When the Web doesn't work it may be for one of several reasons. If your browser produces an error message then it may help identify the cause.

Contents:

• Unable to locate host or host does not have DNS entry
• Server is too busy or not responding
• Page Appears Not to Exist
• You get a list of files rather than a normal page
• Browsing is not permitted in that directory
• Starts loading but doesn't progress

Unable to locate host or host does not have DNS entry

Things to do:

1. This error is like post being returned with 'no such address'. Try it again. Strangely enough this sometimes works!
2. Check your typing. Make sure there are no spaces or odd characters in the 'host' part of the URL (the bit immediately after the ://). Does it look sensible? Common errors include:
   Only having 2 w's instead of 3.
   Typos such as www.somewhere.ca.uk instead of www.somewhere.ac.uk.
   Missing out a dot, e.g. wwwlancs.ac.uk
   There are several possible causes of this error and all involve different computers or communication links failing somewhere along the line. It may be the web server has been renamed (though it is bad practice not to tell you this) or it may be down temporarily. As with with many web problems if all else fails - try it again the next day.

   If you are following someone else's link look carefully at the host that cannot be found - people make lots of errors writing web pages as well as directly typing URLs into their browser.

Server is too busy or not responding

Things to do:

1. Try it again.
2. Once more.
3. Ok. The Web is probably too busy at the moment. If the URL is outside the UK then think what timezone it is at your destination. For example, if the Web site is in North America then by the afternoon it gets very busy. Try it again in the morning while the Americans are asleep.

   URLs for sites in the USA tend to end in .edu, .org or .com. Canadian sites end in .ca.

4. There is one more thing you could try (if you are feeling adventurous): changing your browser to work with a proxy cache. This means that you ask your browser to look for pages in a local (hopefully quicker) store before going all the way to the remote site. The store contains the most frequently loaded pages of all people using the cache.

   There is a national cache at HENSA together with instructions for setting up your browser. Remember that the documents in the cache are several hours old so if you want right-up-to-date pages then you should read about overiding the cache.

Page Appears Not to Exist

Things to do:

1. If you typed the URL check it carefully, are there are spaces? If there is someone's name in the URL preceded by an odd symbol then try replacing it with a ~.
2. The page may have been moved or renamed. Edit the URL removing the last part. Try again. Repeat until you reach the server name. For example,

   Given a URL like http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/computing/users/dmn/stuff/file.html.

   First try http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/computing/users/dmn/stuff/
   Then try http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/computing/users/dmn/
   Then try http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/computing/users/
   Then try http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/computing/

   This works; now you have to use some guesswork to navigate back down to where the page is likely to be. In this case trying to find a list of members of the department would be a good start. Rather than looking down a page you could try using the Find command to search the text of a page.

3. If the information you are looking for is popular then there may be a mirror site - a Web site with a copy of the information. Try using a search engine.

You get a list of files rather than a normal page

Things to do:

1. This may be intentional - Web browsers allow you to look at directories of files as well as text and graphics.
2. Look for a file that ends in .html or .htm - especially one like home.htm, contents.html, index.html, default.htm etc. Select this and you should get back to the normal Web.
3. If there is an option called Parent Directory select that. This will take you back up the directory structure in the same way as step 2 of the Page Appears Not to Exist section.
4. The author of the pages may have set them up incorrectly.

Browsing is not permitted in that directory

Things to do:

1. Try adding some filenames like index.html, default.htm, contents.html etc.
2. Try moving up the directory structure as in step 2 of the Page Appears Not to Exist section.