Can't load IC apps or sites -- Local device issue

General
1

Hi all!

For months I accessed ICP apps flawlessly from my main laptop. As of 8-9 days ago, I have been entirely unable to load/access/use ICP apps or sites (NNS, ICPS, Openchat, Kongswap, InternetComputer .org, etc) from this particular laptop. (Macbook Pro running Monterey).

When I try to load, I get " This site can’t be reached nns.ic0.app took too long to respond."

I know the issue is local to my device, because using another Macbook on the same wifi connection, I’m able to access IC apps 100% successfully. Also I can access all apps from my iPhone with zero issues. However, I desperately need to resolve the issue on my main working laptop.

I have tried the following to no avail:

  1. Reseting my wifi network driver, trying different internet connection entirely, and ethernet
  2. Trying different browsers (chrome, safari, brave), clearing browser cache, using private tab
  3. Connecting with AND without VPN
  4. Flushing DNS
  5. Disabling ad blocker,
  6. Disabling anti-virus
  7. Resyncing date & time to network

None of these solutions have worked. Somehow IC sites/apps are still being “blocked”/timing out. I’ve connected with handful of others on X who are experiencing the issue and have no way to resolve it.

Any and all suggested solutions will be extremely appreciated!

Thanks in advance IC Community

Chris Yost

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This happens to me once a day, every single IC-hosted website fails. I have to connect to VPN to fix it. Even reinstalling the OS doesn’t help so I guess its a boundary node/ISP issue.

4

I think there must be a bad boundary node in the UK or France, as VPN connections there also fail.

Albania works though!

EDIT: No Albania did not work. I think this is a 24H1 cryptography bug in Windows, that’s my only explanation for it. Going to update, and if it happens again I’ll do more digging.

5

Hello @chrisyost21

Sorry for the delayed response and sorry for the inconveniences you are experiencing! Does the problem still persist?

The boundary nodes do have an automated banning of misbehaving clients in place. For this to kick in, you need to send thousands of requests per second and a ban will only last for a few minutes. So, I don’t think that you are suffering from that.

Also, since you can reach the IC from your other computer, it is unlikely that you are being banned.

Have you tried a simple curl? Does it also fail?

curl -sLv -X GET \
    --resolve nns.ic0.app:443:147.75.202.74 \
    https://nns.ic0.app
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6

This has been happening for years for heavy IC users, DDOS protection from the boundary nodes is way too strict right now and DFINITY should really consider asking them to make them more lax if they want any sort of significant adoption.

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Thank you very much for the response!

The problem still persists in Google Chrome and Brave, but I realized that I am able to access ICP apps/sites using Safari.

Any ideas on why I am unable to access ICP via Chrome/Brave?

Thanks all!

9

Try turning off all of the privacy protections and add blocks etc, especially with Brave.

10

SOLUTION – I realized the problem was that I had Bitdefender VPN network extension enabled (Login items & extensions > Network extensions). So even though my VPN wasn’t actively connected, the bitfender extension was still blocking it in the background. :man_facepalming:

Thanks to everybody who tried to help me find a solution to this pesky issue :pray: