Attention: webmaster - CenturyLink connection problems.

[Nuck Fitzsimmons]

Since this seems to be the only way I can notify anyone I'm posting this here.

About 4 months ago I discovered I could no longer access www.racedepartment.com through my home system. I contacted CenturyLink tech support and they tried a number of "fixes," including replacing my model twice. It puzzled them because this is the only site I can't get to. I get a consistent Page not found error.

After the second modem replacement the CenturyLink tech doing the replacement discovered that he was unable to access the website through his own CenturyLink connection. He told me he would escalate this to Level 2 network support.

Last week (3 months later) CenturyLink network support left a voicemail on my phone telling me that there is a problem with one of racedepartment's certificates, and that CenturyLink is blocking the site until the site's webmaster fixes the problem.

I hope someone can fix this, since it's the only access I have for Assetto Corsa downloads.

If someone needs to contact me it will need to be through my email address, since I can't access the site at all from my home. I'm currently posting this message from a computer at my local public library.

Thank you.

Nick Fitzsimmons

 

[Neilski]

Hi Nick.
Sorry to hear you are having problems.
Not to put too fine a point on it, CenturyLink appear to be a bunch of total clowns. 3 months to get a passing-the-buck answer is just a shameful level of customer service.
We recently had a similar thread and that was also related to CenturyLink. See https://www.racedepartment.com/threads/my-isp-centurylink-blocking-racedepartment.146827/ for some discussion, and also a tip about changing your DNS settings which entirely "cures" the problem for some users. (The real cure in my view would be to get a new ISP )

Needless to say I'd appreciate it if you could get them to be a bit more specific about the supposed issue with our website. I seriously doubt you'll get it from them though, because it sounds like nonsense.

I will email you a copy of this info, but for the benefit of both you and any others reading this, please be aware that since Google (and other search engines) visit our website regularly, you can often keep up with threads just by googling them (and optionally limiting your results to our site).
E.g. you might want to google with a search term like "centurylink site:racedepartment.com".

EDIT NB: Sorry - I forgot (D'oh!!) to add here that after googling the threads, you need to read the cached version, not simply click on the link to RD itself. To read the cached version on Google's own servers, simply click on the teeny little arrow and then click on "Cached". See pic for an example.

 

[Nuck Fitzsimmons]

Hi Nick.
Sorry to hear you are having problems.
Not to put too fine a point on it, CenturyLink appear to be a bunch of total clowns. 3 months to get a passing-the-buck answer is just a shameful level of customer service.
We recently had a similar thread and that was also related to CenturyLink. See https://www.racedepartment.com/threads/my-isp-centurylink-blocking-racedepartment.146827/ for some discussion, and also a tip about changing your DNS settings which entirely "cures" the problem for some users. (The real cure in my view would be to get a new ISP )

Needless to say I'd appreciate it if you could get them to be a bit more specific about the supposed issue with our website. I seriously doubt you'll get it from them though, because it sounds like nonsense.

I will email you a copy of this info, but for the benefit of both you and any others reading this, please be aware that since Google (and other search engines) visit our website regularly, you can often keep up with threads just by googling them (and optionally limiting your results to our site).
E.g. you might want to google with a search term like "centurylink site:racedepartment.com".

You're correct; CenturyLink is a bunch of clowns, but there's damn all I can do about it. I even tried setting up a VPN, but everything gets blocked, including my tablet, and even my phone unless I disable wifi first. Read the linked thread you referenced, and I'd already tried changing DNS servers based on a recommendation from a close friend who is a professional network manager with 20 years experience. Even he couldn't make it work!

Changing ISP's isn't really an option, since my other choice is Comcast/Xfinity, and if you think CenturyLink support is bad, try Comcast. I'd rather crawl naked across 100 years of broken glass than ever deal with them again.

I suppose I could connect from my local library as I am doing now, but the problem there is that they allocate timed sessions and I can barely have enough time for a single download in the tile I'm allotted.

Not sure what I'll do now. Having spent 30 years working in IT and networking before I retired this whole issue is stupid. As I mentioned in my original post even CenturyLink techs aren't given this information!

I guess I'll stop by the library in a couple of days and see if there are any other responses to this thread.

Thanks anyway.

 

[Neilski]

Sorry to hear your ISP options are so limited.

I'm a little surprised to hear that the DNS change didn't work for you, given that it worked for others, but that's certainly not outside the bounds of the possible.

What is basically impossible though, is for CL to block a VPN connection to RD. Did you mean that you didn't manage to get the VPN working at all, or that it worked but you still couldn't connect to RD?
The former might mean a setup issue because it's unlikely that any sensible (oh, wait... ) ISP in the USA would prevent you from using VPNs.
The latter is strictly impossible unless you were still using CL's DNS servers or (unlikely) the VPN provider also blocks RD, or (massively unlikely) your PC was set up by CL themselves and has some sort of built-in blocking which prevents connections to RD.

If you've already got the pieces in place to use a VPN then that's great, because it will allow you to sidestep CL's restrictions entirely. (Unless of course I'm overlooking something pretty major!) You'll just perhaps need to do a little tweaking (e.g. changing DNS servers) to get it functioning. I'll try to assist if I can.