On 12 Apr 2002, at 13:37, Kent N. Jacobson wrote:

> Suspected problem, something I recall about 98 SE being able to
> save and recall URLs as the DNS numeric value to save time in
> loading.
>
> Why is this a problem?  Getting 2 different sites when using the
> same URL on 2 different computers.
>
> Verisign has been incorrectly pointing several domains and trying
> to fix, so there is a real reason why there may be a difference.
> An incorrect DNS number on the faulty computer could be incorrectly
> aimed to a previous server containing undeleted pages from the
> former site.
>
> One computer is showing a site version that no longer exists,
> whereas the other shows the new site correctly.  The old graphics
> or pages no longer exist on the current server..
>
> The cache has been flushed...several times.  The "Spider" utility
> to delete all saved URL's from the Windows index.dat file has been
> run, successfully.  The files or graphics do not exist anywhere on
> the computer.  Confirmed in the browser that the domain is being
> called, not a local file path.
>
> Does anyone know if there is such a thing as a computer saving
> URLs as a DNS numeric value, and is there any way to force it to
> access by name?
>
> Regards, Kent Jacobson

  There are several levels at which various parts of the data might
be cached that could have an effect such as you describe.

  HTTP 1.1 allows a single server to host multiple web sites.  A
browser that just stored the IP address and not the host domain name
would have no way to distinguish amongst sites that happened to be on
the same server.  So I would be surprised if your theory about how
URLs are stored could be correct.

  A client computer should cache the IP address that DNS returns for
a given site name, but not usually for very long.  DNS servers,
however, might keep that information for a while longer -- perhaps as
much as three days.

  It's also possible that the incorrect data has been cached, not on
the client but on some proxy or out-of-date content server.

  This is one of those cases where the best way to see exactly what's
going on is to use a network diagnostic "sniffer" on the line, and
see exactly where the displayed content is being retrieved from.

David Gillett

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