02-11-2010, 03:54 PM

Honestly I do not know where this would fall under or what to even search for to see if this has been addressed before. Let me explain

The other night I logged in and went to check my mail in the Mail app. Both accounts use gmail. They wont work. I then proceed to check online that doesnt work. I go to google . com and that does not work. I keep getting the error "Can not be found etc." I restarted and still same problem. Any google site including other countries does not work and get the same error. I tried Youtube. That does not work, last I knew googled owned it or hosts or whatever and I think any site by google does not work.

I re-imaged my laptop and brought my old account back from Time Machine. And then it worked fine. Like nothing happened. Today I went to online and browsed sites that use flash. Dont hate but went to play a game on facebook and the browsers kept "not responding". I restarted and the whole google problem started up again.

I am in college and the IT people were baffled and havent gotten back to me yet about the problem. I cant see it being a router issue since others on the network are not having any problems Mac OSX or Windows.

Almost forgot the first time before the re-image. I pinged and so did IT Google and got nothing back.

I hope I gave enough detail for the problem and if you need more please let me know.

So...what are your thoughts???



Key Points if its too much to read:


* Anything google (google, gmail, international google sites, youtube (I believe is owned by google), etc. will not load and gets a browser cant find error

* Pinged google.com and got nothing back

* IT Dept is baffled has no idea what is going on at the moment

* Did a re-image and brought back old account...worked perfectly

* Restarted as the browser when visiting flash based sites seemed would make the browser not responsive

* google problem started again after restart

* back to square 1

02-11-2010, 04:52 PM

Does anyone need more info or have no idea as well? heh :?

02-11-2010, 04:54 PM

Things to try:

Ping google's IP not hostname (try 8.8.8.8 or 8.8.4.4)
Try a different browser
Clear your cache

Let us know if those do anything. You could try a reimage without restoring your account, go to the flash site, restart and see if you have the problem again. That way we'd know if it was an issue with any 3rd party software

02-11-2010, 05:04 PM

What's in your hosts file? perhaps there's some entries in there that points Google someplace else

open Terminal and run this command:
cat /etc/hosts

You shouldn't see any google or youtube entries.

02-11-2010, 05:06 PM

I have not not tried to Ping googles IP so will do that ASAP

Tried Firefox and Safari...Both does not work

Cleared cache


The account one I overlooked. I already tried it with a new account before I restored mine and it worked. I restored mine and never went back to the other account since it worked on my old one.
Ill have to reimage and restart on the new account with out restoring. If last resort Ill have to redo my laptop.

Thankfully this happened close to a weekend. I need it for class and obviously communication.


Im not fimilar with networking stuff so Im not sure what is in my hosts file. Ill run the command once I am back.

Thanks for the ideas. Will get back tonight.

02-11-2010, 05:15 PM

Have noticed that Google with uTube, Gmail, etc are trying to get it all under one login/password and it irks me no end. Used to be i could go straight into Gmail, now i have to deal with ending up in uTube when i want Gmail vice versa. Also irks me big time that GoogleEarth has auto update function which means user has no control over when it happens - got rid of that little nasty. Intend to resist mightily their efforts to get me under their thumb completely.

02-12-2010, 12:14 AM

Wellll. After doing what everyone said nothing worked. I then did a reimage and got everything back from Time Machine except the applications. I started to add one by one searching in google for the site to get it from. Now this is the kicker and a pretty obvious thing if you think about. I got the application Peer Guardian, installed it then the same problem happened. I then went into the settings and looked at the active block log. What do you know! Everything that wont work is marked red. One of those filters was blocking it. Weird thing is it isnt running before when it was blocking everything.

I allowed the one setting and all works now though if that setting is on, that means spyware and what not has a better chance of getting in, correct? Is there a way to add google and etc. to an exception list?

02-12-2010, 02:53 AM

Ive never had spyware issues with OSX, and I work in IT. You shouldn't even need peer guardian. But if it makes you feel safer then by all means use it and you should be fine if you add an exception for Google.

02-12-2010, 08:47 AM

There's no spyware for OS X.

The reason we didn't recognise the now-familiar hand of the overzealous Peer Guardian is because very few of us use it. And now you know why.

Peer Guardian serves no useful purpose on a computer not breaking the law.

02-14-2010, 01:29 AM

It might of actually not been 100% this problem.. A few moments ago I noticed my AIM was not working. Sometimes it disconnects but I tried going to google. That worked I tired going to break.com that didnt work. What info would be needed for everyone to solve this issue?


----------
Sorry for the premature post. I did not uninstall peer guardian properly.

Ive been told it is good to have that program if you are connected to a network that is not your own (coffee shop, airport etc.) to hide your IP so no one can track you. Is that true or is there a better program for such a thing?

02-14-2010, 02:28 AM

Well, you've already seen how much trouble that can cause, are you sure you want to pursue it again?

How about just turning on the software firewall if you feel you need it. I've been using Macs for 20+ years now and not felt the need.

02-14-2010, 03:05 AM

No I rather not pursue it again but wasn't sure if it was needed. I do have it turned on as well. Thats good to know then 20+ year user has never felt the need. Thanks for the info