TheRealTimeWeb.com: Is Paypal.com Having Some Serious Network Issues?

Is Paypal.com Having Some Serious Network Issues?

Posted by Stefan Richter in Off topic | 11 Comments

Off topic, but I need to raise a flag here. For days I've been having problems accessing Paypal.com via the Ebay checkout process (I buy *a lot* of stuff on Ebay). Connections continually time out while waiting for a response from Paypal.com. Googling the problem did not bring up any useful information which surprises me since I'm pretty sure that this issue is within Ebay's network and not a problem at my end. It has also been ongoing.

Check this visual traceroute for example which I ran via a server in the US, thereby eliminating my own internet connection as the source of the problem:

I've also run a traceroute paypal.com from my home machine with the same results: the last reachable hop is ge2-6-smf1-xr01.net.ebay.com (66.135.223.46), after that it goes dead. Needless to say is that the rest of the worldwide interweb seems fine for me.

What gets me is that this problem has been apparent for about a week or more. Did anyone else encounter this? They must have done.
What is Ebay up to - surely they must be aware of this? I've sent a message to Paypal and I'm in high anticipation now to receive a nice personalised automated robot reply, probably telling me to update my antivirus software or something else equally useless ('have you tried turning it off and back on again?')...
Google Checkout, where are you when I need you? Oh yes I remember, Ebay banned you, didn't they?

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Posted on July 17, 2008 at 11:53 AM. 4148 views. 11 comments. Print

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#1 by jensa on 7/17/08 - 11:30 PM

yeah. Aral's been having issues with it as well for the Singularity site.

J
#2 by Tommy on 7/18/08 - 5:01 AM

yeah im having problems with this as well, its very bad news for me since i have a business that runs using paypal a lot. i can randomly connect sometimes though - but then after about a minute - it quits working again - i dont know whats wrong ]=
#3 by Stefan Richter on 7/18/08 - 9:50 AM

Just had a response from Paypal. They apologised, then told me that it's likely due to a corrupt cookie, explaining how I can clear my cookies... then they walked me through the process of how to send payments directly through the Paypal website. Sometimes I wonder if they actually read the messages that are being sent to them... It's beyond obvious that this is not a cookie problem. I'm done for now, total waste of time.

Here's my original message to them:

Hi there,
I'd like to let you know that over the last week or so it has been
increasingly difficult to access the Paypal.com website via the ebay
checkout. The process hangs when waiting for Paypal.com. I've run a
traceroute and the problem is within your own network, the last reachable
hop is
ge#-#-smf#-xr##.net.ebay.com (##.###.###.##) 157.633 ms 157.968 ms
157.647 ms
It times out after that.

Try running a traceroute paypal.com and you will see. I could supply more information but since your contact form does not allow more characters I will have to leave it at that.

Please resolve this, you must undoubtedly be aware of this but obviously haven't fixed it in days.

Regards,

Stefan
#4 by jensa on 7/18/08 - 3:13 PM

Amusing. They have outsourced their support to robots? ;-)

J
#5 by lax-goalie on 7/18/08 - 5:27 PM

Looks like a routing problem, probably at Sprint. If you look at the last hop you can see, 10.6.1.186, you'll note that it's an IP address in the reserved Class-A private network range. (10.x.x.x) Unless there are static routes set up, packets to that address won't get routed.

In any case, even if the route is good, pings to 10.6.1.186 will fail, because all the other routers in front of it will see it as a packet to a private network and discard it.
#6 by Bina on 7/19/08 - 6:13 AM

I've also been having this problems on and off for the past month or so and I'm all the way in Malaysia.
#7 by iGx on 7/22/08 - 2:55 PM

Hi,

Try using http://www.hotspotshield.com VPN. I have found that sometimes a change in routing can bypass some blockages.

Cheers,

iGx
#8 by Fran on 7/23/08 - 2:44 PM

I'm having similar problems from Spain.
#9 by bernard carroll on 8/9/08 - 9:14 AM

I've been having trouble for weeks and find it very frustrating. Have been in contact with paypal and have been told to clear my temp folders because I am corrupted. Do this every day now and find it dosn't do the trick. Have spent $60 for an expert to look at my computer and the report is there is nothing wrong here. Get comtact now and then but only randomly. Find it very hard to conduct business. Have a problem also contacting ebay on contact us, when I do the web just freezes up. Have eased back on selling because the problem is interfering with my style.
#10 by Karen on 8/26/08 - 12:26 PM

Don't know a lot about computers but I too can't connect to paypal through any site not just ebay. I can't even connect to complain about it. I'm trying from Australia.
#11 by Stefan Richter on 8/26/08 - 12:49 PM

sounds like this problem is persisting. Paypal is not listening... I guess it's their loss.