Ask HN: Anyone else having trouble access this site? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Anyone else having trouble access this site?

1 pointkrstck5 comments

I checked the usual sources and was surprised to find that no one was talking about having any trouble getting onto HN. Then I noticed something strange: this problem only occurs from my work IP. Great, I somehow got my IP banned. I followed the instructions to unban, and then I can load maybe one page before it stops working again. It's highly unlikely anyone else is accessing HN besides me from this IP address, so I'm not sure why it's behaving this way.

The error is "Web server is returning an unknown error". Is this happening to anyone else? Any suggestions?

View on HN

> Any suggestions?

Just one:

$ wget https://news.ycombinator.com

Examine the result in a text editor, and pay attention to any errors that wget might print.

And just tried it again, and now I get 520 origin error.

Unfortunately, a 520 isn't a official HTTP error:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HTTP_status_codes

Quote: "520 Origin Error (Cloudflare) ... This status code is not specified in any RFCs, but is used by Cloudflare's reverse proxies to signal an "unknown connection issue between CloudFlare and the origin web server" to a client in front of the proxy."

Basically, the error (if it's a real error indication and not bogus) suggests an inability by the server to establish a connection with your system. Remember that HTTPS (HN's operating mode) signifies extra requirements for a legitimate connection (and a different port: 443 instead of 80), so there might be firewall issues at your workplace that aren't an issue at home.

Interesting, thanks for the info. It seems to let me in for a little while then suddenly stop working, and it definitely doesn't let me log in. I would be totally unsurprised if it was a firewall issue here. Well, that's better news than HN intentionally kicking me out!

It prints no errors.

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