where you have to stop and think for a second. What is it that you are trying to load? Is it a web tool, like an email system, or a company portal? Or perhaps its just a link to a page that you watch for updates?
It is common that internal links change. One day you might get to your webmail at yourcompany.com/mail, and the next it may be at mail.yourcompany.com. Same with standard webpages. There are two cases here.
1.) You work with an organization that has a web team, or in the least, someone else who manages the website.
If this is the case start at the root of the site and see if it mentions anything about sytem updates, or perhaps see if you can follow the site around and link to whatever it is you are looking for from within the webpage, if you are able to find it, then your bookmark is just out of date. If you can't get there then you should probably contact IT or the person in charge of the design and ask about it.
2.) You would know if something was supposed to change.
Assuming that nobody is working on the site, and nobody should be doing updates on the server, if you have internal IT, contact them, if not, find out who manages the website. If that person is you, find your hosting company (defined above), and call their support number!
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