Google constantly reloads on all computers and all browsers

[Betty]

Beginning yesterday, google.com stopped working for my house. Either going to google.com or using the toolbar results in a google page that never displays and just reloads over and over again.

Yahoo works fine.

Bing works fine unless I search for "google constantly reloads" or similar and then it results in an error and closes. (coincidence?)

We have 2 laptops that connect wirelessly and 2 desktops. All experience the same issue with google reloading. (I didn't test the bing thing with the error message on all computers.)

I'm running a virus scan on my computer right now. Does that sound like a virus though? One that just affects google? Weird. I've rebooted our router.

Any ideas?

[Betty]

I can also not reach google images. (it refreshes constantly)

google mail - I get the can't display this page message.
google maps loads just fine.
google shopping and news refresh repeatedly.

[Betty]

Bing crashes repeated on many searches but not all.

Yahoo is just fine.

is this a ploy by Yahoo to force me to use them? ;)

[Betty]

I want to add this as well:

--- http://gooogle.com ping statistics --- 9 Packets transmitted, 0 Packets received, 100% lost

(that's using the ping test on my router's utilities)

Can't ping google from a command prompt on my laptop either of course.

[Moonliner]

Given the multiple computers, it sound like DNS poisoning.

If I said try updating your DNS resolver to a different server (like open DNS at 208.67.222.222 208.67.220.220) would that help or just confuse?

[Betty]

That's something I can look up on (stupid) yahoo and probably figure out. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction. :)

[Betty]

That fixed it! Yay!

now - I need to find out how this happened.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Probably nothing on your end. Sounds like your service provider's DNS (the system responsible for receiving the address you enter and mapping that to the correct location on the internet) is either broken or got hacked or something. But with it happening to all of your computers at once, odds are it's nothing you need to worry about.

[Betty]

Thanks for helping me fix it.

[Moonliner]

Probably nothing on your end. Sounds like your service provider's DNS (the system responsible for receiving the address you enter and mapping that to the correct location on the internet) is either broken or got hacked or something. But with it happening to all of your computers at once, odds are it's nothing you need to worry about.

Assuming it's not her router that was hacked.

[Betty]

How would I find that out?

[Ghoulish Delight]

You might be able to tell from the router's activity log.

[Betty]

It's doing it again - but just on my computer (wireless) and not hers (wired). I changed the dns to the new settings in the tcp/ip properties on her computer and it seemed to fix both. I went in and changed the username and password on our router (it was not the default before but just to be sure) and also the wep to something longer and randomly generated.


I went about browsing - did some things on facebook on an alternate account I use that has many people I don't know as friends. (to play some stupid game with no productive real world results, sigh.) I'm hoping I haven't been subjected to some exploit related to this so I thought I'd mention it.

I go to google again and now it's doing the same thing - but only on my computer.

My computer - running Windows 7 - has 2 tcp/ip settings. I am able to change IPv4 but if I get an error changing IPv6's that says the network address entered is invalid.

Any ideas?

[Betty]

Huh. Not doing it now. I give up.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Huh. Not doing it now. I give up.
Your computer keeps a local copy of info for recently visited sites, so it doesn't have to waste time asking the DNS every time for the information. That cache probably hadn't cleared yet.

ETA: ipV6 settings are generally automatically generated based on your ipv4 settings, don't worry about ipv6 (yet)

[Moonliner]

Did you change the DNS settings in the router? In theory that is where your PC should be pulling it's DNS settings from (via DHCP) Look for a LAN or Local Network settings page.

[Alex]

When it is happening connect your internet directly to the computer instead of the router and see if it still happens. If not, then put the router back in the loop and see if it returns.

If cutting your router out of the loop fixes it, it is something in your router. If not, then either it is your ISP or your computer. The fact that it happened to multiple computers simultaneously (at least for a while) would indicate ISP.

[Betty]

I did change it on the router after it started to do it again - but it was still doing it. As long as it's working now, I guess I shoudn't complain.