Internet Tips

You're clicking through Web pages nicely when you hit a brick wall--a page with big black letters that says 404 Not Found or some other curt message. What does that mean, and what should you do?

Here are the most common Web error messages, the problems they signal, and the most likely solutions.

"404 Not Found: The requested URL www.weebie.com/folkart/jim.html was not found on this server."

Problem: Your browser found the computer on which the Web site is or was hosted, but no such page was found. The site's owner may have removed the page, the page may be down temporarily for maintenance, or the site may no longer exist.

Solution: Work back through the URL as if it were a directory path. For example, first try shortening the URL to 'www. weebie.com/folkart,' then to 'www.weebie.com.' You may discover that the Web site itself has disappeared.

Also, try suffixing the page's address with .htm or .html instead of its current extension. For example, in place of jim.html, type jim.htm (.html denotes the same thing as .htm, but some Web page hosting services require that Web pages be named with one or the other).

"DNS Lookup Failure" or "Unable to locate the server. The server does not have a DNS entry."

Problem: DNS stands for domain name server. A domain name is the first part of a URL--for example, pcworld.com is the domain name in www.pcworld.com. Every Internet service provider (including AOL) has a database of such Web page host addresses. When you type a URL, the browser tells your ISP to look up the domain name in its database. If it's not there, your ISP's computer may poll other domain name directories around the Internet to find out where the domain name can be located. If none of the directories can help, you may get the error message "DNS Lookup Failure."

Why can't they find the domain name? Maybe it no longer exists. Or perhaps it's so new that the domain name databases your ISP uses can't find it yet. You can also get this error message whenever there is heavy traffic on the Internet and it's taking your ISP too long to look up the name.

Solution: Try typing the URL into your browser later in the day. If you still get the error message, wait a few days and try the URL again. If you continue to receive the same message, the domain name probably no longer exists.

"No Response from Server"

Problem: Your browser can't get a timely response from the Web site's host computer. Heavy traffic on the Internet is often the culprit. Either the computer that hosts the Web site is overloaded (everyone is tapping in); your ISP is overburdened; or your ISP's computers are experiencing slowdowns for technical reasons.

Solution: Try the URL again, either in a few minutes or later in the day.

"Received Network Error"

Problem: Your ISP probably hung up on you, although this error message also occurs when glitches somewhere on the Internet have botched your file download.

Solution: Call your ISP back or start the file download again.