Constant 404 error message on Fileserve

[gyoza ramen & a beer]

11-19-11 update: I changed the title of this thread to be more specific and maybe attract more attention...

I know it's a banned host but I'm assuming there's a lot of users like myself who use it outside of Akiba. The download speeds are--for this corner of N. America--second only to megaupload in speed and duration. They hardly ever delete posts, etc.....

Then yesterday, newly posted files were not available. As of today, I can't access ANY Fileserve posts. I'm not having problems with any of the other hosting sites, so I don't think my ISP is implicated.

Anybody else encountering this? Are they suddenly under legal scrutiny the way Hotfile was/is? It's weird, the site even loads differently; it's subtle but different.

This is gonna be a huge loss.

Thanks,

G,R & B

 

[javhoarder]

I just loaded up a random link and encountered the same problem (download link never appears).

I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that this is in any way related to legal issues though. FileSonic also had some site-wide outages for a several hours not too long ago. I think that in general, cash hosts don't invest as much into infrastructure (redundancy), and are thus more subject to outages caused by hardware troubles. I'd only start to worry if this was an ongoing issue for more than a day or two.

 

[gyoza ramen & a beer]

Thanks for your response, javhoarder, but the problem's still there after two days and I think something else is going on.

I forgot to mention that every link comes up "404 - file not found"--a message type I never once previously encountered in years of using Fileserve. There would occasionally be "file was deleted" messages but none of these suddenly-everywhere 404s.

But the really creepy thing is the prominence of the red-highlighted "become a premium member" prompts that accompany these 404s; implying as they do that premium members won't have any trouble finding their files.

 

[javhoarder]

Just tried to download a file again and it worked fine.

404s don't necessarily mean that the file was deleted. That could also indicate that the generated token (string of random characters) is some way invalid. Hosts basically have dozens/hundreds of file servers and relatively few web/db servers that run the site and handle access to the file servers. Since I couldn't get a link generated at all the other day, it seems likely that they were having issues with an access control server.

I've pretty much come to expect temporary outages from hosts, although usually the issue is isolated to one file server (usually overloaded).

 

[gyoza ramen & a beer]

Day 4, still unable to d'l ANY fileserve links...

 

[javhoarder]

Hmm, how about this one? I just downloaded it successfully. It might just be you.

Also, when I last tried, I didn't have much luck with Jdownloader and Fileserve (in my case, captcha would fail even when typed correctly). Try using your browser.

 

[gyoza ramen & a beer]

Hmm, how about this one? I just downloaded it successfully. It might just be you.

Also, when I last tried, I didn't have much luck with Jdownloader and Fileserve (in my case, captcha would fail even when typed correctly). Try using your browser.

Tried your link and, nope, couldn't d'l it. 404'd again. I think you're right, at this point it must be me...

Tried it with and without proxies and have been using my browser throughout. No problems with other hosts. Was suspicious that a change to "prompt for 3rd party cookies" was somehow responsible but reversing it to accept made no difference.

Can't figure this one out...but in the meantime, thanks for your replies & suggestions, javhoarder. Good of you.

 

[gyoza ramen & a beer]

Weird...

I just typed a response to javhoarder's last suggestions and got a warning dialogue box that my reply contained "...certain keywords..." and would not appear until a moderator reviewed it. It flashed on & off so quickly there wasn't time to read all of it. Never encountered it before.

What the hell?

 

[IdolFun]

What the hell?

All posts with a Fileserve link have to be approved by a Mod

 

[javhoarder]

I just remembered something. When I had premium, sometimes I'd run into a problem where a particular server's IP address changed (ISP DNS sucked). This can cause 404s, because your computer can be contacting the wrong file server.

When you get a 404 on a server, note the subdomain (e.g. "fs505d24.fileserve.com").

Ping this from the command prompt and note down the IP address. Also ping the server on Network-Tools and see if the IP address matches. If not, then your DNS records are outdated. You can try flushing your DNS cache with "ipconfig /flushdns" and see if your computer gets it right this time.

I ended up switching over to Google DNS, and the issues were resolved.

 

[gyoza ramen & a beer]

You can try flushing your DNS cache with "ipconfig /flushdns" and see if your computer gets it right this time.

I ended up switching over to Google DNS, and the issues were resolved.

Interesting. I just was reading about this a few hours ago. Will give it a try...

 

[Ceewan]

Interesting. I just was reading about this a few hours ago. Will give it a try...

I am sorry I did not notice this thread earlier or I could have informed you as to what was happening. Yousr ISP is blocking access to fileserve. My guess is you might reside somewhere in the UK.

http://torrentfreak.com/uk-internet-blacklist-censors-fileserve-file-hosting-service-111118/

That is just a guess on your location, not your situation. Instead of recieving a 403 error message an ISP blacklist acts as if the host does not exist at all and you will get a 404 error message. There are simple ways around this block. This is not to infer that downloading or accessing fileserve will be easy but the solutions themselves are fairly easy:

1.Your best bet is probably to get a VPN, (Virtual Private Network), which will probably have the least degradation on upload and download speeds. Here is a list of choices from torrentfreak:
http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-providers-really-take-anonymity-seriously-111007/

2. You could use a proxy service outside your country, I would suggest a free one if available, (just google "free proxy server"). I don't normally suggest such services because they log usage, (usually by law and/or for their own protection), and therefore are not normally very anonymous but in this case that should not be a concern. However since I no longer use them myself anymore I can no longer suggest any particular service.

3. You could go old-school and find a free proxy yourself at "samair.ru" or some other free proxy list site. The trouble with that is; It can be an agonizing process finding a: currently working proxy, one that has good speed and one that someone is not already using to access fileserve, (which nine times out of ten somebody is). Tor would be a great answer but not only is it very slow but the same problems apply.

These methods are guaranteed to work. I bypass my ISPs' blacklist on a daily basis. To be honest I forget whcih sites are blocked. Using proxies I have even come across ISPs' that block Akiba-Online. Censorship on the internet is worldwide. Lucky for us they all don't agree on what and who should be censored.

 

[javhoarder]

Ah, I hadn't considered that Ceewan.

Hotspot Shield is also technically a VPN (free, ad-supported, but you can block the ads). Speeds were pretty decent last I tried.

 

[gyoza ramen & a beer]

First off, thanks to javhoarder for all the help & suggestions and also to ceewan for weighing in today--especially with the information on a VPN.

When nothing--including clearing the DNS cache, resetting the Winsock catalog, a reset of the firewall settings, disk clean-up, proxies--produced any change in the Fileserve problem AND then other hosting sites were unresponsive, it dawned on me that the problem had to be something I was doing.

Sure enough, Fileserve, MU, WU and others were listed as "Always Block" in the "Per Site Privacy Action" section of IE. While I would never have chosen to block Fileserve and the other hosters, the problem had/has to be that I was wrong in my understanding of designating/blocking 3rd party cookies in IE. Fileserve is back, so the problem seems to be resolved although now the cable modem is acting squirreley requiring daily resets after large downloads.

My thanks again to javhoarder & ceewan.

 

[Ceewan]

That hadn't occurred to me but of course something along those lines should have, (I have been the victim of my own security settings more than once). I am very glad you found the problem. Might I suggest ditching IE and trying Mozilla for a change? As a rule I always clear all blocklists in my browser but the fact that those sites were in any blocklist provided, I assume, by Microsoft, is cause for concern.

If you don't have it I might suggest installing CCleaner as it very well might improve browser and computer performance by cleaning up old registry files and other dirty bits, (honestly, I know of a professional that reccomends it to his clients). Of course, it is freeware.
http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download/standard

I am very glad you solved your problem. As far as any advice on the cable modem goes....maybe it is just time to drop by your cable company and exchange it for a new one, (saves you the price of a service call). My last modem couldn't handle all my bittorent traffic and after a few times spent with my ISP techs and some suspicious attitudes as to how it was my fault my modem kept "blowing up", I took my own advice and got a different model from them and now the thing runs like a champ. Good luck.

 

[gyoza ramen & a beer]

Kind of you to take the time in providing the good advice and helpful links in your two posts, ceewan.

And yeah, I've been down that road you're describing with ISP techs once already which is probably why I'm slouching along with a cable-modem that seems to have developed a digital version of exercise-induced asthma, i.e., if I go much over a gig-and-a-half in a day it starts wheezing...

Again, my thanks.