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Google does not work, like just Google. This is the weirdest error I have ever seen.

Every 20-30 minutes Google stops working in my browser, any other page works. Then in 5-10 minutes, it just comes back.

Naturally the first thing I do is pull up the terminal and try to ping google.com. It works fine. Next, I try a different browser, still nothing. Next I try another computer on the same network, it loads Google no problem.

I tried both wired and wifi, I tried static ip and dynamic ip, nothing works. It seems to have a mind of its own. This is so hard to diagnose because of its intermittent nature.

Does anyone have any ideas?

giodamelio
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  • What do you mean by "Google stops working in my browser"? Is this a specific Google url or all Google urls? –  Mar 20 '13 at 12:37
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    Anything on the google.com domain. – giodamelio Mar 21 '13 at 00:52
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    See if this helps: Problem resolving many of the Web Pages. I have a PPPoE connection and faced a somewhat similar problem considering only some of the websites didn't work at my end. – Aditya Mar 24 '13 at 17:56
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    what about localized domains such as google.fr or google.de? – jasmines Mar 24 '13 at 20:24
  • Have you tried to reboot the computer (thinking of cache issue)? Do you have the latest updates of your Ubuntu distro? What version of Ubuntu do you have (could be a bug in the networking software)? What network card do you have? – Alvar Mar 26 '13 at 16:07
  • I second Aditya's link recommendation. Further, are you using some special DNS service? Are you browsing behind some national Chinese (?) firewall-filter (just checkin'..) ? Did the problem start suddenly? Any ideas as to potential triggers, such as an update or visiting a certain/new website? – nutty about natty Mar 26 '13 at 17:50

3 Answers3

5

After trying a ton of things, I got frustrated and just reinstalled Ubuntu. Since then, the problem seems to have gone away.

giodamelio
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  • I always have a usb with install on and a hard drive for making backups for just these sorts of occasions. Glad it's fixed for you now anyway. – Magpie Mar 30 '13 at 17:20
  • I tried reinstalling too. However same problem came back some time later :S This is my question: http://askubuntu.com/questions/315955/why-i-cant-access-google-products-like-google-com-and-youtube-com – Can Jul 03 '13 at 20:10
4

Some (trivial, basic) ideas

  • reset your router (or at least inspect its settings)
  • clear browsers' cookies & cache
  • reboot (inter alia this will clear tmp, can't harm)
  • try in different browsers
  • try with a proxy (should almost definitely work)
nutty about natty
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2

Probably a failed but cached DNS query. 

$ sudo /etc/init.d/dnsmasq restart

or 

# service dnsmasq restart

Then restart whatever browser you are using to wipe it's cache.

Maybe some app or plug-in you had, but forgot about, was wiped out on the re-install.

RobotHumans
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