So I’m hoping there’s an IT/network expert here who can suggest a solution as BT seem completely stumped! Sorry for long post but I think people may assume it’s something simple which we haven’t tried.
My elderly parents have been having issues for about six weeks now with seemingly random websites not loading on both their Windows 11 PCs saying "This site can't be reached".
Sounds not too serious but my mum is 88 & does all their shopping for food etc online. Some examples are Amazon works, eBay doesn’t. Tesco & Sainsbury’s don’t work, Waitrose does. They can’t access their bank accounts but email works perfectly. I was there last week & googling BT shows results but the main BT website won’t load!
They’ve had three engineers out to them & I've spoken to BT Guides at least half a dozen times but nobody can suggest a solution.
I've tried everything I can think of:
- tried multiple browsers - cleared browser caches - changed to google DNS - disabled firewall & anti virus - disabled Ethernet & connected by WiFi - restarted router - factory reset router - even bought a new PC for my mum which worked perfectly at my house but not at hers!
Where it gets weird is some days everything’s fine, then suddenly lots of websites are unreachable. Even weirder I’ve been there using my iPad on their WiFi & all sites are accessible even when they’re not on either of their PCs!
Something appears to be making some websites so slow to load they display "This site can't be reached”. I think it must be something at the upstream network but nobody has any idea what’s causing it or how to solve it 😞
Any new ideas welcome as BT appear to be at a loss.
Might be worth checking for malware given that the iPad works OK, as did the new PC. Do they have Norton running on their PCs? If not then see if you can install that through BT.
As a backup, download Malwarebytes to a USB stick to take with you, in case you can't get Norton to install.
Thanks but I don't think that's the issue.
To clarify I installed Windows 11 from scratch on the new PC. Working perfectly at home, took it to my parents house & immediately had issues accessing websites.
The iPad thing is very odd as no issues on that while PC didn't work on ethernet or wifi. The iPad doesn't have a Sim card so same wifi.
It's been fine for last six days so I assumed BT had done something but yesterday suddenly couldn't access many websites again 😡