Facebook, Yimg and google-analytics CDNs is freaking me out

Question

Hi, Its been a couple of weeks that some sites just keeps on hanging.

e.g.
Facebooks => static.ak.fbcdn.net
FLicker => l.yimg.com
GoogleAnalytics

I've googled and found many problems like this and some answers which are outdated or just doesn't solve the problem.
I did: Cookies clearing, ran cc cleaner and several other nifty methods. None solved my problem??

Only with facebook, if I enter https:// manually instead of http:// on every url on facebook, it works and when it does the redirection to http://, everytime I have to type 's' on the address bar to make it https://

It is driving me nuts coz I'm developing Facebook App and this problem in being pain in my ass.

What might be the reason for these CDNs hanging behaviour??

Update: Mon Feb 8, 2010
Well when I viewed the source with firefox, this is the header part:

<link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="http://b.static.ak.fbcdn.net/rsrc.php/zDO0B/hash/8jpbog60.css" />
<link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="http://static.ak.fbcdn.net/rsrc.php/zA96O/hash/8jqnsh63.css" />

<link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="http://b.static.ak.fbcdn.net/rsrc.php/z9X8U/hash/5zy5e7ns.css" />
<link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="http://b.static.ak.fbcdn.net/rsrc.php/z7XWB/hash/b881ctjq.css" />
<link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="http://static.ak.fbcdn.net/rsrc.php/zEMLE/hash/6n3druoq.css" />
<link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="http://b.static.ak.fbcdn.net/rsrc.php/zEEQQ/hash/3et16vbl.css" />
<link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="http://b.static.ak.fbcdn.net/rsrc.php/zF0BN/hash/4ey03a8b.css" />
#<link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="http://b.static.ak.fbcdn.net/rsrc.php/zD46U/hash/4ctxkmr7.css" />

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://b.static.ak.fbcdn.net/rsrc.php/z5KPU/hash/f92tjc5l.js"&gt;&lt;/script&gt;

When I clicked the each link, all links open with its contents except the last link with -# sign prefixed.
So the url -#http://b.static.ak.fbcdn.net/rsrc.php/zD46U/hash/4ctxkmr7.css is not opening and this css file is not downloaded and the facebook page looks horrible and all left aligned??

Update: Tue Feb 9, 2010
Today the link with the -# sign is just keeps hanging and looping:

<link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="http://static.ak.fbcdn.net/rsrc.php/zEMLE/hash/6n3druoq.css" />
<link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="http://b.static.ak.fbcdn.net/rsrc.php/z9X8U/hash/5zy5e7ns.css" />
<link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="http://b.static.ak.fbcdn.net/rsrc.php/zF0BN/hash/4ey03a8b.css" />
<link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="http://static.ak.fbcdn.net/rsrc.php/z1580/hash/4l5utauj.css" />

#<link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="http://b.static.ak.fbcdn.net/rsrc.php/z4851/hash/532htj7z.css" />

<link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="http://static.ak.fbcdn.net/rsrc.php/z1GEW/hash/dh01t0zv.css" />
<link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="http://static.ak.fbcdn.net/rsrc.php/z80UK/hash/3a6o59ih.css" />
<link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="http://b.static.ak.fbcdn.net/rsrc.php/zD46U/hash/4ctxkmr7.css" />

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://b.static.ak.fbcdn.net/rsrc.php/z5KPU/hash/f92tjc5l.js"&gt;&lt;/script&gt;

Why that url http://b.static.ak.fbcdn.net acting weird? Has something Akamai got to do with this?

Answer 1

It could be some kind of connectivity issue between you and the CDNs. Blocking them with adblock (or the hosts file) is an effective way forward, or there's a Firefox extension for it - Ghostery.

Answer 2

This could also be an issue with your ISP. I have seen cases in which certain domains take arduous amounts of time to access or, in some cases, cannot be accessed at all during peak hours. It could be possible that the domains you're having issues with are ones that your ISP is having problems with. In the past I've experienced outages of Google as well as one or tow subdomains.

Do you have the same problem from different computers on the same network?

Answer 3

I also have the same problem. I've not resolved the issue completely but I found a hack fix: Set the CDN domains to fixed IP numbers in your local computer's hosts file.

I added these lines to my WinXP c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts Other OS's have a similar file(Linux: /etc/hosts)

# CDN networks broken for Yahoo, Google and Facebook
217.212.252.78 static.ak.fbcdn.net
217.212.252.78 profile.ak.fbcdn.net
217.212.252.78 external.ak.fbcdn.net
217.212.252.78 creative.ak.fbcdn.net
217.212.252.78 platform.ak.fbcdn.net
217.212.252.78 l.yimg.com


To choose the fastest IPs for your location visit just-ping.com .

I've not tried it but this trick might also work for Windows users:
http://www.updatexp.com/dns-windows-xp.html