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How to get this peacock to display?
#26630 09/07/13 04:28 PM
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For the last few weeks I have not been able to access the web site of of British developer PeacockMedia, let alone download updates posted there during that time. I can ping and trace it just fine. What am I missing?


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Re: How to get this peacock to display?
alternaut #26631 09/07/13 04:55 PM
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Originally Posted By: alternaut
For the last few weeks I have not been able to access the web site of of British developer PeacockMedia, let alone download updates posted there during that time. I can ping and trace it just fine. What am I missing?


I think they changed their web site name/address and did not set up a forward on the old page.

I Googled the name and three or four of the first links listed just stalled. But this one worked: http://www.peacockmediagroup.co.uk

Notice addition of "group". Is this it?


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Re: How to get this peacock to display?
Ira L #26632 09/07/13 05:40 PM
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Thanks for trying Ira, but PeacockMediaGroup (IP address 79.170.44.209) is a marketing firm, and distinct from PeacockMedia (IP address 213.171.218.130) the software developer whose site I'm trying to reach. For more relevant returns, see this Google search, in which I added the name 'Shiela Dixon' ('Chief Hen' at PM) to the search term. I cannot load any page of the peacockmedia.co.uk domain, but Dixon's blog (different domain) loads just fine.


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Re: How to get this peacock to display?
alternaut #26633 09/07/13 06:01 PM
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Your link got me to <http://peacockmedia.co.uk/%E2%80%8E> and

Quote:
Oooops

This is embarrassing - you seem to have found a broken link. Please use the menus on the left or above to find the page you were looking for.


When I deleted the characters after / <http://peacockmedia.co.uk> loaded just fine.

Have you tried disabling extensions?


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Re: How to get this peacock to display?
alternaut #26634 09/07/13 06:07 PM
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When I try your link, I get a PeacockMedia error page. If I truncate the URL to remove that part which follows the slash—%E2%80%8E—I get the PeacockMedia home page, with links to software as expected.



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Re: How to get this peacock to display?
dkmarsh #26635 09/07/13 06:37 PM
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It looks like we're on to something, although I'm not sure exactly what yet. I still cannot access PeacockMedia, Safari extensions disabled or not. I also noticed the string both Artie and you mention appended to PM's URL when hovering over the 2 links above. That string is not present in the (edit box of the) posts as I can see it (Dave could verify that), nor are there any spaces in the hyperlink code that might explain the appended Unicode string. Yet, it shows up in the URL when I click the link, as mentioned by both of you, but trimming it from the URL has no effect for me. Likewise, copying the (clean) URL or IP address into a browser's address box doesn't work either.

PS, FWIW, the problem doesn't seem to be a particular browser, Mac or OS X version (I tried several of each here at home), nor a (local) firewall/LittleSnitch or (external) DNS SNAFU.

Last edited by alternaut; 09/07/13 07:15 PM. Reason: added more test info

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Re: How to get this peacock to display?
alternaut #26636 09/07/13 07:17 PM
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I just got onto the peacock media site and downloaded Bin-It. There was one glitch on the home page but the links worked just fine.


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

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Re: How to get this peacock to display?
joemikeb #26637 09/07/13 07:39 PM
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Thanks for confirming previous results by Artie and Dave. It looks like I've got a local problem here at home, but after playing with a number of potentially suspect variables I still haven't a clue as to exactly what. The only things I haven't yet tinkered with are the router (Airport Extreme, 5th gen.) and the DSL modem, but I have a hard time figuring how they could be involved in something this specific.


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Re: How to get this peacock to display?
alternaut #26638 09/07/13 08:34 PM
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If I copy and paste the seemingly plain vanilla URL of your initial post—the one which displays %E2%80%8E following the slash when the link is hovered over—into an empty TextWrangler document, then go to TextWrangler's View menu -> Show Invisibles command, I see ¿ following the slash, which according to TextWrangler's manual means "other non-printing or special characters." (%E2%80%8E is URL encoding for â`Ž, FWIW).

Looks as if something in your setup is appending invisible characters to that particular URL; no doubt that added information muddies the waters even further! laugh



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Re: How to get this peacock to display?
dkmarsh #26639 09/07/13 09:32 PM
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Thanks for giving this another look, Dave. It sure is puzzling, and you also noticed that the 'white space' code is only appended to the two instances of peacockmedia links above, and nowhere else. This may be UBB-forum software related (nothing extraneous is present when I copy the text from my first post above from its edit box into TextWrangler), I don't yet know.
Likewise, nothing is appended (as tested with TextWrangler) when I paste the clean URL or IP address in Safari, Chrome or Firefox (where available) on a 21" iMac 2005 running Leopard, on an early 2008 MBP running Snowy, or on the latest top of the line 27"iMac running Mountain Lion, but regardless, the PeacockMedia site is not accessible on any of these Macs. As I said, I haven't yet cleared the remaining common elements (router, DSL modem, and my provider Earthlink), but I suspect I'm looking too far with those three.


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Re: How to get this peacock to display?
alternaut #26640 09/07/13 10:15 PM
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Quote:
This may be UBB-forum software related (nothing extraneous is present when I copy the text from my first post above from its edit box into TextWrangler)...

I can't copy text from your first post's edit box because I'm not a mod in this forum, but if I use the UBB "Quote" button, I can copy the text from the post-composing field in the resulting New Reply window, and it's that copied URL text which reveals the presence of unspecified additional characters when TextWrangler's View menu -> Show Invisibles command is invoked.

To me, this indicates that the extra characters were present in the URL text that you initially posted. They showed up in Ira's post simply because his reply was initiated using the Quote button referred to above; therefore, the unseen characters came along for the ride.

Sure has the sound of a DNS issue of some sort, to me.



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Re: How to get this peacock to display?
dkmarsh #26652 09/08/13 02:04 AM
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Originally Posted By: dkmarsh
[1] To me, this indicates that the extra characters were present in the URL text that you initially posted. They showed up in Ira's post simply because his reply was initiated using the Quote button referred to above; therefore, the unseen characters came along for the ride.

[2] Sure has the sound of a DNS issue of some sort, to me.

[1] Correct. A Sandbox test clearly shows that.

[2] The observation that my no-access problem also manifests when using the IP address instead of a regular URL argues against DNS involvement.


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Re: How to get this peacock to display?
Ira L #26687 09/10/13 05:29 PM
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Originally Posted By: Ira L
I Googled* the name and three or four of the first links listed just stalled.

Rereading the responses in this thread after the 'appended Unicode string' detour, I'd like to revisit that particular comment of yours. I realized belatedly that you may have experienced what I still do did: seeing a 'Server not responding' window or something like that when trying to access the peacockmedia.co.uk domain. Am I correct in this? If so, can you now access that domain, or is it still timing out?

*) UPDATE While Googling 'peacockmedia' to see exactly which—possibly balking—top few sites might have been returned, I clicked on #1 (the 'real McCoy') and lo & behold: I could access the site and download software. An earlier attempt today still failed. After weeks of daily failed attempts this issue seems put to rest for now. Still no clue what caused it, but I noticed the downloads to be rather slow (<10KB/sec), so I suspect the problem may have been server side all along.


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