"Server not Found" error

Discontinued Software Weather Watcher - Support
1

Hello all,

I am a new member here (my first post[:D]) and had a “Server not Found” error when trying to retreive the weather. I submitted a bug report to Mike and he was very fast to reply [8D]. After I done some “digging” on my end, I found the problem.

On my system, I use the Hosts file http://www.accs-net.com/hosts/what_is_hosts.html to block ads and bad web sites. I use two programs to maintain my Hosts file: 1) FastNet99 http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Stadium/1851/ and 2) Hostess http://accs-net.com/hostess/.

I also import two Hosts files from the web to use in my Hosts file (http://www.smartin-designs.com/ and http://asp.flaaten.dk/proxo/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=307.

After the “digging”, I found that www.weather.com and weather.com were both in my Hosts file and thus being blocked. Once I deleted them from the Hosts file, Weather Watcher was able to connect and retreive the weather updates.

I am posting this for two reasons: 1) If you are having the “server not found” error and use a Hosts file, that you will now be able to get Weather Watcher to work, and 2) Mike asked me to post this as he thought I would better be able to explain it [:)].

If anyone has any questions about this post, please feel free to ask them here and I will try to help.

Regards,
Kent

Dell 8200P4@2GH, 400 MFSB, 512M PC800, 100G 7200 NTFS Ultra ATA HD, CDRW, DVD, Zip250, WinXP Home SP1, The Bat!, MailWasher, pgp658ckt09b3, Opera 7.02b2668, ScriptSentry, NOD32, TDS, WormGuard, Look’n’Stop, AdAware+, SpyBot S & D, TrojanHunter, TracksEraserPro, RegRunGold, DriveImage, jv16PT

2

Hello all,

Just another quick note…

Some proxies like Proxomitron http://www.proxomitron.org/ use block lists and/or may change/alter your Hosts file. If your proxy uses either of these, be sure www.weather.com and weather.com are not blocked.

Regards,
Kent

Dell 8200P4@2GH, 400 MFSB, 512M PC800, 100G 7200 NTFS Ultra ATA HD, CDRW, DVD, Zip250, WinXP Home SP1, The Bat!, MailWasher, pgp658ckt09b3, Opera 7.02b2668, ScriptSentry, NOD32, TDS, WormGuard, Look’n’Stop, AdAware+, SpyBot S & D, TrojanHunter, TracksEraserPro, RegRunGold, DriveImage, jv16PT

3

Hi, thanks for the suggestions, but I still get “Error: Server not found!” when I try and retrieve the weather. I can view the maps without any trouble. Note, I can not get the program to look up my city. After entereing a city to look up the program shows “searching” for asecond or two and then “Processing” and hangs there. The only think I get to work is the weather maps

Note: View the weather details button seems to give me a 404 error. This could be due to the fact I can not enter a city to begin with.

Any suggestions

I use windows XP, Stateful packet inspection as my firewall

Terry

quote:
[i]Originally posted by puff-m-d[/i]
Hello all,

Just another quick note…

Some proxies like Proxomitron http://www.proxomitron.org/ use block lists and/or may change/alter your Hosts file. If your proxy uses either of these, be sure www.weather.com and weather.com are not blocked.

Regards,
Kent

Dell 8200P4@2GH, 400 MFSB, 512M PC800, 100G 7200 NTFS Ultra ATA HD, CDRW, DVD, Zip250, WinXP Home SP1, The Bat!, MailWasher, pgp658ckt09b3, Opera 7.02b2668, ScriptSentry, NOD32, TDS, WormGuard, Look’n’Stop, AdAware+, SpyBot S & D, TrojanHunter, TracksEraserPro, RegRunGold, DriveImage, jv16PT

4

Make sure you allow firewall access to the “WW.EXE” and “DL.EXE” files in the Weather Watcher program folder.

5

As indicated in a different post, I am getting the server not found error. I am using a hosts file, which is GREAT for easy blocking of ads, see post above. But I do not have weather.com blocked (not listed in my hosts file), so it must be something else.

6

Weather Watcher will not work if you are using proxy authentication. Do you use a firewall (see the post above)?

7

Only the one built into my router, and that was not causing any problems a few days ago [:p] - I assume you’re asking me that is.

quote:
[i]Originally posted by Mike Singer[/i]
Weather Watcher will not work if you are using proxy authentication. Do you use a firewall (see the post above)?
8

Hugh – Yes, I was. I think we’ve already narrowed this problem down to something that was installed on one of those Windows updates. I’ll e-mail you later tonight.

9

This is very strange. I went to windows update and it does not list the huge download I did around the 17th, unless I’m getting my dates screwed up. Here is what it lists…

Successful Wednesday, March 19, 2003 814078: Security Update (Microsoft Jscript version 5.6, Windows 2000, Windows XP) Automatic update
Successful Wednesday, March 19, 2003 814033: Critical Update Automatic update
Successful Thursday, February 27, 2003 Q329441: Critical Update Automatic update
Successful Friday, February 21, 2003 813951: Update for Internet Explorer 6 SP1 Automatic update
Successful Wednesday, February 05, 2003 811630: Critical Update (Windows XP) Automatic update
Successful Wednesday, February 05, 2003 810577: Security Update Automatic update
Successful Wednesday, February 05, 2003 810847: February 2003, Cumulative Patch for Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1 Automatic update
Successful Thursday, January 23, 2003 329170: Security Update (Windows XP) Automatic update
Successful Thursday, January 23, 2003 810833: Security Update (Windows XP) Automatic update
Successful Thursday, December 19, 2002 Q329390: Security Update Automatic update
Successful Thursday, December 19, 2002 810565: Critical Update Automatic update
Successful Saturday, December 14, 2002 Q328310: Security Update (Windows XP) Automatic update
Successful Saturday, December 14, 2002 810030: Microsoft VM Security Update Automatic update
Successful Thursday, December 05, 2002 Q324929: December 2002, Cumulative Patch for Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1 Automatic update
Successful Thursday, November 21, 2002 Q329115: Security Update (Windows XP) Automatic update
Successful Thursday, November 21, 2002 Q328970: November, 2002 Cumulative Patch for Internet Explorer 6 SP 1 Automatic update
Successful Thursday, October 31, 2002 Q329834: Security Update (Windows XP) Automatic update
Successful Monday, October 28, 2002 Q329048: Security Update
Read more… Web site
Successful Monday, October 28, 2002 Q323255: Security Update (Windows XP)
Read more… Web site
Successful Monday, October 28, 2002 Q329077: Security Update
Read more… Web site
Successful Monday, October 28, 2002 Windows XP Service Pack 1 (Express)</font id=“Courier New”>
I got that list using the following procedure:

quote:
Go to Windows Update; select “Personalize” from “Other Options” in the left menu, and activate the “Display the link to the Windows Catalog” option, if you have not already done so. The Catalog will appear in the “See Also” menu on the left. You can then use the Catalog to pull down whatever Updates and Drivers you want. (It also gives you an easy way to see what you’ve already downloaded.)
</blockquote id=“quote”></font id=“quote”>
Thanks!

10

Just a note that all my problems have been resolved by installing WW v5.0.22e!!! [^]