What Happened to SC4Devotion/BSC exchange?

[Blueball 20]

Originally posted by: zapor1

I doubt it'll get fixed. sc4devotion isn't that widely used anymore.quote>

lol....that was funny. There's by far better quality on SC4D than on the STEX,  which is slowly being invaded by (I don't wanna say that word) *uploads* and traffic is about the same there as here. You're just being negative, be patient, these things may take a day or two.

Try emptying your temp folder to get to the site.

[x493x 446]

Wierd, doesn't work for me.

[StanislavSoltys 47]

For me it just opens to a website searching for "main".

[Reid Lockhart 0]

I don't know if I can explain the details, but if it IS, just temporary, the reason some people can access it and some cannot is that DNS servers around the coutnry may update slower than others.  It should all be hammered out in a day or two.  Be patient.

If it's down for good, of course, RIP s4dev...

[Samness 104]

Don't know why some are getting it while others aren't... Maybe it depends on location? How about a test: Post here your location and whether or not you get the right site.

For me,

Phoenix, AZ

Get squatter

[Grneyes78 0]

Philadelphia, PA. Squatter site about downloading iTunes...

[seminolefan4ever 0]

Fort Walton Beach, FL - Squatter site

[zapor1 7]

new york city - squatter site.

[halicem 16]

wait for it folks, this is all dependent on your ISP aka internet company. If you're ISP is great, they refresh their address book regularly even every hour. But if its not too good, they may take up to a day. Technically, no ISP waits 48 hours but that is the max allowed wait time usually.

Should it ever go down again, use this direct link found by doing a little digging and some guessing... http://74.52.84.74/~jeronij/

As we all know, all websites are hosted on servers. These servers have an IP address which are the numbers. Think of it like phone numbers. But they are incredibly hard to remember, imagine telling people to visit your site at 674.512.352.124. Impossible to remember. Hence we use domain names to help us remember them. Whenever you type in a domain name, your computer first checks locally if it already knows it, or if the information is still good(usually a day old max). If its not, it asks it from your ISP. Your ISP will have that information cached too. Every few hours, your ISP will refresh that information from one of the 13 global address books aka "the main servers of the internet" aka ICANN servers. When ever a domain expires, the actual number is replaced by whoever you bought the domain entry from, usually they are replaced by "landing pages" until its renewed. During that time, the site actually doesn't go down, just that everyone forgot the site's phone number. So that link above uses the direct phone number and will always be up, unless sc4d moves to another host and its given a new phone number.

But all in all, no cause for panic, happens all the time =)

[MattShizzle 11]

Bernville (near Reading), PA - squatter site I said before.

[Grneyes78 0]

I don't think we're panicking....just impatient. :-)

[The Bluejay 40]

Devon, UK - Squatter.

I'm getting withdrawal symptons here! *twitch*

[halicem 16]

To add to my post above- noticed that they are using hard-coded links so you'll get to the home page but click on any link and you'll probably get those nasty landing pages again.

If you can't wait, you can tell your computer to always use their IP address for that domain by following these instructions:

- Open notepad as Administrator. Right-click, Run as administrator.

- Open up open file, where it says "Text Documents (*.txt)", change that to "All Files".

- Browse to "C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc", same for all Windows including 32/64 bit flavors

- Open "hosts" file

- Add these lines to the end:

74.52.84.74 sc4devotion.com

74.52.84.74 www.sc4devotion.com

- Hit Save.

- Open "Command Prompt" (Start -> Accessories)

- Type in "ipconfig /flushdns"

- You may need to restart your browser in case your browser has already cached that information.

- Browse sc4devotion.com normally!

This is a common trick used by web developers and such to test production website launches without actually launching it.

Phoenix, AZ btw and all fine here!

[zapor1 7]

anyone mind testing what halicem said?

[joshriddle 29]

Originally posted by: zapor1

anyone mind testing what halicem said?quote>

No. I am not going to screw around with my (our) IP adress, since everyone in the family uses it.

I'm in Fort Worth, TX, and I am getting the normal site.

[Sniper296 83]

Originally posted by: zapor1

anyone mind testing what halicem said?quote>

It works fine.

You may need to run Notepad as admin to edit hosts & cmd as admin to flush dns.

Originally posted by: joshriddle

No. I am not going to screw around with my (our) IP adress, since everyone in the family uses it.

I'm in Fort Worth, TX, and I am getting the normal site.

quote>

It only affects the computer that you edit hosts on.

[CaptCity 4,915]

As explained by halicem (thanks for that     ),  the domain renewal is "Standard Operating Procedure." Please refrain from making "me too" posts.

[x493x 446]

It seems the whole of the USA and Canada is down.

Temporarily I hope........

[warrior 169]

going direcly to the IP address just seems to go to a control panel page. Wierdly I just got an email saying someone replied to a topic there, even though the site is offline.

[WC_EEND 9]

thanks for the trick halicem, it works like a charm now

(normal site here in Gent, Belgium)

[DocRorlach 25]

Originally posted by: zapor1

anyone mind testing what halicem said?quote>

Here in London, UK, SC4D/LEX are showing the strange site, which appears to be a domain parking site. which in turn tallies with what has been emailed to me as a case of expired domain name.

Halicem's "solution" does not appear to work here - all we get is an Apache server anouncement. And I would not recommend anyone messing with their DNS tables.

[paroxysm 2]

San Francisco, CA, USA

I'm getting the squatter.

[Wiecher 192]

In the Netherlands...

Nothing at all, only 'page cannot be displayed' text.

not even a squatter or something like that.

[simmaster07 1,221]

Originally posted by: DocRorlach

Halicem's "solution" does not appear to work here - all we get is an Apache server anouncement. And I would not recommend anyone messing with their DNS tables.

quote>

Even though editing the hosts file is not only completely harmless, but should anything go wrong, it's completely reversible. Simply delete or comment out the line you added.

I'm still getting the squatter. However, this is all dependent on your ISP, not location. As explained (brilliantly, I might add) by halicem, some ISPs will refresh their DNS every hour, while some, although unlikely, only refresh every 48 hours. Give it some time, and you should be back on SC4D without issue.

The problem is that the domain was not renewed before most users' ISPs refreshed their DNS cache. Since the domain wasn't renewed, the domain registrar takes back control of it and leads it to a squatter site. ISPs now get the IP address of a squatter site, and that is where you get sent, whereas the faster/slower ISPs are currently showing SC4D.

Originally posted by: warrior

going direcly to the IP address just seems to go to a control panel page. Wierdly I just got an email saying someone replied to a topic there, even though the site is offline.quote>

The actual site is still operational, just that you can't reach the site via the human-readable address (sc4devotion.com). This doesn't affect the automated tasks, though, and a few other users can still reach the site.

[blade2k5 1,523]

I must have one of those 'rare' every 48/hrs refresh of the ISP's.

[MattShizzle 11]

I use Comcast - and since it's a high-end provider I would think they refresh more - and still the squatter site.

[Grneyes78 0]

Originally posted by: MattShizzle

I use Comcast - and since it's a high-end provider I would think they refresh more - and still the squatter site.quote>

Seriously! I can't believe Comcast doesn't update it's ISPs more than every 48 hours.....My husband works for Comcast and he has no clue how often they refresh stuff. :-(

[glopy19 1]

DFW-Squatter itunes site

[simmaster07 1,221]

Well I know for a fact that the site hasn't been down for 48 hours. Give it time. If it isn't back in 12 hours, then we have a problem.

[Ryan123220 18]

Ontario, Canada. Squatter site for me.