Read this morning how the solar flares have disrupted the gps self guiding system on late model John Deeres.  Right in planting season too.  Problems reported in Mn, Ia, and Nebr.   150K in machinery sitting still due to nature causing a compuer glitch.  Any reports in other parts of the country?  Wonder if this disrupted self driving Teslas?

Nice work!

Sent from my twisted mind of the mudman

Thanks for your thoughtful explanation. I have a lot of talents; but limited knowledge of computers and the internet. I am lucky to find the way to turn one on.. On the other I highly doubt that Al Gore invented the Internet as he claimed...

I agree, sweet pups.

This is weird but I figured out what is happening. I will explain it the easiest way I can.

Think of the internet as being like a big phone system. Every computer on the internet has an IP address. IP addresses are unique identifiers, similar to phone numbers. Computers communicate with each other using those IP addresses.

When you want to go to machinistgazette.com you type in the address using the appropriate domain name and kabang, you end up at the correct site. Behind the scenes here is what happens:
1. We have talked in the past about registering a domain name. Registration links the domain name together with the IP address of the server that is hosting the website. This is done on what is called a DNS (Domain Name Service) server.
2. When you type in a web address, your ISP connects you with their DNS server and queries for the web address. The DNS server returns the IP address and communication takes place between your computer and the web server, even though it shows the domain name address in the address bar of your browser.
3. Some DNS servers on some ISPs will store a cached copy of the IP information for sites that some users call for frequently. Some computers are set to do that also. It is a simple check box in your browser settings where you can tell your computer to always load the newest version of a website. If it is not set that way, it may continue to use a cached copy of the IP address.
4. The fact that it is coming up with an IP address in your address bar tells me that your computer or your ISP is using a cached copy of the domain name, and it is being resolved to the server's IP address even though the DNS server no longer contains a valid registration for machinistgazette.com.

Now, when I type in machinistgazette.com, I get a completely different screen than you do because my computer is requesting the very latest version of the site. This triggers the request for the IP address, and it cannot be completed because it is no longer available on the DNS server.

So far, the files and folders for the MG site still exist on the server where they ran in the past, and that server has the IP address of 207.7.82.105.   If the hosting account where MG ran is still being paid for, the files will remain on the server and will continue to be there until the bill goes unpaid. Once that happens, the hosting company goes in and deletes the files whenever they get around to it. It might be within ten days, it might take six weeks, it might even take several months before it disappears, depending on how much demand the hosting company has for disk space.

I know for fact that the domain name registration is expired, and two things tell me that, based on the two screen shots attached here. One shows what gets returned when I try to go to machinistgazette.com.  The other shows the registration information for machinstgazette.com and it indicates that it expired on March 15th, 2025.

If you look at the MG webpage you will notice that the banner picture with the site's logo is missing. This is because in the server settings, it is directed to a specific folder on the server where that graphic file is stored. Because the server is unable to get the domain name resolved to an IP address, it cannot even find the graphic file stored on itself!!   Sounds strange, but that is how it works. 

Now, I know that the explanation is a little long, but that is the simplest way I could put it. The long story short is that the web forum files you are accessing WILL disappear at some point. Potential new members also cannot find it because there is no domain name associated with the IP address that you are accessing. 

That's all I've got on this one. I could go into greater detail, but it would be rather useless and would involve learning more than you want to know about IP addresses, subnet masks, DNS servers and other things that fail when the magic smoke leaks out. Thanks for bringing to my attention, though, it had me puzzled at first until I had the chance to think it through.