You see an error message and now you're stuck. Luckily, it doesn't often mean your Ting Fiber Internet service is down. When you can still access other websites except for the one giving you an error, your Ting Fiber Internet is working, and there may be an issue outside your service.
Most common internet error messages and solutions
Usually, this is when your web browser incorrectly accessed the page you were trying to reach. Or the request was corrupt in some way. The most common cause is simply entering the wrong URL into the address bar.
What can I do?
- Check for errors in the URL. Double-check the address is typed correctly, including capital letters, punctuation symbols, underscores, dashes, slashes, etc.
- Clear your browser’s cookies. Sites can sometimes report a 400 error if the cookie it’s reading is corrupt.
- Clear your browser’s cache. If you're in the habit of saving passwords in your browser, you'll want to exclude deleting these or back them up somewhere else before you clear the cache.
- Clear your system DNS cache.
The remote web server can’t find the web page. The page may no longer exist, you may not be authorized to access it or you may have mistyped the address.
What can I do?
- Double-check the address is typed correctly, including capital letters, punctuation symbols, underscores, dashes, slashes, etc.
- Try going to the website’s home page and search for the page you’re looking for using the site’s search tool if it has one.
You’re trying to access a protected page that limits access to authorized people. Not a common error message, it means “access denied.” Or, for a predetermined reason, a website’s content is blocked. More often than not, the error is caused by something on the content owner or server side.
The usual reason for a 403 error message is that the content is private, geographically restricted (you see this with streaming services like Netflix or Disney+), the content is user restricted, the IP address is blocked or there have been too many login attempts.
What can I do?
- Double-check the web address (URL) you're trying to reach. It's easy to mistype a URL, so simply retyping may eliminate the error.
- Clear your browser cache and cookies.
- Give it some time. This can help when the reason for the error is too many login attempts, and there’s a limit on how often you can attempt to log in during a specific amount of time. Sometimes, a 403 error is nothing more than letting you know there are in-progress website updates--the middle of the night when website traffic is lowest is when updates often run. Giving it some time until those updates are complete may be all you need to do.
- Contact the company, service or organization directly. It could be an ongoing issue affecting multiple people and no one's reported it, especially if you don't see anything mentioned on their status page. You might want to reach out and let someone know there’s an issue.
- Contact Ting Fiber. If you only see this error when you try to reach some but not all websites, it’s rare, but your IP address may be blocked on those websites. If you've ruled out everything else, let us know you're getting this error message and what you already confirmed. We'll dig in and check a few things, including your IP address.
The remote web server is experiencing technical problems.
What can I do?
- Double-check the address is typed correctly, including capital letters, punctuation symbols, underscores, dashes, slashes, etc.
- Try again another time
Usually short-lived, this means a server is temporarily unable to handle the request you made.
What can I do?
- Give it some time. This error usually resolves itself quickly, so try again in a couple of minutes.
The reason is in the name. On the server side, where machines speak with each other to get you what you requested, the connection between them timed out before getting a response. This can happen when there are DNS issues, another machine could be busy and can't process the request, or even a network device might be down. This isn't an issue with your internet service or your computer.
What can I do?
- Like other 500 series errors indicating what's happening on the server side, giving it a few minutes and then trying again may allow you to get where you need to go (the website or file you were trying to reach).
How internet response codes work
When you access anything on the internet, you actually make a request for that resource stored somewhere else. Your browser receives a response to that request in the form of an HTTP response status code. Knowing which type or class these three-digit numbers belong to helps you understand what's going on to know what approach to take.
Internet response codes are grouped by type or "class"
- 100 series - Informational responses
- 200 series - Successful responses
- 300 series - Redirection messages
- 400 series - Client error responses
- 500 series - Server error responses
A 200 series code is the most common and represents a successful response--we rarely take notice of these. We see error messages from the 400 and 500 series. Each circumstance has its own error response and can indicate what's inside or outside your control, something transitory or when there may be a larger problem.
More internet error messages and solutions
You'll see these less often, but they can still bring your web surfing to a screeching halt.
You’re trying to access a protected page that limits access to authorized people.
What can I do?
- If you don’t think you should be receiving this message, double-check the address is typed correctly, including capital letters, punctuation symbols, underscores, dashes, slashes, etc.
- If you were given a password, retype it carefully. Ensure the caps lock isn’t on.
- Contact the administrator who gave you access--it might be they missed something and need to adjust your profile or account settings so you can access that restricted site.
The server didn't receive a complete request from the client within the server’s allotted timeout period and wants to close that idle connection. Similar to a gateway timeout, this error isn't from a gateway or proxy server but a direct message from the active server you've made a request to.
What can I do?
- Double-check the address is typed correctly, including capital letters, punctuation symbols, underscores, dashes, slashes, etc. It may be the URL you entered is slightly incorrect making you accidentally request an unintended resource like something that requires authenticated users.
It’s not you, it’s them. There’s something wrong with the HTML coding on the web page. You might see this while trying to submit a form.
What can I do?
- Contact the site’s webmaster, customer service or technical support staff to report the problem. While they work on a fix, ask if you can submit the information another way.
Your browser can’t figure out the web address (URL) you typed.
What can I do?
- Double-check the address is typed correctly, including capital letters, punctuation symbols, underscores, dashes, slashes, etc.
- Add HTTP:// or HTTPS:// before the web address in the browser address bar if you didn’t the first time. Most websites are coded to know this is implied and add it in for you, but some don’t, so worth a shot.
Your browser can’t find the web address (URL) you typed. The site may no longer exist, it may be receiving excessive traffic, you may have mistyped the address, or there may be network problems.
What can I do?
- Double-check the address is typed correctly, including capital letters, punctuation symbols, underscores, dashes, slashes, etc.
- Try refreshing or reloading the page.
- Try visiting other sites. If you can reach other websites, then the problem is with that one site. If you can’t reach other sites, then the problem may be with your internet connection or your computer. Try restarting your computer and then connect to the internet. If you still can’t reach any websites, try turning your modem off (or unplugging it), waiting 30 seconds and then turning it back on.
- If nothing else solved the problem, confirm your modem is connected to the internet. If your modem is connected correctly, but you still can’t visit any websites, briefly disable any firewall software you use to test if it’s blocking your connection. If this solves the problem, this is a good indication you may need to reconfigure your firewall software. Turn your firewall back on and go through the settings to ensure your modem or router has permission to make connections.
Something went wrong while connecting to a DNS server (the server holding the contents of the website you were trying to visit). It could be the web address (URL) you typed is incorrect, the server can’t be located (could be offline), the remote server is receiving excessive traffic, or it's temporarily down for something like maintenance.
What can I do?
- Double-check the address is typed correctly, including capital letters, punctuation symbols, underscores, dashes, slashes, etc.
- Try refreshing or reloading the browser page.
- Confirm you haven't lost connection--ensure your Ethernet cable isn't loose or that your Wi-Fi connection hasn't dropped.
- Reboot your router. Wait a minute before turning it back on, and wait until all the indicator lights stop blinking before you try to connect again.
- Run a virus and malware scan. It could be a virus is blocking your internet connection. If that's the case, you may have bigger issues to worry about than connecting to a website, so first things first. Before anything else, run a virus and malware scan and rule those out.
Sounds a bit fancy, but all this means is you're trying to access a file that requires a helper application (like a plug-in) to open it, and your browser can’t find it or you don’t have it installed.
What can I do?
- Take note of the file type that needs a helper in the error message.
- Search your browser’s help for helper applications (also known as plug-ins) and follow the instructions to define or install the one for the file type.
- Installing or defining a plug-in is like adding a translation program--it allows your browser to understand and interact with the specific type of file you attempted to access.
- The next time you access the file you had difficulty with, the plug-in will open it for you.
This one could mean a few things: You've mistyped the website address (URL), the remote web server is down, or you've lost your Internet connection.
What can I do?
- Refresh or reload the page.
- Confirm you haven't lost connection--ensure your Ethernet cable isn't loose or that your Wi-Fi connection hasn't dropped.
- Double-check the address is typed correctly, including capital letters, punctuation symbols, underscores, dashes, slashes, etc.
- Try using a search engine to find the site.
The remote web server has reached the maximum number of users allowed to access the site at one time.
What can I do?
- Give it a couple of minutes, and then try refreshing or reloading the page.
- If you continue to see the error message, it's an indication the website is receiving a lot of traffic, so you may wish to try again later.
Either the remote server has reached the maximum number of users it can allow, or your cache (temporary files stored in your browser) has a problem.
What can I do?
- Refresh or reload the page.
- You may want to wait a bit and try to reach the website in a little while after the number of users decreases.
- Clear your browser's cache.